Firefly - Frequency spectrum component

Hello everyone,

I am currently doing a project in which incoming audio frequencies will be analysed into data/curves etc, perhaps to be sent to an arduino board later. For this I am using the firefly Frequency Spectrum component, but it seems that the sensitivity for high frequencies is very low (could be my microphone) but more importantly the spectrum does not cover the entire audible low frequency range.

Is there any way I can expand the range covered by the spectrum component to the left ? Or perhaps a better plugin/component to do this?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by ng5 Alex on May 8, 2015 at 8:31am

Hello Michael,

there are some sound cards that support playing back and recording sound without having to use a mic. But there were complaints from the music industry about rights (imagine youtube video playing and recording at the same time the track), so the sound card drivers stopped supporting it.

an alternative is the following (Virtual audio cable)

http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm

this makes all sound go "internally" without environment sounds getting picked up by the mic, making spectrum component read the frequencies in all ranges

cheers

alex

Permalink Reply by Barrak on January 29, 2016 at 7:58pm

Hello Michael,

I am an architecture student and I am working on a thesis related to sound. I have a quick question regarding this component. What are the 3 outputs of this component and how do I get the frequency number as an output?

Thanks!

Permalink Reply by Michael Shammas on January 30, 2016 at 4:32am

hello barrak

the first output of the component is 198 real-time changing values showing the volumes of each frequency throughout the spectrum (to do this the frequency spectrum is cut up in 198 consecutive steps since it is normally continuous)

the second output is the frequency in Hz which has the highest volume (i assume this is what you mean)

the third output is the Note of that frequency expressed as a number.

I hope this was helpful

Permalink Reply by Barrak on January 31, 2016 at 1:55am

Thank you michael this was really helpful. I was wondering if I can use the third output to find out musical notes. For example the musical note C has a frequency value of 16.351 Hz. Is it possible to use any of these outputs to sort the note?

Permalink Reply by Michael Shammas on January 31, 2016 at 12:13pm

What will be your audio input?

Yes, if this component "listens" to an A4 note it should give you "440 Hz" on the second output and "69" on the third. So you have both the frequency AND the note number.

However if you tell me more about the project and what you are trying to do maybe I can suggest something else. This component is not perfect in many ways and causes a lot of lagging, at least in my system.

Permalink Reply by Barrak on February 1, 2016 at 1:28am

Michael,

Thank you for your help I really need it. As shown in the image below, I have a grid of boxes that change height responsively to the audio input, I am using the firefly capture component to capture sound from the microphone as well as the FFT component from millipede to analyze the sound. However, I have no idea what exactly is the output I am getting (whether it is frequency or sound amplitude etc.) My knowledge in the field of sounds and acoustics is limited. I am trying to gain more control over the type of sound output I am getting. I am also trying to play a certain musical note anhave the box respond to that exact note, and if that note was played harder for example, the same box would move to a higher Z value (as an example). Please see attached file. If that works, I will be building a prototype for school using arduino.

Thank you very much for your help.

Attachments:

sound analysis.gh, 15 KB
Canvas at 00;19;02.png, 120 KB

Permalink Reply by Michael Shammas on February 1, 2016 at 7:49am

Well, I have no idea either as I am not familiar with those components. However, the FFT is amplitude PER frequency. It is a real-time graph showing the amplitudes of all frequencies in the audible spectrum. It's the base of how most sound visualizations work.

If you have all those boxes respond to certain frequencies and you are feeding them with FFT in a proper way you should see them jumping around. However if you play a certain note you will see a lot of boxes jumping as there are harmonics sounding as well.

if you are doing a thesis related to sound you might want to expand your limited knowledge in the field of sound - these are pretty basic stuff

Permalink Reply by Barrak on February 1, 2016 at 2:18pm

Michael,

My thesis is on a responsive system that responds to sounds. However, I am not really sure what exactly I need to be reading about or where to start.

Is there a way to sort a certain musical tone by its (amplitude per frequency)? Are there amplitude per frequency values for music notes?

Are you familiar with other components that might be helpful? perhaps only use frequency rather than FFT?

Again, Thank you very much for your help

Permalink Reply by Michael Shammas on February 2, 2016 at 4:56am

I'm sorry, I have already explained it 3 times so I would suggest you get more familiar with the terms.

Permalink Reply by ng5 Alex on February 2, 2016 at 5:08am

Barrak,

please post a separate thread in discussions according to this and chances are that someone will point you towards related material study, which obviously you are not getting here.

For Firefly specific questions you can use Firefly group page,

where you will get some answers, instead of remarks that your knowledge is limited.

best

alex

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