3.0.0 7. March 2013
We have been hard at work for the last year to make Overtone Analyzer even better. Version 3.0 is a major new revision of Overtone Analyzer and comes with a bunch of exciting new features and many improvements of the existing features. Here is an overview of the most important changes since version 2.1:
Frequency Filters
Probably the most exciting new feature in Overtone Analyzer 3.0 is the ability to filter parts of the frequency range of a recording and make them louder or quieter. This allows you to listen to the individual overtones of your voice or instrument. You can also listen to the singer's formant of a voice in isolation, or you can listen to the same voice without a singer's formant.
This new spectral filtering tool greatly enhances the value of Overtone Analyzer as a tool to make overtones understandable. Not only can you visualize the harmonic composition of a sound, you can now also modify it very easily, play with it, and listen to your changes. All in real time.This feature is available both in the Live and the Premium edition. You can read more about frequency filters here .
Here is a short video demonstration of this new feature:
Profiles
Another important new feature is the ability to manage groups of user settings as Profiles with the new Profile Manager . Overtone Analyzer now comes with several predefined profiles that allow to quickly apply standard settings for many things, including different toolbar configurations for beginners, intermediate, and advanced users. Advanced users will find this feature a large timesaver by assigning keyboard shortcuts to frequently used settings.
More Waveform display modes
The audio data that is displayed in the Timeline and on the Waveform window can now be shown with a logarithmic scale mode to allow better measurements of the dynamics in a recording:
Better Pitch Display
The display of the fundamental pitch can now include a real-time view of the current note name or frequency in large letters that are still visible across the room. This makes Overtone Analyzer more suitable for tuning and pitch practice. The pitch line is also more accurate and much smoother now.
New Manual as PDF
The user manual for Overtone Analyzer has been revised and greatly expanded to cover all the new features. The manual is now available in the online-help that comes with the program, on this website , or as a downloadable PDF document .
The new manual includes a brand new Quickstart Tutorial that covers all major features. Various Video Tutorials will follow soon.
Improved Workflow for using Markers
The use of File Markers has been revised and improved with regards to editing markers, and to navigating a file through markers.
New Overtone Slider Tools
New tools have been added to use Overtone Sliders to transcribe notes in a piece of music, to use sliders for composition, and to facilitate rehearsal and practice of existing patterns and compositions.
Better Keyboard Support
Support for using Overtone Analyzer primarily with the keyboard has been revised and greatly expanded. Almost all functions in the program can now be accessed through user configurable keyboard shortcuts . Power users will find many commands that are exclusively available through the keyboard.
Better Looping
Making a selection and playing it in a loop (or playing it without looping) is now more configurable and more intuitive.
Better Cursors and Status Bar
When you point the mouse at any window that has a scale (such as frequency, time, or intensity), optional cursor lines will highlight the mouse pointer position on the nearby scale, and the status bar will show the exact numerical value. This feature is now much more complete and more consistent than in previous versions.
More languages for the Vowel Chart
The Vowel Chart now includes more languages for various countries.
Better Image Export
The image export function has been simplified and reviewed. It is now possible to save screenshots directly as email attachments, or to base the image filename on the name of the current recording.
User Interface colors are more configurable
Many colors that were previously hardcoded (such as the marker colors) are now user configurable.
Many bug fixes and usability improvements
Numerous small things have been fixed or improved.
- Login or register to post comments
This version has many bugfixes and some significant performance improvements.
- Fix: crash under Vista after some actions
- Fix: "License not found" error on machines that had certain programs from "PC-Tools" installed (such as "Threatfire" and "Spyware Doctor"
- Fix: stuttering display on some systems
- the frequency ranges of the vowel chart can now be adjusted in the advanced settings dialog
- various fixes and improvements in the Marker View
- the display of markers on the timeline has been revised significantly
- the current recording device is shown when the mouse hovers over the level meter on the toolbar
- Marker types can now be selectively hidden
- new icons on the settings dialog
- when editing, copying, cutting and pasting parts of recordings, the associated markers and sliders are correctly copied and pasted
- when the selection is extended by clicking and dragging, and the mouse leaves the window border, the resulting scrolling is much slower and much more predictable
- Markers are now embedded in audio files, the separate .oa file is no longer necessary
- the temp directory can now be put on external drives
- improved switching between spectrum and spectrogram (the cursor position won't be moved)
- various other fixes
2.0.0 28 October 2011
After more than a year of intensive development, we are very proud to introduce Overtone Analyzer 2.0. This version was created in close cooperation with several voice teachers and sound experts who already use the software in their daily practice. This resulted in many small improvements in usability, but also in some large new features that simplify and accelerate the work with sound visualization.
Overtone Analyzer Premium
Set Markers & manage Files
The biggest new feature for Overtone Analyzer 2.0 is the possibility to assign descriptions to whole recordings, and to individual passages within a recording. These markers are easily searchable. This allows to manage even large archives of recordings, so that you will always find the interesting parts in your sound archive.
Overtone Analyzer Live & Premium
Pitch Display
In addition to the spectrum and spectrogram, which are based on the Fourier analysis, Overtone Analyzer now has a separate pitch recognition module that assigns a fundamental pitch to each point in time of the recording with very high accuracy. This allows to measure and display the fundamental pitch much more easily, especially for deep tones. The pitch display shows very clearly if a tone has the intended pitch. Singers can see the pitch of the note onset as well as the quality of their vibrato. Instrumentalists can tune their instrument with extreme precision and use visual feedback to practice their embouchure and the accuracy of their pitch.
Vowel Chart
The vowel chart shows the relation betwen vowels and formants. The spectrogram and spectrum now have rulers that can be set to mark resonance frequencies, which will appear as lines on the vowel chart. This allows to assign those resonance frequencies to each vowel that form it. The vowel chart opens up many new ways of teaching and understanding the connections between resonance tones, formants, and overtones.
All Editions (Free, Live & Premium)
All editions get many improvements in the performance and usability of the program. Here are the most important ones:
- New piano keyboard
- Mouse wheel emulation: the keys 1 and 2 simulate the mouse wheel action for zooming and scrolling, which allows to easily zoom and scroll on a laptop that has no mouse wheel.
- Zoomable timeline: Ctrl+Mousewheel now zooms the timeline. This is especially useful for navigating long recordings with many markers.
- Improved tone generator: the sine wave generator has much better performance and can therefore play tones up to 20kHz (not just 10kHz as before). Note sliders can be moved during playback, and the frequency will be smoothly adjusted in real time.
- The piano can now also play sine waves.
- The timeline is now at the bottom by default, as many other programs have it there as well.
- During playback of loops, the beginning and end of the loop will be softly faded in and out to avoid loud pops.
- Extended mouse controls: Shift+Click sets the selection from the playback cursor to the clicked position. Ctrl+Click+Drag sets the selection and zooms to it immediately.
- When the spectrum is horizontal, the slider labels are now at the bottom so that the spectral peaks are not obscured by them.
- various bugs fixed
1.5.2 29. July 2010
- The software is digitally signed now. This might reduce the occasional false alert from some virus scanners.
- some minor fixes
1.5.1 19. July 2010
This is a maintenance release with some small bug fixes. You only need this version if you were affected by the problems mentioned below. There will be a bigger update with many new features in a while.
- Bugfix: crash at startup for screen color depths other than 32 bit
- Bugfix: under some conditions saved sound files were not readable by some other audio applications
- Bugfix: the font of the note sliders could not be changed
- various other small fixes
1.5.0 May 10, 2010
- The Live Edition now also supports unlimited recording and editing of audio files!
- Many new entries in the 'Edit' menu:
- Normalize volume: increase volume of sections that are too quiet.
- Set selection: opens dialog to exactly specify the selected time range.
- Replace with silence
- Insert silence
- Overtone Analyzer can now open almost all know audio and video file formats. When opening videos, the first audio track will be automatically loaded.
- The Premium Edition has a new feature to open multiple windows on a single file. This makes it very easy to compare different parts of a recording that are not next to each other. To open a new window, select a time range and then click 'Window / New window of current selection'.
- When the time slider is moved during playback, the playback position will immediately jump to the beginning of the new range. This makes it much easier to search a long recording.
- The Overtone Sliders can now be resized and positioned independently of each other.
- Peak files are now cached. This increases the speed of opening previously files dramatically.
- Resizing the application window is much smoother now.
- The command 'lock selection' has its own icon on the toolbar now (the lock icon).
- Various bugfixes.
- Pressing the space bar while recording will stop the current recording without starting playback.
- Ctrl-W closes the current file
1.3.0 Dezember 3 2009
- Drawing the spectrogram is up to 300% faster than version 1.2.0. This allows smooth scrolling on most machines now.
- The spectrum is now drawn with smooth (anti-aliased) contours, which improves the image quality significantly.
- When the note sliders are transparent, only the area hidden by the sliders becomes darker. Previously, the entire screen was obscured.
- various bugfixes
