Stand Alone VST/ RTAS/ DX Analyzing

Over the past few weeks I did receive quite an amount of emails concerning the way I do stand-alone analyzing with plugins. I thought it was time to address this in one of my blogs and here it is. I usually use a combination of Mac/ PC, meaning Pro Tools HD running on the Mac and the stand alone VST shell on the PC running Linux. In the example used: Windows. The main reason is to keep this simple for now.

I’m using a program called “Console” made by a company called “ART Teknika” and it’s retail price is approximately $54 bucks. If I do stand alone analyzing on a MAC system I use a program called “Ardour” via the use of “JACKaudio” to inter connect all the I/O’s which allows me more accurate things, but I think “Console” will work for most of you on a ‘need to know basis’ for the time being.

Here’s a screen shot of “Ardour“

Coming back to “Console”. “Console” is very easy to understand and work with you simply set-up your audio card and select the VST/ RTAS/ or DX directory or directories where the plugins are located and “Console” loads them into it’s shell ready to be used. The next step is to set up your routing and signal flow. Drag down your sound card’s I/O and drag down the desired plugin in between and hold shift and click from left to right until all the modules are selected, once selected right click and select “Audio Link”. You can’t get it more easier than this! To avoid a feedback loop make sure you click the switch on the audio output. Make sure you make up for latency as well.

To find out more about “Console” please visit their website here.

For any questions please email me at royalcollegeofsurgeons @ gmail . com

Signing off,

Yours Truly!

What’s Wrong With My Frequency Analyzer?

Although I push reading a frequency analyzer a lot, in this blog I will explain that you always need to rely on your ears and the reason why.

Introduction to Harmonics in Electronics
The typical definition of a harmonic is a sinusoidal waveform, or in short sine wave. Most manuals will refer back to this as a clean or pure signal. However in music it’s a known fact that such thing doesn’t exist and that’s the reason why a guitar sounds like a guitar and so on. To get really down to harmonics in music we need to take into acount various other subjects such as the music temperaments etc. I will save you this.

The simplest way to explain harmonics is to start of with your every day electronics. Electric generators try to produce electric power where the voltage waveform only has one frequency associated with it. That frequency is called the fundamental frequency. Readers in the United States of America will know that this is 60 Hz and readers in Europe will know this is 50 Hz for them.

The frequency of the harmonics series is dependable on the fundamental frequency. The second harmonic for a 60 Hz system is 120Hz (2 x 60), for 50 Hz this is 100 Hz (2 x 50). 300 Hz will be the fifth harmonic in a 60 Hz system (5 x 60) or the sixth harmonic (6 x 50) in a 50 Hz system. Got it?

How Does a Frequency Analyzer Work?
To make things harder; I’m always pushing assistants to read a frequency analyzer when working, I’m talking about a FFT – Fast Fourier Transform. But there is one problem, to represent/ calculate a complicated waveform in a microprocessor and computer based system it requires mathematical steps and these are quite difficult. Therefore it will not always show exactly the right frequencies as it should. To give you an example of this: If a waveform exist out of 60 Hz and 200 Hz, the FFT can’t directly see the 200 Hz as it only knows equal steps: 60, 120, 180, 240 and so on. These are normally called bins. So what happens with my 200 Hz then? Good question! Your 200 Hz signal will appear partially in the 180 Hz bin, and partially in the 240 Hz bin. These inbetween harmonics are simply called interharmonics. There is also a special category for interharmonics which are frequency values less than the fundamental frequency value. These are called sub-harmonics.

Conclusion
Because it doesn’t represent exactly where your area of problem or timbre lies doesn’t mean analyzers are useless. As in matter of fact to show you where the problem area or the sounds timbre is, it will take you a little listen and tweak on the EQ to find it exactly. Now you understand how electronical devices represent sound and frequency on a little display, you’ll no longer give a strange look at your analyzer or pull your hair and think that the analyzer is not working properly.

Hopefully this helped you a bit. I try later this week or next month to write a 101 blog about Harmonic Series (Overtones) in music.

Signing off,

Yours Truly.