Sonic Visualiser Editor's Review

From the beginning of the digital era, music has changed a lot. Today, composing, recording, producing and performing, involves new techniques and tools most of them depending on the PC's power. In this way, music has reached a new dimension, in which anyone can analyze it into a deeper perspective. In case you work in the music business, or you study in this field, Sonic Visualiser may come in handy if you want to analyze in detail the contents of an audio file. Either, Linux, MacOSX, or Windows user, Sonic Visualiser is available in any of your correspondent operating system.

Sonic Visualiser is a free visualizer and analyzer of the sound waveform and specter. You can load any audio file (WAV, Ogg and MP3) and view their waveforms or spectograms and analyze in standard parameters its content. Being an open source project, Sonic Visualiser can use LADSPA and DSSI plugins. The Windows users will be in advantage, as they can also use LADSPA plugins from the Audacity plugins library. You just have to access the correspondent library and choose the proper plugin. Some of them are ready to be installed, others have to be copied to the Vamp Plugins directory which has to be created manually. A simple restart will enable the new plugin installed and Sonic Visualiser is ready for a deeper analyzing process.

Nothing bad against the interface. The whole designed is focused on displaying the waveform and its timeline, with its correspondent layers sorted on tabs on the right. In case is activated, the spectogram will be displayed on the bottom of the window and you can browse it simultaneously with the waveform. You can also visually apply the spectrum over the spectogram and view its modification while playing the audio track. For any observation you can add annotations directly to the waveform with a pin-point precision thanks to the zoom option. You can also use different colors for any selection or annotation.

Sonic Visualiser is not supporting original VST plugins, but you can get use the Audacity VST Enabler that works for the Mac or Windows version.

Pluses: free, support for plugins, you can add annotations, detailed paramters display, use of colors to point out your remarks;

Drawbacks/flaws: suitable for musicians with average computers knowledge;

In conclusion: Sonic Visualiser is a free and powerful audio analyzer that gives an average control based on graphical waveforms and spectograms.

version reviewed: 1.7.2