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Streaming Waveform

B

bluegrasspirate

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My first post.

I volunteer at at a small, low powered community radio station in western wisconsin, am on the board of directors, and recently have taken over the position of Production Director. The members of the board were talking about installing a second video monitor in the main DJ studio that would display a real-time waveform, thus enabling dj's to see that sound levels on various inputs are at the same level. I have been searching the net, but am afraid I have come up with nothing. I'm sort of new to this whole game...

Thanks for the help in advance!
 
We really need more information.
Are you using a mixing console or a PC to mix your audio?
Might it not be simpler to install an audio processor to control the levels?

Please provide more information.
 
Welcome here.

I assume you're talking about the on-air board? Yes, what type of console are you using? Does the board NOT have the standard VU meters or are you looking for an additional display? We can help you, but we'll need more information.
 
The board we are currently using is Allen and Heath ZED12. It does not have VU meters, but does have LED meters. Outputs from the board go into the DJ computer.

And here is where I am not so tech savvy, forgive me.

From the computer a signal that includes everything we air over the radio is sent to a room with a transmitter and other related pieces of equipment. I want to capture that signal on a separate video monitor that displays a real-time waveform.
 
From the 'free' side, you could route the audio through Audacity but you will be recording the audio as it's displayed....
 
The various Breakaway software audio processors have an "oscilloscope" display that shows the input and output waveforms. Obviously you would need to have the software running on a PC that is connected to your audio feed, but that should not be difficult.

For that matter, you could accomplish the same thing with an actual (used) oscilloscope carefully connected to the audio feed.
 
TomZ said:
From the 'free' side, you could route the audio through Audacity but you will be recording the audio as it's displayed....
Click to expand...

We had thought about Audacity, but as you stated, we would be recording audio...

awsherrill said:
The various Breakaway software audio processors have an "oscilloscope" display that shows the input and output waveforms. Obviously you would need to have the software running on a PC that is connected to your audio feed, but that should not be difficult.

For that matter, you could accomplish the same thing with an actual (used) oscilloscope carefully connected to the audio feed.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice on the oscilloscope display. Would anyone know where to find that type of software?
 
May I suggest you look into a little software program called Stereo Tool found at http://www.stereotool.com/.

Its main function is to turn a PC-based sound card into an audio compressor (auto level adjuster), but the program's impressive real-time display might be just what you are looking for.

Input levels are displayed several ways: via a large VU meter, an oscilloscope emulation and slow "AGC gain" meters. There is also a 10-band compressor function display that -- with some practice in setup and interpretation of the meters -- can display gross equalization errors.

In order to smooth out the wide variance in levels between various streams I enjoy, I run the program 24/7 on my work PC & send the second output of my video card into the VGA input of an old 32" LCD TV.

I never fail to get "oohs" when folks see the big display. I'm sure you could scare up an older PC and TV, install the demo version of the program (but it is well worth paying for) and just "T" the input of the sound card to the audio feed to your transmission equipment. If you set the gain and AGC settings to roughly match your existing audio processor, I could see simple instructions to your staff on the order of "if the top (input) meters are red, the levels are too hot, and if the bottom (output) meters are lower than (this marking), the levels are too low".

And given your username, may I also suggest that you play Chris Thile early and often ;)
 
You could also look at the Orban Loudness Meter.


http://www.orban.com/meter/


I'm kind of curious why you would want the display? If the system gain structure is configured properly, then the meters on the board will tell you the levels "downstream." Are you looking for software to help set the levels?
 
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