Spectral Eye 2.0

The sound that you hear is composed of vibrations at various frequencies. Two instruments, like a guitar or a trumpet, may play the same note, but what sets them apart is the combination of harmonics that create the overall tone.

Spectral Eye allows you to visually explore these frequencies and understand the components that make up your sounds. By utilizing a Fast Fourier transform, incoming sound is analyzed and split into individual sine waves, which are then displayed on the screen. Although frequency spectrum displays are not uncommon, Spectral Eye stands out with its unique arrangement of frequencies in a spiral pattern, aligning octaves as rays originating from the center.

The "concert pitch" for A is a vibration at 440 cycles per second. One octave above this is doubled to 880, and an octave below is reduced to 220. These frequencies are represented as a line on the Spectral Eye display. As you produce different types of sounds or play music, you can clearly observe this structure on the screen. The size of the red dots and white lines correspond to the strength of the frequency, allowing for easy recognition of relative frequency strengths.

When you pluck a guitar string, it vibrates not only at its root frequency but also at twice that frequency and various other multiples. These resonant frequencies contribute to each guitar's unique sound. Furthermore, harmonies created by the frequencies of multiple notes result in interesting chords. By observing the changing tones of synthesized notes, you can witness how different component frequencies rise and fall.

In addition to displaying frequencies, Spectral Eye also offers sound generation. The app includes a simple synthesizer that can generate either a pure sine wave or a sine wave with an additional fifth frequency. Adjusting the control on the right or bottom part of the screen allows you to modify the tone, while touching and moving on the main display changes the pitch in a clockwise or counterclockwise manner.

This version of Spectral Eye also incorporates MIDI functionality. You can initiate a MIDI synthesizer and use the Spectral Eye display to trigger notes. With numerous excellent synthesizers available, this app not only enables you to play them but also provides insights into their sound formation. If you are trying to identify the notes in a song, you can observe the display to determine their placement.

Spectral Eye is a free app without any pop-up ads or nag screens, offering pure entertainment. If you enjoy the app, we kindly request that you leave a review in the app store. The core technology utilized in Spectral Eye is also featured in our polyphonic pitch-to-MIDI app MIDImorphosis, which allows you to control MIDI synthesizers using an ordinary guitar or other instruments. This technology is also utilized in Infinite Looper, our innovative MIDI looping app. We have several other music-related apps available, and your support through reviews or purchases of our other apps would be greatly appreciated to keep these ventures thriving!