creating a waveform

[chris f]

For a scene in my current project I have a guy doing audio surveillance on a laptop and would like to do a shot of a moving waveform on the screen of his laptop. Any ideas on how to create a realistic waveform or can you suggest a software that has some sort of waveform display mode?

 

[GenJerDan]

Windows or Mac?

Anyway: one Windows version - http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/resource/sfs/rtspect/

A Google for "oscilloscope software Windows" (or Mac) or similar will getcha there if you want to look at others.

 

[chris f]

i'm on a mac, i'll check that search out

 

[Arson]

after effects comes with a waveform plugin that you can make a waveform from an audio file. you can then tune the frequency, height and falloff depending on what kind of look you want. I just used it on a project.

Here is a tutorial from the cow
Part 1
http://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=2&page=http://www.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/waveform_1/index.html
Part 2
http://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=2&page=http://www.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/waveform_2/index.html

 

[clang]

check whether your editing software can record audio live - e.g. my Vegas software (PC sorry) automatically displays the waveform as it records - your Mac software may be able to do the same

 

[sagemaster]

You could build a background and animate a simple waveform in Macromedia Flash 8. Then playback the .swf file full screen during filming. Does it have to syncronize with sound that we're going to hear, or just happen onscreen during other stuff?