NOTE: The software has no built in help. It is pretty easy to use. The needed operating instructions are on this page below.
Screenshot 1 (Main Panel) -- Note this is a still shot of the software's displaying "motion picture" of the sound as it changes over time
(For details, see Explanation of Screenshot 1 Here )
Screenshot 2 (Spiral Mode) ( This may be more useful when the key is unknown, and also for chords and music theoretical/psychoacoustics exploration and theorizing.) The particular example is of a major tonic triad.
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Can pitch matching, sense of pitch, and pitch-control be taught to older people?
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The software, along with the interconnecting companion Musical Perception Toolkit Item 2 Norm's Music Visualizer (and also the more minor supplemental item 3 ToneGen), was written initially for me (Norm Spier
)
and my own miscellaneous personal acoustical / musical-perception / music analysis needs. I am distributing the pair of programs to individuals and music labs, as it seems to be better than anything I've seen out there for many applications.
My intent is:
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You May Also Be Interested In (INTERCONNECTING) MUSICAL-PERCEPTION IMMERSION NORM'S MUSIC VISUALIZER MIDI MUSIC INTONATION-FEEDBACK, ANALYSIS and LISTENING TOOL, (Interactively play and display MIDI files with chord- and key- visualization items to aid comprehension of tonal aspects of the music, with optional overlaid pitch feedback for learning to sing along (matching melody or in harmony) Several other items for complete visual and aural immersion in a piece of MIDI file music. Also, free, just like the Spectratune. ) Norm's Music Visualizer page . |
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VIDEO DEMOS OF SPECTRATUNE USAGE . |
[Math/science notes:
the fundamental and overtones that the music theorists refer to are all, precisely, sines, though they rarely say it, and perhaps some do not know that detail. The most important reason overtones are defined this way is that sines are what the ear hardware breaks sound down into. I have a little more on that on my old pre-made spectrogram video page. My Spectratune's, and all common spectral analyses, display their output in terms of that same sinusoid "basis", which is the one relevant to hearing. Also, the exact frequencies are: A right below middle C has a fundamental that is a sine of 220 cycles per second. Each time you go up a half-step, you multiply this by the 12th root of 2 (about 1.059463094359), down a half step, divide by the 12th root of 2. In each case, the harmonics are sines (in varying strengths, dying out as you go up) at 2 times the fundamental frequency, 3 times, 4 times, 5 times. Thus, the B right below middle C has a fundamental of 246.94 cycles per second, with harmonics 493.88, 740.82, 987.77, etc. DETAIL: This way of determining notes is the common standard way, called the tempered scale. Sometimes instead of the A below middle C being 220 cycles per second, it is a few cycles different. My Spectratune uses 220 as the default, but this can be adjusted.
(People familiar with the science of hearing will note that what you are looking at in the spectrum output (but not the single pitch arrows) is basically the raw data that the brain gets from the ear. However, there is one limitation--the ear puts out data, and the brain processes it quite quickly, perhaps every thousandth of a second. With my Spectratune, you will only be able to get perhaps 5 or 10 or 20 pictures per second, depending on your computer, and the exact way you have the Spectratune adjusted.
The curious might wonder about the spectrograms showing always overtones not at a precise point of pitch, but rather peaked at a pitch and tapering down perhaps 30db (1/1000th in energy) gradually over the adjacent lower and higher half step. The answer is that this is also the way the brain receives the information--it gets excitement levels along the varying-pitch-resonant basilar membrane, never a point of pitch indication. My software uses a resonant process similar to what happens on the the basilar membrane. (I explain what I did in a bit more detail on my Spectrogram videos page, which videos preceeded the Spectratune by a few years, but which uses basically the same method.)
You might also want to know that the single-pitch detection, which is the second type of analysis from the Spectratune, which does give a precise point of pitch (of the fundamental of a single musical note from a single instrument or singer) does NOT work like the ear. It works differently, getting data that the brain does not get from the ear, but that the computer does get. Its the perfect thing to track pitch of a single instrument or singer, or to tune an instrument, but it happens to work using specific data that the computer gets from the microphone -- air pressure level very precisely in time -- that the brain does not get from the ear.
