Graph control
As well as the right-click context menu and Measure menus (which determine regular left-click action) the keyboard also has a number of shortcuts which are rather useful.
With the keyboard
For moving about on the graphs and zooming in and out on the X and Y axii the keyboard is by far the easiest choice. Have a play and see how you get on, our elves tell us that they can navigate around these graphs with their eyes closed - it's that intuitive.
Note that even if a key in the list below is in capitals, the lower case key is what should be pressed, i.e. to toggle the Measure menu just press 'm'.
Direct acting keys:
- Cursor keys: The cursor keys (left, right, up, down) move you around the graph. If there is no point in the move, the graph will resist your efforts, and you probably need to zoom in first.
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SHIFT: If you also press SHIFT when you are using the cursor keys, you get zoom in and out.
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CTRL: If you press CTRL when you are using the cursor keys, you get a finer control of movement. If you also press CTRL with SHIFT, you get a finer control of zoom.
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PGUP: (page up) zooms out (both axis) for a wider view. The zoom is centred in the plot area.
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PGDN: (page down) zooms in (both axis) for a closer. The zoom is centred in the plot area.
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D: Pressing 'd' toggles the digital view of the graph, if valid. For resampling previews this is disabled as the graph needs to be regenerated for the correct view.
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M: This brings up the Measure menu, allowing you to select the mouse action on the graphs.
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B: Pressing 'b' toggles blobs. These blobs, unlike 'The Blob', only appear on analog graphs that are magnified beyond a certain point. This enables you to see where each sample sits.
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ENTER: Fits the graph back into the visible window (fit-to-window).
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ESC: Pressing ESC closes the graph.
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Pressing 'b' toggles blobs. These blobs, unlike 'The Blob', only appear on analog graphs that are magnified beyond a certain point. This enables you to see where each sample sits.
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Keys that affect what the mouse does:
- C: This sets cursors measuring, if the Measure menu is open you will see the selection. If already selected the cursors are deleted from the graph.
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A: Sets [Zoom area] so that using the mouse you can draw in the new plot boundary
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I: Pressing 'i' means when you click the graph you zoom into that spot. (X and Y determine the axis zoomed).
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O: Pressing 'o' means when you click the graph you zoom out of that spot. (X and Y determine the axis zoomed).
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X: This toggles whether or not the X axis is zoomed.
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Y: This toggles whether or not the Y axis is zoomed.
With the context menu
The context menu appears if you click using the right hand mouse button on a graph. If the graph is partially obscured it will be promoted to the top of the window stack so you can see it. If this happens - click it again.
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Context menu functions:
- Measure menu - Clicking on this opens (or closes) the graph Measure menu.
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Cursors (on/off) - if you click on a graph then measuring cursors appear. Measurement results are shown in the graph Measure menu.
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Zoom_in (on/off) - if you click on a graph then you will zoom in where you click. Press CTRL for finer control. By default it is the X axis that zooms, but you can select axis from the graph Measure menu.
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Zoom_out (on/off) - as above but for zooming out.
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Zoom area (on/off) - This allows you to zoom into an area by drawing/dragging a frame onto it. i.e. press, move mouse, release.
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Fit to window - This fits the graph perfectly to the window (auto-scale). Same as pressing ENTER.
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Set Limits menu - (set plot bounds manually). Opens the manual limits menu so you can sample axis limits and set them by typing in numbers.
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FFT (create FFT) - Opens the FFT menu to perform an FFT on the waveform (Pro version only).
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Axis (change axis function and look) - Opens the axistype menu to set axis functions and view.
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Close graph the graph - Closes the current graph.
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Re-tile all graphs to fit into the main window - use the top level Windows menu to jump to any obscured menu.
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The context menu allows you to set the mouse mode (the effect clicking the left hand mouse button on the graph), and to operate upon the graph in question. You can select the context menu function by clicking on the required field or using the UP and DOWN cursor keys to navigate and ENTER to select (or ESC to cancel).
Graph waveform colours
Basically the colours on the graphs are all additive, so that when the curves overlay one another, nothing gets obscured. This restricts the available set of colours, but adds to the richness of detail you can see.
Graphical CD waveform colours
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If you just browse a graph via the Graph menu the colours are:
When the graph is compacted you also get the RMS average as the brighter colour in the middle, with is light red for right, bright blue for left. When left and right coincide you get grey. When RMS right and left coincide you get white.
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Graphical CD preview waveform colours
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If you look in the preview you get the original left and right in darker blue and red to the original left and right.
Most of the waveform looks bright red and blue because the before and after waves are coincident on the graph. Look closely at the fixed clips and you can see a dim red/blue line at the clip level and a slightly brighter blue/red line as the repaired section.
