all_docs
Nebula Spatial Spectrogram
Nebula is a technology adapted from our flagship FLUX:: Analyzer System, a suite of highly regarded professional mastering and mixing visualization tools.
Screenshot from a Flux Pure Analyzer session.
Nebula in SPAT Revolution provides a unique representation of the sound field in terms of spectral content and localization rendered directly inside the 3D speaker simulation and virtual room display. It combines the functionality of a spectrum analyzer and a vector scope in a novel real-time display. It is a useful tool to get a real time overview of your SPATial mix in terms of spectral-spatial diffusion, and can give quite accurate representations of ‘where’ and ‘how’ sound will manifest over a real world sound system. A lot of work has gone into optimizing the real-time rendering of the display, not solely for aesthetic reasons, but because we wanted the display to react instantly to all the details in the incoming multichannel audio. The idea is literally for you to be able to see what the listener will hear and feel.
How does it work?
The overall principles behind Nebula are quite straightforward. At any given time, and for every frequency, the engine computes the position of a frequency in space (2D in stereo and 3D for multichannel surround). This position is taken as the center of gravity of the various channels, weighted by the relative amplitude of the signal in their corresponding channel. A color-intensity mapped projection is computed for the multi-speaker plane, giving a spectrum-space frame constrained to the surround sound field radius or sphere. Past analysis frames are progressively “forgotten”, using blur and dimming, in order to make place for new information, which gives the graphic display increased legibility and its characteristic ‘nebulous’ quality.
Nebula is available for Channel-Based room only.