Standalone spectrum analyzer

[Evert]

Do any of you know of/use a spectrum analyzer outside of your DAW?

I was looking around for a (free) standalone analyzer for a while, but I didn't seem to find what I was looking for.
If any of you have suggestions, feel free to let me know.

[Ben Kohonays]

https://www.voxengo.com/product/span/

[Evert]

I know and use Span, but that's only available as a VST afaik. Correct me if I'm wrong of course.

I would like to analyze music outside of my DAW as well.
For example I would use it to analyze soundcloud tracks.

[kronk]

TC Electronic Clarity M

[borg]

https://www.masterpinguin.de/-2013/soft ... level.html#

I know it's old (and I've never used it), but it's what was recommended a lot in the past.
I would very much like a hardware VU meter you can patch in anywhere in your signal path. Just found this

[borg]

For example I would use it to analyze soundcloud tracks.

Windows or Mac? I'm on mac, and quite often I switch the system output to Soundflower and run it through Live. This way I can easily record sound from movies or whatever. Don't know if such a thing is available on Windows.
Ahh, I just remember: VoiceMeeter. It's some kind of virtual ASIO multi-client thingie. https://vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/

[Evert]

I use Windows.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check them out.

[Lost to the Void]

https://www.masterpinguin.de/-2013/soft ... level.html#

I know it's old (and I've never used it), but it's what was recommended a lot in the past.
I would very much like a hardware VU meter you can patch in anywhere in your signal path. Just found this

Pinguin Pro Meter is a classic, I have it, not used it for some time now but it works great.

Also if you want a relatively inexpensive but decent hardware solution there is the BDS PP 31
They do other units, but this is 1U, works great, and is affordable in analyser terms.

http://tsunami-sound-systems.kong365.co ... lay/168922

If you email BDS via their website I think it`s cheaper to order direct (Taiwan).

[Rickskii]

Take a look at Shulz audio. Their Oszillos mega scope is also top notch.

[timc3]

I have been wondering whether it's possible to build something with a Raspberry pi and a monitor. I presume it wouldn't be too hard, but I have too many other projects on the go to really look into it.

[Barfunkel]

You said outside a DAW but I solved this problem by just using the DAW...

Just open your DAW of choice, set one channel to track Windows sounds (using WASAPI in Windows should work, but you probably have to mess with the exact settings, the default ones don't work for this), possibly click a button like Record Monitoring so it's on (at least with Reaper you have to do this), then your DAW works as a frequency analyzer (when you put ie. Span on the channel) of whatever your browser,. media player or whatever is playing. Since there are no other plugins than the frequency analyzer, it's a fairly lightweight solution.

Note: This might not work unless you have either an external soundcard or something plugged in the headphone output of the internal soundcard. At least with my laptop, using the laptop speakers means Windows automatically cuts most sub 100Hz information, so Span's results look wrong.

It's not a perfect solution but it does the job (assuming the job is to analyze music played from a media player or youtube/spotify/etc) and since you can use Span or whatever analyzer you usually use, you're familiar with it and can meddle with the settings as well.

[Lost to the Void]

You said outside a DAW but I solved this problem by just using the DAW...

Just open your DAW of choice, set one channel to track Windows sounds (using WASAPI in Windows should work, but you probably have to mess with the exact settings, the default ones don't work for this), possibly click a button like Record Monitoring so it's on (at least with Reaper you have to do this), then your DAW works as a frequency analyzer (when you put ie. Span on the channel) of whatever your browser,. media player or whatever is playing. Since there are no other plugins than the frequency analyzer, it's a fairly lightweight solution.

Note: This might not work unless you have either an external soundcard or something plugged in the headphone output of the internal soundcard. At least with my laptop, using the laptop speakers means Windows automatically cuts most sub 100Hz information, so Span's results look wrong.

It's not a perfect solution but it does the job (assuming the job is to analyze music played from a media player or youtube/spotify/etc) and since you can use Span or whatever analyzer you usually use, you're familiar with it and can meddle with the settings as well.

It depends if your soundcard has a loopback function, but yeah, in mastering I use DAW based analyzers. Hardware just doesn't come close in terms of features.