Incidentally, in people who are deaf, where the defect is in the ear hardware, but nerves leading from the ear to the brain, and the brain audio-processing area, are normal, a device called a "cochlear implant" can replace, to a limited extent, the signal from the ear hardware, and send it through the usual nerves up to the brain. The sound information replaced is similar to that shown in the spectrogram, but coarser, in that level information is sent only for about 24 different frequency zones. This is good for speech, but musical sound is not usually regenerated effectively. This National Public Radio audio story gives the state of the situation as of 2005, and includes some simulated sounds of music as heard by a deaf person with a cochlear implant. You can find also find some information about the sound information replaced here at the FDA cochlear implant site .)]
WHAT'S SPECTRATUNE NOT GOOD FOR? Spectratune was developed for music and intonation. If you want to experiment with speech and speech-recognition, the Spectratune will certainly show the spectrum, but it's really not your best bet. Here are 2 free alternatives: Ham Radio Operator DL4YHFs free audio spectrum analyser and Cornell Ornithological Laboratory's free Raven-Lite audio spectrum analyser..
Screenshot 3 (Device-Choice Panel)
The picture above is the device-selection panel. Exactly what text appears depends on what your input device maker and/or Microsoft decided to call each device.
In my case, "Line In/Mic In" is my sound-card, and by setting the volume/mixer for the sound card, I can get the sound from a CD, DVD audio, microphone, .wav file, audio portion of any audio/video file, midi output, or an electronic keyboard plugged into the input of my sound card -- anything I can hear on my computer.
"USB audio device" is the microphone of my web-cam. If you select this as device 2, and the sound card as device 1, you can check intonation as you sing along with the sound passing through the sound card in the web-cam. (Usually, while doing this, I have the sound card sound going into headphones rather than speakers, so that the web-cam microphone picks up just my singing.) [NOTE: As with my soundcard + web-cam configuration, one way to analyze something from a microphone simultaneously while something else is passing through the sound-card (and being analyzed separately from the mic sound or not not analyzed), you can use the microphone on the webcam and the webcam's own built in "sound card hardware" as the source for the microphone sound information. For this two-source analysis, you may also be able to not use a webcam at all, but set-up your soundcard to handle two separate sources at the same time, one of which is a standard microphone. I have found recently that I am able to do this on my Realtek soundcard, separating sound-card back-panel and front-panel sources into separate "sound input devices" by, within mixer--record--tool icon, clicking "enable multi-streaming". This lets me have use a better microphone than the web-cam microphone, as well.]
NOTE: From a correspondent, it appears that in the case of some hardware and/or versions of Windows, you need to plug in a microphone in order to have the operating system (and therefore my software) find your sound card device. If this is the case on your computer, you will need to do this before you run the Spectratune, as the Spectratune checks available devices only at the beginning of its execution and does not recheck.
I also stuck in an "undersample". What this is is that, depending on what you're doing, and what tone-range you are looking at, you may not need to analyze based on every sound measurement that your devices give you. You can do the analysis on the sound with a few neighboring measurments averaged together, and speed the processing up (and look at more pictures per second of the sound).
MORE SCREENSHOTS AND APPLICATIONS OF THE SPECTRATUNE can be found on this page.
Psychoacoustic Note on Consonance and Dissonance: Psychoacoustic studies show that dissonance happens when music contains components (fundamental or overtones) that are close to each other (less than the "critical bandwidth"), but not virtually the same. (Thus, the basilar membrane is vibrating at certain points close together but not the same--and the auditory nervous system is getting such as "raw" data.) The critical bandwidth is about 3 half-steps when we are dealing with tones above about A880 = the A two octaves above A220, and a bit larger (about 100 hz -- a frequency-varying number of half-steps) below A880.
