With this free PC-based audio spectrogram software, all you need are your PC and a microphone, and you can see a vivid picture of
your voice in frequency domain, in real time!
If you can't see the video above, please click this youtube link directly
This is a great project for science fair and teaching in middle/high school to better understand the elements of sound/voice/music: frequency, amplitude, pattern, spectrum... See the words "Hello" and its mirrored image below? Read on and you will know how to create it to impress your friends in science fair :)
To install
Ultima Sound Analyzer
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Now download "Hello" sound file, place the microphone directly in front of the speaker of your PC and use Window's Sound Recorder, which can be found in Windows-> Start->All Programs-> Accessories-> Entertainment if you use Windows XP, to playback it back while Ultima Sound Analyzer is capturing the spectrogram and you will see the screen capture above.
- Try the Reverse feature of the Sound Recorder to capture the mirrored image of the word (see screen capture above).
- If you are using an USB-based microphone or the response is slow, you may want to decrease the playback speed of the file (see screen capture below).
- Notice second Hello is wider and lower when the Hello sound file is played back in decreased speed? If you don't know the reason, it is time to pick up your science book :)
- If you need more display area for the spectrogram waterfall, resize the windows of UltimaSound
- Only a cheap headphone ($2) instead of a real speaker is used in our test, and the microphone is also a cheap one came with an old eMachine PC
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Here is another one, see if you can tell what it is :)
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More fun! Download Coagula Light to create any image on the sound/paint board and play it back, from your PC's speaker to microphone, and you will capture the image like a fax machine!Some ideas for science fair:
- Use a pair of cell phones to transfer this
- Compare the fidelity between different cell phone carriers
- Change the min/max frequency option when you render the sound using Coagula
- Playback a song and view its spectrogram
- Talk to the microphone directly
Note: USB-based microphone buffers more data
before notifying the system, thus appears much
slower than the microphone port on the PC. If USB-based microphone is your only
choice, you may wish to modify the program so that it doesn't simply rely on
the snapshot of the incoming audio signal
Resolution
of Ultima Sound Analyzer
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FFT1024 puts the frequency resolution of Ultima Sound Analyzer at SampleRate/1024
For
programmers
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Take an in-depth study of the source codes if you wish to modify it (Note: this may not be from the latest version of the program)
This project uses XChart, UltimaWaterfall, and FFT1024 controls, if more detail about these two controls are needed, please check visit XChart reference, UltimaWaterfall reference, and FFT1024 reference
UltimaSound uses XChart, FFT1024 and UltimaWaterfall, Paid registration for them is not required but highly appreciated, which helps us to maintain the website and design more tools.
Until XChart and UltimaWaterfallare registered, an ad-line will be displayed in the chart. As a bonus to paid registration users, CopyToClipboard will be enabled.
Last update: 10/28/09
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