looking for a software-scope

[bevergerner]

Hello,
some people will remember the era of scopes in the seventies.
Now we have our music digitally on the computer and hear it about our systems.
I use foobar - with the darkone design.
But I'm missing a suitable visualization that can display multichannel. Gladly one that represents only 4.0.

There was a scope, e.g. from Marantz:


Does any of you know such a visualization?
I am looking forward to an interesting discussion

 

[HomerJAU]

I'd love to have access to a software quad (and 5.0) scope.

I've found a stereo vectorscope in ffmpeg. I wonder if one of our QQ members is a C programmer that might look at the ffmpeg source code to see what's required to add quad support. Ffmpeg is open source.

 

[HomerJAU]

I've found some other code for a nice stereo vectorscope. Does anyone know the basic theory so that I could have a go at implementing a quad version? (and 5.0) or should I start a new thread?

Let's get this in Kodi or Foobar as an add-on!

 

[kap'n krunch]

Go for it HomerJAU... I believe in you!!!

 

[skherbeck]

Nothing like visualizations! Today I added the plasma ball in the corner:

 

[Snood]

Nothing like visualizations! Today I added the plasma ball in the corner:
View attachment 32842

You said Plasma Ball

Looks koooo man

 

[HomerJAU]

From what I’ve read the stereo vector scope measures phase differences between left and right channels.

Can I presume a quad vector scope could be made by combining 4 stereo phase difference:
FL FR, FL BL, FR BR & BL BR

Or should it measure every channel pair (I.e FL against other 3, FR to BL & BR and BL to BR)?

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

I've used a conventional oscilloscope in X-Y mode as a stereo audio vector scope many times down through the years. But a quad scope such as the Marantz unit appears to be working quite a bit differently. I haven't quite figured it out, but it looks as if there is some full-wave rectification of the audio signals going on there.. Unless I'm mistaken, this could be a way of confining each channel to its own quadrant on the screen, as we see happening in the video.

Hmm... I may have to screw around with this for awhile down at the shop this weekend if I can find the time...

[EDIT] Whoa, just found the Marantz 4400 schematic online. Excellent... [/Mr. Burns]

[EDIT EDIT] Yes! Each of the 4 channels is simply half-wave rectified (to chop off the negative half of the waveform), then applied to a nifty little passive crosshatch resistor network, to "steer" the CRT beam to the proper quadrant for each channel. Very cool.

Okay. I don't know how to program in C, but here's some pseudocode to describe what's happening in the Marantz (and presumably the others), applied to a digital audio stream:

1. First: assuming our virtual beam's no-signal resting position is a dot in the center of the display area, we establish some variables outside of the processing loop:

HPOS shifts the dot to the right
HNEG shifts left
VPOS shifts up
VNEG shifts down

2. Then (entering the loop), we "full-wave rectify" each channel's sample by simply taking the absolute value (converting all negative values to positives):

LF = ABS (LF)
RF = ABS (RF)
LB = ABS (LB)
RB = ABS (RB)

3, Now, the matrix:

VPOS = (LF + RF) / 2
VNEG = (LB + RB) / 2
HPOS = (RF + RB) / 2
HNEG = (LF + LB) / 2

4. Finally, repeat Steps 2 & 3 for each successive group of 4 samples.

Et voila!

Hope this helps. Any C coders out there?

 

[HomerJAU]

Thanks Jim. I saw my first quad scope at Ron’s (rustandi) a while back. It looked so cool! Interesting to hear what you think. I could rotate scales for channels without too much problem (famous last words...)

Edit: I can’t remember Ron’s model. But it showed a similar scatter view to the Marantz video I posted

 

[HomerJAU]

I've used a conventional oscilloscope in X-Y mode as a stereo audio vector scope many times down through the years. But a quad scope such as the Marantz unit appears to be working quite a bit differently. I haven't quite figured it out, but it looks as if there is some full-wave rectification of the audio signals going on there.. Unless I'm mistaken, this could be a way of confining each channel to its own quadrant on the screen, as we see happening in the video.

Hmm... I may have to screw around with this for awhile down at the shop this weekend if I can find the time...

[EDIT] Whoa, just found the Marantz 4400 schematic online. Excellent... [/Mr. Burns]

[EDIT EDIT] Yes! Each of the 4 channels is simply half-wave rectified (to chop off the negative half of the waveform), then applied to a nifty little passive crosshatch resistor network, to "steer" the CRT beam to the proper quadrant for each channel. Very cool.