For Continuous-Variation Ear Training / Intonation Exercises: My ToneGen software
One ear-training and intonation exercise is to listen to continuously varying frequencies against a fixed note, and learn the exact perceptual sensation as we get near and on exact intervals. You can use your voice as the continuous sound source, or a non-fretted string instrument, of course, but you may find it simpler to use a signal generator or synthesizer that you can vary frequency continuously on.
One such program is:
My ToneGen Software.
Tip for Transcription from Recordings (and also singing along with recordings) from Spectrogram: HALF SPEED / QUARTER SPEED.
If you play a recording at half speed, all notes are the same, just an octave lower. Quarter speed: same notes, just two octaves lower. This helps transcribing a melody, as everything both aural and visual happens much more slowly. It also helps singing along, as you can get a fix on the notes, at least on an initial pass.
In Windows XP or Vista or Windows 7, you can play .wav files at half and quarter speed using the Windows-included Sound Recorder. Since the Windows Sound Recorder only plays .wav files, if you have a CD, you can convert it to .wav by "RIPing" from a CD using Windows Media Player. (If you have another format, I'm pretty sure Windows Media Player will convert it to .wav, as well.)
Note that with half-speed and quarter speed recordings, it may be optimal to set Spectratune with a slightly longer analysis time than you normally use. Longer analysis time slows down successive spectrograms, and sharpens frequency discrimination (i.e. sharper spectrogram peaks).
Tips for Singing Along with a Recording with Tonal Guidance from the Spectratune
Start with simpler recordings first. I've had very good luck pitch-matching with Pete Seeger, who of course has simpler songs with simple accompaniment, designed for easy audience singing along. This setup has worked well: The Spectratune should be displaying in spiral (despite some early sing-along videos on the site from before I added the superior-for-sing-along spiral mode). Recording playing through sound-card on spectrogram (not-single-pitch) on Spectratune going to sing-alonger through headphones (open-ear best), with sing-along going through web-cam mic analyzed as single-pitch on Spectratune. It is best for tonal understanding to pick out the key and overlay it on the Spectratune. You can usually find the key on a major-key piece by picking out the frequently present I chords (if no where else at the end, in a V-I cadence). In a major key, the heavily present I chords should be a tonic triad will be heaviest in the pattern: Tonic, 4 halfsteps up from that, 3 half-steps up from that, 5 half-steps back to the Tonic: i.e. when set for the correct key, the Spectratune's heavy Tonic Mediant Dominant radiating rays will overlay the I chords tonal concentrations.
Note you can play music at half and quarter speed (through Windows Recorder), as above, either to sing along, or for initial help in tracking the melody (as described above).
See also the section below about finding the vocalist in recordings.
To get the sing-along or sing-harmony skills in a more structured fashion, with the notes present all explicitly shown, you can use Norm's Music Visualizer
on any MIDI file with the interconnecting Spectratune pitch-monitor feature.
There is also a use of
Norm's Music Visualizer
for direct singing along with a recording: you can use it to generate reference sounds of the scale (e.g. the Do, Re, Mi, .. etc. as well as cadences, etc.) to orient your singing along notes. See documentation for that software. (The one trick is that, since that software doesn't work without a MIDI file opened, you have to open a MIDI file that you're not going to really use. Then, set to "Key Context" checked, and set the key not to the key of the recording of the MIDI file, but that of the recording you are singing along with or transcribing. The reference sounds will then be for that key set to.)
Tips to Find the Vocalist in Recordings or To Find Another Individual Instrument/Transcribe
When there is one sound (such as in a cappella singing), things are pretty easy. You can usually use the single-pitch detection, but even the spectrogram is fine -- you just go to the lowest-frequency blob of signal. (The lowest-frequency blob must be the fundamental, and not an overtone.)
When things are a little more complex, such as a singer with a few instruments, you can only use the spectral representation, and it is a little more complicated because you have all fundamentals and overtones of all instruments in the display. But it is often possible with a little practice, and for many recordings it is quite easy.
