The best VST Oscilloscope?

[mrj1nx]

I recently did an evaluation of a few oscillioscopes, in the end it came down to s(M)exoscope being great for looking at waveforms and have them sync up and not jitter around on screen. I managed to install signalizer but found it to be hard to adjust to my liking.

This one is also really handy for basic use:
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/oscill ... y-socalabs

I've been giving the blue cat one lots of tries (the demo version) but I find the UI to be hard to understand, everytime I open it up, I have to re-learn what every button does, and none of them does very useful things (for me at least). What I personally look for is a good sync option that "just works", an easily adjustable amp/time knob (for looking at waveforms while tweaking synths). The ones in blue cat are way to small (top left corner) and overly sensitive, meaning its really annoying to dial it in. I really want to like the blue cat one since I do like them in general so I'll keep trialing it and hope that I get used to it eventually.

All in all s(M)exoscope and this one: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/oscill ... y-socalabs is my faves so far for ease of use and quick setup.

[Tappistry]

I recently did an evaluation of a few oscillioscopes, in the end it came down to s(M)exoscope being great for looking at waveforms and have them sync up and not jitter around on screen. I managed to install signalizer but found it to be hard to adjust to my liking.

This one is also really handy for basic use:
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/oscill ... y-socalabs

I've been giving the blue cat one lots of tries (the demo version) but I find the UI to be hard to understand, everytime I open it up, I have to re-learn what every button does, and none of them does very useful things (for me at least). What I personally look for is a good sync option that "just works", an easily adjustable amp/time knob (for looking at waveforms while tweaking synths). The ones in blue cat are way to small (top left corner) and overly sensitive, meaning its really annoying to dial it in. I really want to like the blue cat one since I do like them in general so I'll keep trialing it and hope that I get used to it eventually.

All in all s(M)exoscope and this one: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/oscill ... y-socalabs is my faves so far for ease of use and quick setup.

You can adjust the GUI zoom on the latest version of BC Oscilliscope Multi.

[SimonORorke]

I've just concluded my evaluation of oscilloscope VST plugins. My main use for an oscilloscope is for visualising synthesizer sounds. With that in mind, I was particularly looking for the following features:

Ability to merge left and right channels into a single wave form.
Ease of zooming in to view a detailed wave shape.
Ease of adjusting the refresh rate to obtaining a steady wave shape image, i.e. minimal jitter.
Resizable.
Ability to show an FFT spectrum analyser as well as an oscilloscope.

I evaluated ten oscilloscopes. Here's how they matched up to my criteria. I've listed them in my approximate order of preference. If I've got anything factually wrong, please correct me.

Oscarizor by Sugar Audio
Can merge left and right: Yes.
Zoom: Fairly easy with the Horizontal and Vertical Zoom sliders. You can also zoom the graphic display with the mouse but I've not yet worked out how to do that properly.
Refresh rate: Fairly easy and very versatile to adjust with the Osc Size knob.
Resizable: Yes.
Includes spectrum analyser: Yes. You can choose between them or, in the Pro version only, view them both at once.

s(M)exosope by Smartelectronix
Can merge left and right: You can show left or right but not both.
Zoom: Very easy with the Time knob.
Refresh rate: Nice and slow. I don't know how to speed it up and would not want to.
Resizable: No.
Includes spectrum analyser: No.

MOscilloscope by MeldaProduction
Can merge left and right: Yes. There is no alternative. [Correction. Yes there is. See Distorted Horizon's post below.]
Zoom: There's no way to adjust this [wrong, see my correction post below and the one by Distorted Horizon after that] and I would have liked to zoom in both horizontally and vertically, though the image is usually detailed enough.
Refresh rate: It's a good speed for me. There's no way to adjust it.
Resizable: Yes.
Includes spectrum analyser: No.

Oscilloscope by Socalabs
Can merge left and right: No.
Zoom: Easy with the Samp/px and Zoom knobs.
Refresh rate: It's too fast for me. There's no way to adjust it.
Resizable: Yes.
Includes spectrum analyser: No.

TrackMeter by DMG Audio
Can merge left and right: No.
Zoom: There's no way to adjust this, though it is often a reasonably size for me, both horizontally and vertically.
Refresh rate: It's a little fast for me. There's no way to adjust it.
Resizable: Yes.
Includes spectrum analyser: Yes, and many other types of visualisation! You can only view them one at a time.

Oscilloscope Multi by Blue Cat
Can merge left and right: Yes.
Zoom: Very clumsy with the tiny scroll bars, as mrjlnx has noted. Zooming with the mouse (is this what Tappistry is referring to?) is better but still clumsy. As it is usually only horizontal zoom that is at issue, I have to select a tall and extremely narrow slice and often find I did not make it narrow enough.
Refresh rate: Too fast for me, giving a jittery effect. I could not find a way to slow it down.
Resizable: Not continuously variable, but you can choose between three discrete sizes.
Includes spectrum analyser: No.

