computer science

Sonic Visualiser

Sonic Visualiser is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sonic Visualiser rather than just read about it. In short: Sonic Visualiser is an application for viewing and analysing the contents of music audio files. It is a free software distributed under the GPL-2.0-or-later licence.

Key takeaways

Sonic Visualiser belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sonic Visualiser to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sonic Visualiser from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sonic Visualiser is an application for viewing and analysing the contents of music audio files. It is a free software distributed under the GPL-2.0-or-later licence.

History Sonic Visualiser was developed at the Queen Mary University of London's Centre for Digital Music in 2007. It was written in C++ with Qt and released under the terms of the GNU GPL.

Overview

Sonic Visualiser represents acoustic features of the audio file either as a waveform or as a spectrogram. A spectrogram is a heatmap, where the horizontal axis represents time, the vertical axis represents frequency, and the colors show presence of frequencies. The sharpness and smoothness of the spectrogram can be configured. There are three types of spectrogram:

generic spectrogram melodic-range spectrogram peak-frequency spectrogram Generic spectrogram covers the full frequency range and uses linear frequency scale. Melodic-range spectrogram covers the range which usually contains musical detail. Peak-frequency spectrogram performs phase difference calculations and estimates exact frequencies at each peak cell. The interface consists of panes and layers. Panes allow to display multiple visualisations simultaneously, and they get aligned in the time axis. A pane can have multiple layers which are used for annotation. The user can configure color schemes for layers, and they can be navigated by clicking the labeled tabs. There are multiple types of annotation layers which can be edited, including time instants, time-value plots, labels and images. Time instants do not have any associated value, and they can be used to annotate points (e.g. beat locations). Annotations allow the user to clarify relationships between musical parameters. Sonic Visualiser supports third-party plugins in the Vamp plugin format. The plugins take audio input and parameters and return values for display. There are plugins which compute spectral flux and spectral centroid. Other plugins include automatic melody extraction, beat finding, chord analysis, etc. Sonic Visualiser is available for Linux, OS X, and Windows operating systems.

See also Comparison of free software for audio List of information graphics software Baudline Praat

References

External links Official website Changelog / Release Notes Community and Developer Resources Documentation for version 3.1.1 Screenshots Videos

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sonic Visualiser

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sonic Visualiser claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sonic Visualiser before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sonic Visualiser ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sonic Visualiser

In research: Sonic Visualiser appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sonic Visualiser in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sonic Visualiser is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Acoustics software, Audio software for Linux, Audio software that uses Qt, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sonic Visualiser outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sonic Visualiser in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sonic Visualiser means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sonic Visualiser out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sonic Visualiser in simple terms?

Sonic Visualiser is an application for viewing and analysing the contents of music audio files. It is a free software distributed under the GPL-2.0-or-later licence.

Why does Sonic Visualiser matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sonic Visualiser?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sonic Visualiser.