Your main way to distinguish which fundamentals and overtones come from the same source the same way as the human auditory system does it -- by looking for blobs that vary together. (They will both move to higher and lower tones, and higher and lower volumes, together.) In order to be able to do this, you have to be able to detect changes over time. This means you have to tweak the Spectratune to show a good number of spectral analyses a second. Maybe at least ten. So (a)use the lowest device sampling rate (say 11.025 khz if you have it), and then (b) try undersampling (say 2x). (c)Turn off the pitch detection, and possibly (d) don't use a second "sing along" device. Cut
the sound amount/analysis down (I've been successful with around .05 seconds).
(e)Get rid of the octaves you don't really need.
Besides the general varying together of single sound sources, note the general pattern of any one sound source will be: fundamental, then first overtone right underneath it, then 2nd overtone a fifth up from that, then 3rd overtone back in the horizontal line with the fundamental and first overtone, one line down from the first overtone, then other overtones becoming denser on each line. (See first screen-shot on the page -- exactly that pattern through the first 3 1/2 octaves -- what I have written in the last sentence applies when the Spectratune is set up as in the screen-shot, "up is down". When you check "up is up", as I did in my videos, go a row up instead of a row down.) You can pick out this pattern varying together as being a single sound source. Adjusting dynamic range and gain to de-emphasize irrelevancies will help you find the pattern, as well as bearing in mind the note range of the instrument in question. If you know, or can figure out, the key of the tune, superimposing that may also help.
Note that, if there is no loss of a sine due to a fidelity problem with the recording or microphone, you can always find the lowest note being played, as the lowest sine can't be an overtone. Once you find that lowest note, and see where its overtones should be, you may find something extra that is not an overtone of that first note you found. That must be from a 2nd note played by something. (It may not be the fundamental of that 2nd note -- the fundamental might just be mixed in with an overtone of the first note. But often, because of the pattern, you can deduce that it is the fundamental of the 2nd note.)
Also, note that if your are working from a stereo recording, you can often set the computer mixer card (i.e. from "volume control") to focus on the side with either more of the sound you are interested in, or less of an interfering sound. (That is, when you select the sound card as your "input device", Spectratune does a mono analysis on whatever comes out of the sound card to it.)
As people who have experience transcribing from recordings will tell you, its not easy, there is no simple rule, if there are two many instruments it becomes downright impossible -- if you make soup there is no guarantee you can separate the soup back into its constituent ingredients, etc. The computer helps, though, and perhaps using programs like Spectratune to transcribe will make it possible to see how to write computer programs that help people more and more with transcribing from recordings.
Adjustment Controls and Tips to Tweak Execution Speed (i.e. rate of new frame display)
What you're doing with the spectratune (tuning an instrument, checking your voice intonation, looking at intonation of notes on a recording, studying timbre, etc.) will affect how you have things set.
In general, to speed things up (and show a quicker, "more responsive" picture-rate), you can either reduce the number of tasks being performed, or do an adjustment which in some sense reduces the detail of the analysis.
Reducing the number of tasks being done means switching off the analyses you're not really using. In my own screen shot at the top of the page, I have both the spectrogram and the single-pitch detection switched on. This was to make a nice demonstration picture of the program working. But, for faster frame rate, one of those tasks could be turned off. (If the sound contained more than one pitch, the single-pitch detection won't even work, so it of course should be the one switched off.)
Here are the adjustments that trade-off speed vs. detail. Note that in many cases, depending on what you're doing, a lot of speed can be gained with only an imperceptible loss in detail.
In the analysis displayed above, I have used a .10 second analysis sample time. NOTE: Typically a users needs will be handled with sound amount set anywhere in the .05 to .10 zone.
Other Tips
For most purposes, your webcam or headphone microphone, or another cheap microphone is adequate. However, whenever a modest microphone and/or modest speakers are involved, you often have quite imperfect frequency response, which will not move any fundamentals or overtones, but will make them show with more or less amplitude than they really have. The response may also roll off substantially at the lower or higher frequencies (even making frequencies there appear to not be there at all).