Okay. I don't know how to program in C, but here's some pseudocode to describe what's happening in the Marantz (and presumably the others), applied to a digital audio stream:

First, we "full-wave rectify" each channel's samples by simply taking the absolute value (converting all negative values to positives):

LF = ABS (LF)
RF = ABS (RF)
LB = ABS (LB)
RB = ABS (RB)

Now: assuming our virtual beam's no-signal resting position is a dot in the center of the display area, we establish 4 more variables:

HPOS shifts the dot to the right
HNEG shifts left
VPOS shifts up
VNEG shifts down

Now, the matrix:

VPOS = (LF / 2) + (RF / 2)
VNEG = (LB /2) + (RB / 2)
HPOS = (RF /2) + (RB / 2)
HNEG = (LF / 2 + (LB / 2)

Et voila!

Hope this helps. Any C coders out there?

Hey thanks again Jim!

The open source I’ve found looks fairly straight forward at first glance. So I’m thinking I can convert c to c# which I can read and code a little. I’ve used Fortran in another life and now use VB.net (from VB years ago) - never C.

I’ve also contacted the original developer of the stereo vector scope code and asked him if he’s interested in making a quad version (no reply yet) but either way your info above is going to help immensely.

It’s more about doing a visual representation than any accurate analysis for mixing so it looks like we have a path to follow.

Any C coders out there?

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

You're welcome Homer! It might be best to send a link to my post, rather than copying & pasting, as I've made several edits to it since I first posted it (past my bedtime, heh.)

 

[HomerJAU]

No probs, thanks again. I’m just about to crack my third beer for the evening (beer of the world tonight, Kingfisher, Tsing Tao and now a Peroni). Quad tonight too, sorry but I’m going to do the Pink Floyd’s tonight

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

Homer, here's an alternate version of the processing loop, with the maths changed around a bit to avoid clipping:
---------------------
LF = ABS (LF) / 2
RF = ABS (RF) / 2
LB = ABS (LB) / 2
RB = ABS (RB) / 2

VPOS = (LF + RF)
VNEG = (LB + RB)
HPOS = (RF + RB)
HNEG = (LF + LB)
---------------------
I've got an example of this nearly working, using a software synthesizer called ABox2 that I've had for years. Stay tuned...

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

Hmm... This does work, but the visualization isn't quite what we want. The channel vectors aren't as well defined as the old quad scope; too much out-of-phase going on.

I'm missing something here; may need to add one more step. I'll try to figure it out, then I'll be back with a summary of what I'm doing.

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

Ah, I get it! By rectifying first, I was obliterating the phase information! Duh.

I've changed things around, and I can now see the 'X' pattern of the channel vectors, but the out-of-phase stuff is still dominant. The matrix isn't right yet...

 

[HomerJAU]

Hi Jim. Could you do a screen capture of what you have now please?

 

[HomerJAU]

I’ve been looking at how this could be implemented in Foobar and Kodi (probably wanted in JRiver too). We’re definitely going to need expert C programming skills. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a developer(s) in those communities that will be interested.

It will need to support both stereo and surround to widen the audience, that should be straight forward.

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

I'd rather wait with screen shots until I get the display right (I'm getting close). Abox2 has a scope readout, but it's really small. This is mostly just a proof of concept for now. But as soon as I have a proper emulation of the CRT display, I'll post a complete description of what I have, along with my Abox2 patch so that you can try it at home.

 

[kap'n krunch]

all of this tech talk is "turning me on" (hahahaha!!!)..
At least I sort of understand what's going on (sorry , not a C programmer)...

ROCK ON BROTHERS!!!

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

OK. I was wrong about the rectification. It can happen ahead of the matrix, just like it does in the Marantz. My mistake was that I wasn't careful enough with my model of the analog circuit.

Right at the start, I had substituted full-wave rectification (slightly simpler math) for the half-wave circuit in the Marantz. Half-wave works better because it polarizes the signal while retaining more of the phase information compared to full-wave. This is a crucial difference that I missed at first.

With that in mind, here's the latest pseudocode for the processing loop:

Half-wave rectification:

LF = LF + ABS (LF)
RF = RF + ABS (RF)
LB = LB + ABS (LB)
RB = RB + ABS (RB)

Matrix:

X = (RF + RB) - (LF + LB)
Y = (LF + RF) - (LB + RB)

I simplified the matrix (X = horizontal, Y = vertical), and also removed the scaling for clarity (also assuming at least 32-bit floating-point math at this point).

Since I can't really code much at all, I've dusted off an old piece of software called Abox2 to try this out, and it looks pretty cool so far. I gotta get some sleep, but I'll try to put a video on YouTube tomorrow.

P.S. Sorry about all this stream-of-consciousness stuff; I'm learning as I go along here.