You get white flashes where the before and after left + right colours all coincide.
You get grey colour where only before or only after left and right coincide.
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Axis control and digital/analog view
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Use the AXIS menu to change the axis scale or between digital and analogue display.
For time-domain waveforms (i.e. WAV files and music waveforms) it is not such a useful thing to switch to a logarithmic scale (dBs are already logarithmic) but for frequency curves it is quite common to see them on a log scale.
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For instance the FFT graph above can be flipped into a log scale with this menu, note the vertical bars are now arranged in the usual log pattern.
Getting/Setting plot limits manually
Manual setting of graph bounds.
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This allows you to enter the graph bounds manually.
If you click on Sample X or Sample Y it puts the current graphs settings and puts them into the value boxes.
If you click on Reset X or Reset Y it puts fit-to-window settings into the value boxes.
Setting bounds manually allows you to compare graphs a little more easily because you can easily get to absolute settings.
If you press 'Cancel' the menu still remembers the settings, and when you open the menu for a different graph (of the same domain) the settings are preserved.
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Therefore if you zoom into one graph and want to see the same section on a different graph (for example the same time segment), you merely do the fllowing:
- Open the limits menu on the first graph (and press Sample X if you have already used this menu).
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Close the limits menu (press Cancel).
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Open the limits menu on the second graph and press Sample Y to set the Y value to the current Y values
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Press OK
Measuring the waveforms
Or how to use the Measure menu. The measure menu is opened by waving the mouse pointer over a graph (so the border indicates focus) and pressing 'm'. You can also open it from the Graph or context menu.
This menu allows you to choose the action of the left hand mouse button (as in the context menu above). The boxes labelled X and Y select the zoom axii if you have selected <In> or <Out> (see below). If you select Measure the left hand mouse click will cause the cursors to appear on the graph, and the values to appear in the associated colour-coded boxes in the meaure menu.
Measure menu presets
- Cursors This sets cursors measuring, if the Measure menu is open you will see the selection. If already selected the cursors are deleted from the graph.
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[Zoom area] means that using the mouse you can draw in the new plot boundary
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<In> set means when you click the graph you zoom into that spot. (X and Y determine the axis zoomed).
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<Out> set means when you click the graph you zoom out of that spot. (X and Y determine the axis zoomed).
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X This toggles whether or not the X axis is zoomed.
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Y This toggles whether or not the Y axis is zoomed.
The Measure menu presets and mouse mean that zooming in and out is centred about the mouse - so when zooming in, click exactly on the area you wish to be in the centre of the screen. When using the mouse zoom remember the keys X,Y and A can usefully modify the mouse action.
Taking stock
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The cursors are the green and magenta crosshairs that appear on the graph. If you use the mouse you will see the cursors tracking the curves. You can select the curve to view with the mouse (click on it).
IF you put the mouse on top of the measure menu, you can press the cursor keys ← and → to move the cursor from one sample point to the next.
In addition you can use the Trough and Peak buttons to automatically scan to the next peak and trough, so you can get an accurate value.
Min and Max just find the absolute min and max values in the whole graph.
The dark grey band with white numbers in is the difference between the two cursors. If you tick the 1/δX box the reciprocal of the base value difference is taken. In practical terms (see picture) the two cursors are both on peaks on the right hand channel and the time difference is 3.635648msec. Selecting 1/δX allows you to see that represents a tone of 275.054Hz. Which is nice.
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Creating FFTs - Fast Fourier Transforms (Pro version only)
The FFT menu allows you to create FFTs of your waveforms. This gives you a frequency graph, so you can see which frequencies are used in the waveform you do the FFT on. You can perform an FFT on the whole waveform or selected portions of them. The most useful results will be those on simple instrument notes.
With the FFT you can confirm the fall and rise of various frequency components within the waveform, and you can see how they are affected by the declipping process.
There are various window shapes available with various properties, the Window Function page in wikipedia is a good place to learn about them.
Note: The dB reference is not aligned to the peak signal,
- therefore the absolute number should not currently be taken to mean anything.
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A typical result is this, showing how the signal magnitude varies with frequency:
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The FFT is also useful if you are resampling stuff.
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Here for example is the FFT of the resampling example (4x) above, the yellow trace is the original trace and the new (resampled/upsampled) trace is the lower (better) one in grey at the bottom.
This FFT was taken from the digital graph of the preview however - with resampled preview graphs the actual data in the waveform you are applying the FFT to differs when you select analog and digital graphing, although one cannot really say which is more accurate as the playback situation somewhat dictates that.
Also the graphs are very similar up to nearly 30kHz!
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