If you're doing something where this becomes a problem, and if you're looking at sound from a CD, the best way to avoid the combined microphone and speaker innacuracies is by playing the CD on your PC, and using the sound card as the input device. (Thus, everything happens within the sound card.)
Alternatively, you can play the CD on your stereo system, and run an audio cable from a low-level output to your sound card. (Young people: I am old and have never used an iPod, but I am sure you can do a direct feed to your sound card from it.)
If you're looking at the output of an electronic keyboard, similarly, if you need the greatest accuracy, run a sound cable from your keyboard to your sound card, and use the sound card as the audio input device. (In my screenshots, I did NOT do this--I used my webcam mic, but I do get more accurate results when I switch to the direct feed.)
If you need the best audio quality using a mic (say for singing or monitoring an instrument), an electrostatic mic for about $40 ought to do it. They run about $40. Typically, this is just needed if you want the overtones shown with the most accurate strengths.
In order to facilitate the above, a trip to your neighborhood Radio Shack for a few cables would be your best bet. (Don't forget the appropriate "Y" connectors so you can listen at the same time as you analyze!)
60 cycle hum / 50 cycle hum: I've noticed one of my microphones picks up a slight amount of 60 cycle hum, which is negligible compared to the size of my sound waves. In case you see this and wonder what it is, this is coming from the AC household power and imperfectly shielded wire. In the US, the AC household power is at 60 hz, and thus appears a little more than one half-step above the A 2 octaves below A220. In parts of Europe, you will have 50 cycle hum, which will be a little more than one half step below that same A. If it gets in the way of what you are doing, there are a lot of odd electrical engineering causes, and you can search on the internet for "60 cycle hum", "ground loops", etc., to see how to get rid of it.
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Questions:
norm@nastechservices.com,
MY OLD SITE (Spectrogram videos: Mostly classical Music)
Some of you coming to this page may not know about my old site, which might interest you. In about the year 2000 I made some spectral videos of certain classical music and put them on the web. They are like what the Spectratune does, except I use a spiral representation only. They play using Windows Media or Apple Quicktime viewers, so that they are not restricted to Windows OS folks. They were not done in real time. It took about 10 hours of processing for every hour of video. If you want to look at them, they are here. They are mostly clips of about half a minute, except one is about an hour.
The site continues to get a good number of viewers. I have been continually getting a good number of people viewing the clips each day. (They are from all over the world, and at the moment, 2007/2008, there is a spurt of popularity in China. This is a good sign, as China is an up-and-coming country!)
In the intervening years, computer speed has gotten higher, and as well I got a few ideas as to how to make my computations more efficient. So I've adapted the basic spectral video technique into something that runs in real time, and lets people look at whatever sounds or music they want to. Thus, the Spectratune.
NORM'S MUSIC VISUALIZER MUSIC COMPREHENSION TOOL (Interactively play and display MIDI files with tools to see chords and keys to aid comprehension of tonal aspects of the music, with optional overlaid pitch feedback for learning to sing along with the melody, or in harmony, and several other features. )
Click here.
TONEGEN (A modest little tone generator allowing fine pitch variation for intonation perception exercises, and testing your friends at parties.)
Click here.
Ear Training Software:
I have, have built up my musical perception from, and recommend, EarMaster ear training software. These links, through Amazon, seem to be for the same product that I have: EarMaster 5. The prices are different: one through Amazon direct, one through a sub-vendor.
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About me, Norm Spier: 
I am a free-lance mathematical statistician and computer programmer, living near Binghamton, New York, U.S. |
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SUPPORT SPECTRATUNE AND RELATED ACOUSTICAL PROJECTS: DONATE HERE (suggested: 5 or 10 or Dollars or Euros for an appreciative user who finds the software useful). If you do make a donation via PayPal, why not send me a quick email at norm@nastechservices.com, so I can acknowledge you contribution, and take in any feedback you may have on the software? |
Notes on the Harmony/Theory Book:
Schoenberg is a classic, at some points articulate, at others unclear. I have place it here because it has considerable reference to overtones as explanations for the rules of harmony. However, some of these explanations may be speculative.
