Metric Halo SpectraFoo - Manual (Page 11)

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1. Introduction
Congratulations!
You are now the owner of the most powerful audio analysis and metering system on the planet.
SpectraFoo is capable of monitoring up to 24 separate channels simultaneously (depending on your input
hardware). You may be asking – 24 channels all at once? How is this possible? The answer is that SpectraFoo
uses Metric Halo’s ultra efficient high-resolution analysis engine. This technology uses the power of your
Mac’s processor in conjunction with your audio hardware to provide blazingly fast and incredibly detailed
sample-accurate analysis and metering of any channel or an entire mix. SpectraFoo technology is unique
in its ability to provide you, the engineer, spectral, power, and phase analysis which is truly useful to your
production tasks.
About SpectraFoo Configurations
SpectraFoo is available in two configurations:
SpectraFoo Standard provides a comprehensive set of real-time metering instruments. For most mixing and
monitoring tasks, SpectraFoo Standard contains all the tools you will need. It gives you a comprehensive,
multi-channel view of signal levels, wave form data, signal histories, spectrum analysis and spectral histories,
and a variety of phase monitoring tools, including a lissajous phase scope, correlation metering, and the unique
Phase Torch™. It does not provide any of the deeper analysis tools found in SpectraFoo Complete.
SpectraFoo Complete provides all of the metering tools included in SpectraFoo Standard, but also includes
a number of additional features that allow more detailed analysis of audio signals and systems. SpectraFoo
Complete adds a multitone high-resolution sweeping signal generator, a recording, capture and static analysis
system, high-resolution bit-level metering facilities, and a detailed two-channel FFT transfer function measure-
ment system, with support for Music Based Measurement, Time Delay Spectroscopy and multiple overlays
with coherence-based averaging. SpectraFoo Complete is a critical tool if you will be doing acoustical mea-
surements, sound system or monitor tuning, musical instrument measurements, mastering, or any type of me-
tering or measurement in which you need to be able to capture and strore the signals that you are measuring.
This manual documents both configurations of SpectraFoo, Standard and Complete. Features that are only
present in SpectraFoo Complete are notated with [SFC] at the beginning of the section that documents the
feature.
Metric Halo has a “no-penalty” upgrade policy for all software products. If you have purchased SpectraFoo
Standard and later decide that you need the power offered by SpectraFoo Complete, you can upgrade for the
difference between the suggested retail price of SpectraFoo Standard and SpectraFoo Complete at the time of
the upgrade. Contact Metric Halo directly at
<[email protected]>
for more information.
Introduction
Welcome to the SpectraFoo Visual Audio Monitoring System – the world’s first audio analysis environment
that actually lets you see music. SpectraFoo is a high–precision, low–latency, fully realtime audio visualization
and analysis system.
SpectraFoo takes advantage of the phenomenon known as synesthesia. The word synesthesia, meaning “joined
sensation,” denotes the rare capacity to see sounds, taste shapes, or experience other equally startling sensory
blendings whose quality seems difficult for most of us to imagine. Very few people experience natural synes-
thesia. Those who do usually possess distinct cognitive advantages over the rest of us. For example, many
people with perfect pitch associate particular pitches with particular colors. They see sound as well as hear it.
The interaction of vision and hearing helps these people maintain an absolute point of reference with regard
to pitch. This allows them to discern absolute pitch values without the need for a reference tone. SpectraFoo
allows anyone to experience the benefits of synesthetic sensation.