Plug-in Reference

52
The Included Effect Plug-ins
EQ Plug-ins
Block Size Specifies the block size of the FFT (fast Fourier transform) spectrum
analyzer. Higher block sizes provide more resolution in the lower
frequency range, but decrease time coherence (time precision) in
the higher frequency range; the higher frequency information
becomes over-averaged. Also, at higher block size settings the
spectrum is refreshed less frequently. This can be compensated by
increasing the Overlap parameter.
When working at increasingly higher sample rates, you need to
increase the block size value, because the setting is used over the
full spectral bandwidth. Therefore, at higher sample rates the
analyzer’s resolution in the visible frequency range will be lower for
the given block size.
If you want to measure the frequency of a low-frequency sound
such as a drum or bass guitar precisely, use a higher “Block Size”
value along with a higher Overlap value.
In order to avoid clicks and glitches in playback when using high
“Block Size” values, you need to increase the audio buffer size in
your host application.
2nd Type If “2nd Spectrum” is activated, you can use this pop-up menu to
select an analysis type for the secondary spectrum. For example, by
setting the “2nd Type” to “RT Max” and “Type” to “RT Avg”, you can
see the average and maximum spectrums simultaneously.
Note that the secondary spectrum uses the same “Block Size” and
“Avg Time” values as the primary spectrum.
Overlap Controls the overlap between the adjacent FFT spectrum analysis
windows. Higher overlap values allow spectrum to be updated more
frequently at the expense of a higher CPU load.
AVG Time Specifies the average (fall-down) time used when the “RT Avg” or
“RT Max” analysis is active. This value specifies after how many
milliseconds the spectrum level falls down by 20 dB.
Smoothing Lets you select the smoothing function’s resolution in octaves.
Smoothing produces a drop of 6 dB per octave when stationary
sine wave signals are used. For example, even if the signal consists
of 2 sine waves (1 kHz and 2 kHz) of equal peak amplitude, the
2 kHz sine wave looks like it is 6 dB quieter. This happens because
the fast Fourier transform produces a narrower spectrum for high-
frequency stationary signals in comparison to low-frequency
stationary signals. This drop does not appear when non-stationary
(musical) signals are analyzed.
Freq Low/Freq High Specify the visible frequency range of the spectrum view.
Range Low/Range
High
Specify
the accessible spectrum power range.
Slope Allows you to adjust slope in the spectrum analyzer display around
1 kHz. Skewing the spectrum can be useful because higher
frequencies usually have weaker power in comparison to the lower
frequencies. By choosing an appropriate spectrum slope, you can
compensate for this fact.
Parameter Description