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OTHER RELATED SITES AND BOOKS: |
Historical Psychoacoustics Book
Helmholtz, On The Sensations of Tone--A Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music
Distribution of Musical Talent:
Psychology of Musical Talent, Seashore
Classic Ear-Training Book (Public Domain):
Wedge, Ear Training and Sight Singing as Applied to the Study of Harmony
Also, try (public domain)
Damrosch, Popular Method of Sight Singing
Other Singing-Along and Intonation Software:
One Product:
Sing and See
Another:
People trying to sing along with MIDI popular music, and have their intonation corrected may be able to use my Music Visualizer with the Spectratune feeding it. There is some other software geared toward this goal, called Singing Coach by a company called Carry a Tune. It makes its own recording of your singing automatically, which mine doesn't. It probably has a more young-person-friendly interface. If you are interested, here is the Carry-a-Tune link. Here are some links to their products at a discount:
Release notes:
2008.4.16: added tunability to reference A other than 220 exactly
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For Psychoacoustic Fun: A Decent Free Companion Tool: UNESCO Sinusoidal Synthesizer
People interested particularly in the science of sound may want to look at various of your own combinations of pure sines. (For example, to explore the causes of consonance/dissonance, and perhaps determine your own dissonance critical bandwidth function.) Again, the reason for focusing on pure sines is that they are actually what the hardware in the ear picks up -- the basilar membrane vibrates in the positions of all the pure sines present.
I've discovered a decent free tool in the internet for generating pure sines. Its the UNESCO sponsored software WaveModeler. It's in French, but there is a manual in English. It generates one note and overtones at whatever level you choose. But, you can open the program again and generate a different note simultaneously, and experiment with consonance and dissonance. (I've checked that this simultaneous running does generate simultaneous notes -- they must have engineered that into the program). (You can simultaneously have the Spectratune open, and see all the sines being generated.) There seem to be a few bugs: I've noticed the synthesizer program crashes on me sometimes when I try to change the attack/decay/sustain/release parameters, but you don't need to change those features, and if you do, it seems the problem is just when you have at least one of them down to 0. More importantly, I've confirmed with an external chromatic tuner that the default settings on the UNESCO program are out of tune (under) by a little more than half a step. You have to use their tuning sliders to compensate for this. (It seems to be a bug, but their program is free and allows you to take sines in and out nicely.) Also, I noted the UNESCO page says you need to download Winzip to unzip their package, but nowadays that is built in to Windows XP and Vista.
I like using the UNESCO synthesis program because it shows off the veracity of the spectrogram's picking up sines. That is, that program allows you to separately turn on and off each of the first 16 overtones, and when you do, one by one they disappear from my spectrogram. (Be careful if you try this to note that the UNESCO harmonic sliders are 0 in the middle of the scale, not at the bottom. If you take them away from 0, and want to get them back to 0, enter 0 rather than trying to get them to zero by sliding. Also, if you're going to look at all those harmonics, you have to use Spectratune in its high-fi mode. That is, bring up device sampling to 44.1 khz, and no undersampling.
See the picture at the BOTTOM of this page, where I generated a sound with a pattern of overtones not seen in nature.
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Support for the claim that, at low frequencies, Spectratune shows Higher Precision
Try this .wav file,, of the almost sub-audible D near 36Hz (about 3 octaves below middle C -- pure sine) on your current spectral analysis software. Because it probably uses the Fast Fourier Transform, the resolution around this note will probably be very course -- perhaps each half-step will be divided into just two zones. Not so with the Spectratune, which has equal granularity throughout the scale, because I use a different algorithm. The Spectratune output is here:
