Spectrum analyzer

To help you judge the effect of the different dynamics processing bands on the incoming audio signal, FabFilter Pro-MB includes a powerful real-time frequency analyzer.

The spectrum analyzer can be customized via the analyzer settings panel, which pops up automatically when you hover above the Analyzer button in the bottom bar. It offers the following options:

• Using the Pre, Post and SC buttons at the top of the analyzer settings panel, you can choose to enable/disable the pre-processing, post-processing and side-chain spectrum visualization. Note that when global bypass is enabled, the plug-in won't receive or handle any audio, so the spectrum analyzer is disabled as well.
• The Resolution setting determines how precise the spectrum analyzer works. Higher resolution settings allow more precision in the low-frequency area, but because more incoming samples are needed to calculate a single spectrum, the update rate will be lower which generally results a slower attack time. The Low value corresponds to a resolution of 1024 points, Medium to 2048, High to 4096, and Maximum to 8192 points.
• The Speed setting selects the release speed of the spectrum. A fast release shows dynamic changes more clearly, while a slow release gives you more time to examine the spectrum before it disappears.
• The Tilt setting tilts the measured spectrum around 1 kHz with a specified slope, expressed in dB per octave. The default setting of 4.5 dB/oct results in a natural looking spectrum, resembling best how loudness is perceived by the human ear.
• Using the Freeze button at the left bottom of the panel, the spectrum will stop falling and show the maximum over time. While Freeze is enabled, a blue line at the top of the Analyzer button in the bottom bar indicates this state as well.

The spectrum analyzer uses the gray gain scale at the righthand side of the multiband display, ranging from -100 to 0 dB.

Horizontal zooming

Sometimes it might be useful to zoom in to a specific frequency. You can easily do this by clicking and dragging the frequency scale at the bottom of the display, just above the bottom bar. You can do the following:

• Click and drag up and down to zoom in and out at the frequency you have clicked on.
• While zoomed in, you can also drag left and right to move the frequency scale.
• Just double-click the scale to return to its default full range.

Tips

• When skipping through presets, the current analyzer settings are not changed, but they are saved in songs.
• Hold down the Freeze button to freeze temporarily until you release the mouse button again.
• If desired, you can make the analyzer panel 'sticky' by clicking the Analyzer button once. Click it again to hide the panel.

Next: Input and output options

See Also
Overview
Display and workflow