2019-05-01_Linux_Format

88 LXF249May 2019 MMMay 201983DigaK8D

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bEnChMArKtOOl

AudiOAnAlySEr

Use Friture to

find out if your

audio track or live

stream sounds

better than it looks

on visualisation

widgets.

oundengineeringcanbemundanedailywork

foroneaudienceandrocketsciencefor

another.We’vediscoveredanopensource

applicationthatcanpossiblybuildabridgebetween

thesetwogroupsofLinuxusers,andhere’swhy.

Fritureisasmallandneat,yetverypowerfulaudio

spectrumanalyser.Itcanvisualiseanyliveaudiodata

inseveralways,enablingyoutoactuallyseethesound.

Thatyellowish‘flaming’barisa2Dspectrogramwidget

thatdrawsaudiodataagainsttimeandfrequency.

Otherwidgetsincludethespectrum(audiovs

frequency),octavespectrum(audiovstime),delay

estimatorandtwometersforlevelsandscope.

Now,whatareallthesecomplexthingsfor?

Fritureisanunmatchedhelperwhenyoufeelthere’s

somethingwrongwiththesoundbutyou’renotsure

howtofixit.Classicexamplesincludescapturingthe

soundofapipeorganinachurch,orrecordinga

lectureoraspeechinalargehall.Inbothcasesthere

willbeprobablyanundesiredaudioresponse,whenthe

soundloopsbetweentheoutputandtherecording

device.Therecanbeotherdefectstoo,likebadly

alignedsoundtrackscreatedafterrecordingthe

herearethingsintheworldthatcanbevery

interestingtolookatandstudy,evenifatfirst

theyseemcommonplace.Weexperienced

suchafeelingwhenwestumbleduponhyperfine.This

utilityisdesignedforperformancetesting,butwho

wouldhavethoughtthatitcouldbesoexciting?

Hyperfinediffersfromitsmorefamouscounterparts

(we’relookingatyou,PhoronixTestSuite)firstly

becauseofitssimplicity.Here’sauniversalexample

foranytestyouwanttoquick-start:

$ hyperfine<somecommand>

Thismeasurestheexecutiontimeofthecommand

soyoucanseehowfastyoursystemis.Naturally,lotsof

thingsaffectthefigureshyperfinereturns,including

diskcachesandCPUloads.Hyperfinecanbeawareof

suchthingsonceyoutellittotakemeasurementsafter

somecoldruns.Let’sgiveitawarm-upwiththreetests:

$ hyperfine--warmup3 <somecommand>.

DiskI/Ocachingcertainlyskewsthefiguresweget,

usuallytoimprovethem,solet’sflushitandmakethe

testfairer:

This app uses

multiple test-runs

for more precise

benchmarks.

t

S

Hyperfine

$ hyperfine --prepare ‘sync; echo 3 | sudo tee /

proc/sys/vm/drop_caches’ ‘<some command>’

There are a whole lot more options described in

hyperfine’s built-in help, so you can form complex

chains of commands and wrap them with hyperfine.

The tool is extremely useful for testing hard drives,

CPUs and of course operating systems. You can

quickly see the difference between Linux kernels,

desktop environments and even terminal emulators.

Hyperfine compiles into a single 3.5MB binary file

(builds and packages are also available right away

from the project’s Download section at GitHub), and

supports various extra actions such as exporting

benchmark results to CSV, JSON and Markdown.

Version: 1.5.0 Web: https://github.

com/sharkdp/hyperfine

Friture

same scene with several microphones, sound

reverberation, humming and so on. Fixing all these

errors requires using phasers, equalisers and other

tools available in such programs as Audacity. Friture

is here to analyse and see what is happening in the

moment: all these defects form their own unique

pictures in Friture’s widgets and can be better

detected visually then aurally.

By default, Friture tries to capture audio data

from an ALSA source, but you can direct it to use

Pulseaudio in the Settings window. The quickest

way to try Friture is to grab the Appimage, make it

executable and run it. Bear in mind that you may

need to adjust your audio settings in applications

such as Pavucontrol in order to make Friture detect

the audio stream.

Version: 0.36 Web: http://friture.org