Originally posted by noisy bumble:
All -
This is a really bad question, but here goes - what does the Spectrum Analyzer in Winamp actually measure?

Not much, more for show

I'm sure this can be improved, at great benefit to my recordings methinks. But how?

:) Go to http://www.hitsquad.com click on audio recording software, scroll to spectrum analyzers, and pick one. Some are free, some have a demo period.

Hope this helps,
--Rick

To directly answer the question:
Spectrum analyzers measure the instantaneous amplitude of a number of bands in the music, and sorts out the data in a frequency domain graph. In that sense, higher bar = louder activity for that bandwidth. Left = low frequency, right = high frequency. Winamp's spectral analysis is actually pretty useful if you don't have anything else, but it suffers from two conditions:

1) Y-axis is pretty narrow - you'll only see decent activity on this if your mix has been compressed somewhat

2) It seems the X-axis scale is proportional to the bitrate of the file being played. An MP3 which makes the far right leap close to the top may only make a small portion of the display react after being decoded to .wav (14H kbps at 16/44)

Get a decent spectral analyzer - one that shows dB readings and the frequency domain.

Lack of activity in the right side usually shows a lack of treble control in the mix - This can sometimes make for muddy or dull sounding mixes. Bring up treble channels like cymbals on the drums, or find another way to add in more brilliance to the mix. (Exciting compression/ EQ, maybe?)

Demo the RAL analyzer. If you like it, the cost is $24. It is pretty decent for the money !http://www.ymec.com/store/en/