Oszillos Mega Scope by Schulz Audio
Can merge left and right: Yes.
Zoom: Even at 1/32 note at the fastest BPM my DAW allows, this is not detailed enough for me. (Why does the fastest BPM zoom in the furthest?) I could not see any way of zooming in graphically, which I really wanted to do vertically.
Refresh rate: Too fast for me, giving a jittery effect. I could not find a way to slow it down.
Resizable: Yes but the minimum width is far too big.
Includes spectrum analyser: No.

J-Scope by Jagged Planet
It's buggy, so I'm not going to bother going into any details.

Signalizer by Janus Thorborg
I could not get this to work. My guess is that I need to install OpenGL separately. But I've now lost interest!

Conclusion

s(M)exosope is clear to look at and very easy to operate. It really is a classic. As it is free, I shall hang on to it and I expect I shall use it from time to time.

But I was looking for something more versatile and Oscarizor is the best match for my requirements. The free version is excellent and does NOT pester the user to upgrade to the Pro version. However, having completed my evaluation, I have bought the Pro version for some of its additional features.

Honourable mentions go to MOscilloscope for combining simplicity with clarity, and to the originally named Oscilloscope by Socalabs for its zoom controls.

[SimonORorke]

I need to correct something I wrote in my previous post:

MOscilloscope by MeldaProduction
Zoom: There's no way to adjust this and I would have liked to zoom in both horizontally and vertically, though the image is usually detailed enough.

Vertical zoom in MOscilloscope is effectively achieved by clicking the Normalise button. To quote the documentation:

Normalize activates level normalization, which ensures the graph will always fill the whole area vertically. This can be handy if you don't care about level and just want to see the wave shape.

That makes all the difference. As of now, MOscilloscope is my favourite oscilloscope plugin.

[drdriller]

i like Oszillos mega scope, specially for the quantized horizontal zoom and the multi tracks vizualisation (each track monitored can be seen on the same view, like MMultiAnalyzer)

https://schulz.audio/products/oszillos-mega-scope/

[Distorted Horizon]

MOscilloscope by MeldaProduction
Can merge left and right: Yes. There is no alternative.
Zoom: There's no way to adjust this [wrong, see my correction post below] and I would have liked to zoom in both horizontally and vertically, though the image is usually detailed enough.

Can merge yes, at the top of the screen there's twelve options how you want to view the wave.

There's zoom controls (both horizontal and vertical) at the bottom right of the scope panel.

[SimonORorke]

Distorted Horizon, thanks for the further corrections to my comments on MOscilloscope above, where I've now added references to your post.
Simon

[RPH]

http://www.rs-met.com/freebies.html

An Oscilloscope (and spectrum analyzer) inside toolchain.

[The Noodlist]

http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?pl ... pe&id=2867

[biscuitdough]

http://www.rs-met.com/freebies.html

An Oscilloscope (and spectrum analyzer) inside toolchain.

I installed toolchain briefly because I wanted to try its scope, but I couldn't find it in any of the preset folders. There were about a dozen other presets, AcidDevil and whatnot, some of them in nested folders. No scope though.

[GearNostalgia]

I have been using Jscope and other freebees for some time to check my sounds, but I have a hard time getting them to draw a clean wave from my synths so maybe it is time to get a better oscilloscope plugin.

Help me out here, which ones are the best for drawing nice waves and offer a resizeable GUIs?

What do you intend to do with it? How does it benefit the sound? I don't know, I'm asking in all seriousness.

Looking at it, learning what happends when I do stuff in my modular. Saving money not buying Mordax Data. Perhaps making some videos of it.

[GearNostalgia]

I've just concluded my evaluation of oscilloscope VST plugins. My main use for an oscilloscope is for visualising synthesizer sounds. With that in mind, I was particularly looking for the following features:

Great summary man! Love the effort. I am sure this will help a lot of people in the future.

[mrj1nx]

I've just concluded my evaluation of oscilloscope VST plugins. My main use for an oscilloscope is for visualising synthesizer sounds. With that in mind, I was particularly looking for the following features:

Great summary man! Love the effort. I am sure this will help a lot of people in the future.

Agreed, big thanks for the summary, very helpful! I will try out Oscarizor, looks like a beast!

[foosnark]

Looking at it, learning what happends when I do stuff in my modular. Saving money not buying Mordax Data. Perhaps making some videos of it.

If you don't have DC coupled audio inputs, you're losing some valuable information there, in terms of monitoring CV signals. If you do... carry on

Also you won't get accurate voltage measurements if you're going through an interface into your DAW.

I have a Jones O'Tool+ and still find it very useful for learning new modules, working out complex CV modulation, setting up Dynamo as a limiter, etc. Not quite as big or expensive as a Mordax Data, but it's also a smaller screen, doesn't include LFOs etc. and it's got two traces rather than four.

[Sam-U]

VPS Scope is also recommendable
+ zoomable
+ syncable
+ fast refreshrate
+ can show male/female de-ess areas
+ has spectrum & stereofield included
- not resizable
- either free for existing customers or free with magazines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQzolj5gtOg