How to quickly see Before and After waveforms? Options

[Walter_Odington]

I want to compare waveforms before and after implementing audio effects plug ins such as compression and expansion. Is there any software or workflow that is good for doing this quickly?

[DVDdoug]

Most audio editors allow you to have more than one file open at a time, so you should be able to have a window open with the original file and one with the modified file.

It's usually better to compare with you ears. The visual waveform is mostly useful if you are cutting/splicing or applying an effect to part of the file.

[dhromed]

Sonic Visualiser lets you do a ton as well as add text and images and save the whole bunch as a project.

If you want to get started quickly, open a file in it, then open a Secondary File, and use the Layer menu to overlay it on the first file. The muck about for a while.

This post has been edited by dhromed: Feb 25 2012, 18:49

[Walter_Odington]

Thanks! Sonic visualised looks exactly what I'm looking for - layered waveforms is a Brucey bonus. Looks I will still need to export processed audio rather than be able to load up plug ins and have the waveform render, but that I rather specific I suppose! Looking forward to trying this out.

Ears first of course, bu I'd like to relate what I'm hearing to visual info

[slks]

In the software I use, it's easy to just zoom in to the desired spot on the waveform, then use the undo and redo buttons to apply/remove whatever processing you're doing, while looking at the same part of the wave. (Obviously this doesn't work if you are looking at your waveform in one app and doing your processing in another.)

[phofman]

In linux I would look at jack rack http://jack-rack.sourceforge.net/ for required effects plugins and delay lines, jack_latency for measuring the plugin latency (to be compensated by the delay line), and the multichannel jack.scope for online visualisation.