This has happened too often that i decided to ask on here. I often get differing results with different plugins. Currently working on a bass in F from a sylenth1 preset. Boosted 87.3hz on Pro-Q3 and it indicates F as the highest note. Pro-Q3 has a tilt of 4.5db/oct. On Span @ High Res mode, it’s telling me E. Span has a 4.50 slope. On Live’s Spectrum, it is barely an F, just a fraction on the cursor movement to the left will change to E right away. Plugins are in the order of Pro-Q3, Span, Spectrum. I know everybody seems to love Span but in my expreience, that one seems to often give the differing results.

 

F2 = 87,307Hz
E2 = 82,407Hz
In SPAN your cursor is set at 84,3Hz.
For 87,3Hz SPAN shows correctly F2.
This has nothing to do with the slope.

 

I'm guessing (don't use Span) my tigery friend, that the cursor is being hovered over the highest peak, this is the "innacuracy" of Span? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (the rez seems very low, rly, may be the main prob - Q3 shows nothing)

 

Valid point, my scantily clad friend. With different values for Block Size or Smoothing the visual results will differ, even within SPAN, but that's just normal.

 

looks pretty much the same to me. you have lower resolution settings in pro-q and live, but in that area on span there is another, lower amp peak slightly higher than that, which is probably shifting the average up slightly with lower res windows.
spectrum analysers are great tools, one i cant live without, but they should be used as a guide rather than gospel. results can appear to vary slightly depending on settings and methods but they will get you close enough to save you a lot of time.

 

SPAN has a default slope, change it by pressing EDIT.

 

Since Pro-Q3 and SPAN are set to the same slope (4,5), this doesn't explain the different peaks.

 

use them ears and not your eyes. your not making graphics :P

 

I've noticed this too a few times and SPAN seems to show correct value. I've used Pro-Q3 less and less. (I already use ApQualizr2 since years back so I'm not overly sad anyway, but the dynamic EQ in Pro-Q3 is handy)

 

use hornet ThirtyOne

 

If you want to determine the exact frequency (the pitch) in SPAN, you have to zoom in on the frequency axis, because otherwise the screen resolution (in 100% zoom = entire frequency range) is too low.

 

Lol
User error!
Put the mouse cursor on the PEAK and you'll get correct results!

 

A mix of this

and this

Zoom in put the cursor on the peak and you get your 85.something ...

84.9 Hz equals F2 -49cent
84.8Hz equals E2 +50 cents

 

Last edited: May 8, 2020

i hear that a lot. in reality:

• audio 1.01 - "trust your ears, not your eyes"

• ...

• audio 9999.999 - "never trust your ears"

the truth is that all our ears are different, and on top of that we dont actually hear things the way they are, our brains and physical aspects change things. and thats ignoring the fact that everybodys equipment is different.
there are a lot of factors that make human hearing imperfect. using visual tools COMBINED with using your ears helps get where you need to be much quicker. of course, you should always trust your ears primarily, but if your meters are telling you something different you should not ignore it.
the time it saves me is crazy. i have SPAN open on my master most of the time. if i hear a frequency i want to tame, for example, then i can right click that position on SPAN to copy the frequency and paste it straight into pro-q. it gets me bang on where i need it in 2 seconds, rather than maybe 6-8 seconds of sweeping around, even though i have a trained ear and i know roughly where it is by listening. somebody new to audio might take much longer.
it might be a few seconds, but over a whole project i use an EQ hundreds, maybe thousands of times, which buys me enough time to blaze one :D

 

Interesting i tested this.
I managed to get them almost identical to each other.
Span is a much better frequency analyser though as it has more options, Q3 is more than good enough to aid eq'ing.

 

since pro-Q has introduced the ability to see the responce of other instances i have relied on SPAN much less. i still value it highly, but when dealing with phase issues pro-Q has it all there ready to go.
the only problem is if the EQ you are referencing is before other effects in the chain, then you either have to add another EQ at the end of the chain or just take it into account. with SPAN on my master channel it is easy to default back to using that though.

 

Ok, thanks. Didn’t realize I could zoom in on Span. So would the best resolution be to set it on High Res mode and just use the horiz & vert sliders?

yeah I’d like to be able to use my ears more but determining the key of a kick is challenging and I use the analyzers for that. Unless somebody has a better suggestion? Live 10 is my daw.

 

you will still get the same resolution with the graph, but the readout and the copy function will be much more accurate. you probably wont find much need to zoom vertically, but the horizontal zoom is extremely useful.
a helpful tip: SPAN can store two "zoom states", you can switch between them by double clicking. the way i use that is by having one zoomed in state and one overall state, it doesnt save much time when zooming in if you are inspecting a different area, but it saves time zooming out again.

determining the key of a kick is even difficult with a tuner. i also use an analyser, it is the most effective method i have used. i am also open to suggestions though.
the only problem with a spectrum analyser for this is that you see the transient, which is usually a fast sweep downward in pitch, which can cause some confusion as to where the most dominant pitch is. a useful trick that sometimes works is to temporarily fade in over the transient in the clip you are listening to. usually paying less attention to max hold and more attention to real-time is enough though.

 

What's High Res Mode? You can adjust the block size. I'd start with 8192. The higher you set it, the more detailed the curve is but also the slower the curve will respond, depends on your computer.
Additionally I use RT AVG for the first display and MAX for the second.
Also see: https://www.voxengo.com/files/userguides/VoxengoSPAN_en.pdf/getbyname/Voxengo SPAN User Guide en.pdf

 

think thats my fault. i referred to it incorrectly near the top of the thread. this is absolutely correct ^, it is not resolution and there is no high res mode. the concept appears similar when looking at it so i simplified it, but no avenger is correct.