Extras
Waken your inner engineer
with the MicroBook IIc’s many advanced extras.
Instrument Tuner
Accurately tune guitars and other instruments
Play a note and use the large graphic display to get in tune with an accuracy of one 10th of a cent (one 1,000th of a semi-tone). The Tuner displays the detected note by name, octave, and frequency (in Hertz), with an adjustable reference frequency for A4 between 400 and 480 Hz. You can even tune phase-coherent stereo signals. The CueMix FX Tuner is as advanced and accurate as any dedicated hardware tuner out there.
White/pink noise generator
Sometimes, noise is useful and good
That's why the MicroBook IIc provides both white noise and pink noise, which can be used for sound effects, filter sweeps, masking, testing, calibration, and much more. With noise this close to your fingertips, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.
Sine wave generator
Infinitely useful in any studio environment
Set the frequency, set the amplitude, and choose an output. It's that simple. Sine waves can be immeasurably useful for setting levels, performing calibration, troubleshooting, sound design, and annoying the heck out of unwanted visitors when they invade your studio.
Spectrogram "waterfall"
A cascade of information — in vivid color
Observe rich, detailed visual information about the frequency content of any signal or mix. You can expand the spectrogram to fill the entire resizable CueMix FX on-screen window. You can also combine the spectrogram with the FFT display in the same display, as shown below, or separate them to view each individually but simultaneously.
FFT display
Visualize your frequency content
Visually monitor the frequency content of your music or other audio material as it plays. The CueMix FX software superimposes a Fast Fourier Transform directly on the spectrogram display so that you can see the relationship between the two for the audio material being monitored.
X-Y Plot
Check phase alignment with visual clarity
The X-Y Plot window graphs a stereo signal on a standard grid with left-channel amplitude on the x-axis and right-channel amplitude on the y-axis. Stereo material that is said to be "in polarity" (i.e., phase aligned) appears along the x = y axis. Stereo material that has phase problems will appear along the x = -y axis meaning the signal will appear predominantly in the upper left and lower right of the display. A signal with an extremely wide stereo field will appear much more randomly (not along either axis).
Scatter
Linear
Phase Analysis
Check for phase cancellation when summing to mono
In the polar view, the radius represents frequency and the angle (theta) from the +y vertical axis represents the phase difference of left channel minus the right channel. Stereo audio that is generally in phase will appear along the +y axis (above the center point). The more the audio signal "tips" to the left or right, the more out of polarity it is. If it is completely out of phase, it will point downwards from the center point and hover around the -y axis (the part of the y axis below the center point).
The Phase Analysis window graphs frequency versus phase difference versus amplitude of a stereo signal on either rectangular or polar coordinates. In the rectangular view, the vertical axis represents frequency, and the horizontal axis represents the phase of the left channel minus the phase of the right channel. Stereo audio that is predominantly in polarity will appear centered along the center vertical axis. Frequencies that would be canceled by summing to mono are those that touch the -1.0 or +1.0 lines on the left and right.
Scatter
Line
Applications for phase analysis
Phase analysis can be used for a broad range of applications
in the studio and on the stage. Here are just a few ideas.
Summing to mono
If your stereo material needs to be summed to mono, Phase Analysis lets you see what frequencies will be canceled out when summed.
Checking overall polarity
Quickly check the overall polarity in your stereo mix for phase issues.
Oscilloscope
This is not your grandpa’s oscilloscope…
CueMix FX’s oscilloscope delivers a robust feature set combined with digital precision. Amplitude is displayed on the y-axis and time is displayed on the x-axis. The pause button lets you “freeze” the real-time display and then zoom in to the sample level for closer examination. You can choose among several different displays for stereo signals, including combined (as shown below) or split screen. The Waveform Recognition feature searches through new audio data looking for matching waveform data, and the trigger options let you specify detailed criteria for displaying the incoming signal’s waveform in the display. The oscilloscope can be used for a variety of daily studio tasks, such as analyzing and comparing harmonic content, closely inspecting transients such as drum hits, comparing timing between two signals, and performing clip detection. You can even use the oscilloscope to help you build synth patches and check them for non-obvious issues, such as DC offset.
