Mac based Wow and flutter meter?

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mrclunk

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 29, 2006
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1,181
Location
London
Working on a few tape machines this year and could do with a wow and flutter meter.
Anyone know of a software solution?

 
  Auto tune? Or something like so, showing you the pitch vs time plot could be useful. Logic pro has one included.

  I'd never thought on that need, I guess you'd like to see explicit values for frequency and amplitude of the flutter, which could be helpful troubleshooting the machines.

JS
 
That's a great idea, thanks. I have melodyn, will be able to see the modulation on the test signal with that.
 
  Great you find that useful! Let me know how it turned out...

  Maybe I'd ask a few things to get my tape delay running as it should, do you have experience with those?

JS
 
Yeah some. Space Echos, Copycats and some weird ones. I love tapes, plates and springs!

 
As a side note, there's a mention in Mix magazine this month of a piece of software to remove wow & flutter from master tapes. Interesting idea. I assume it looks for a fingerprint & removes the effect automagically

Nick Froome
 
  Mine is a JMX ET-520, dirty thing, when it fits, it nails it. Once in one of the top studio on the country I took it for a mix session in my bag, after messing a while with a 480, an H3k and what else I took it out, we tested and never turn the others on again, all delays and verbs throw it. The thing is it uses just 1m of conventional cassette tape, still easy enough to find but it last about an hour and you need to swap it. A friend had one of those and an RE-201 and once in a while still find a use for it.

  Those babies are a charm, mechanical effects in general, I guess you forgot the spinning horns  ;D Too bad they are high maintenance. I do have some springs lying around as well, and pending the plate project...

JS
 
I did forget rotary speakers! Boss got rid of our Hammond Leslie combo when we moved to the new place :(
A mate has one in his house, you can pick them up in London for £50.  No one has the space anymore.

JMX ET-520 looks cool, i have a Vorg echo pack which is also made by Pearl. One day i'll get it running, uses a Betamax cartridge.
The space echo's my fave, you can almost play it like an instrument.
I too have a pending  plate project! My bro works for a metal roofing company so he can source / cut various sheet metals. Unfortunately my design relied on using a cheap Ikea office desk frame to mount it all in, which they have discontinued...  Back to the drawing board.
JS, i think we should marry ;)
 
  For sure we should have an ale if we find ourselves in the same hemisphere...

  Here are rare beasts, I've seen few from a guy who own most Hammond organs in the country. He fixes them, so we buy everything around to keep as much as he can working, then rent them for recording sessions or stage backlines. While it doesn't make sense to ship those too far away is strange they aren't going to nearby towns. That kind of stuff didn't got into the country when they were widely used, mostly bands who travelled back and forth brought nice instruments and gear and sell it here to close people to start building up the mood. At least outside Buenos Aires, I don't know how it was exactly there, but I guess not much different but the amount of bands going in and out.

JS
 
pvision said:
As a side note, there's a mention in Mix magazine this month of a piece of software to remove wow & flutter from master tapes. Interesting idea. I assume it looks for a fingerprint & removes the effect automagically

Nick Froome

There is also Plagnet Process which uses a special tape head to recover the bias frequency fingerprint on the tape. It uses that to remove W+F with DSP. I think I basically have that right.

The Lindos is really nice for working on tape machines.  I don't know of  a  software solution.
 
Hello mrclunck,
You can buy --- for cheap ! ---  a second-hand analog W&F meter on Ebay, like a Leader LFM-39 unit.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEADER-Model-LFM-39-WOW-FLUTTER-METER-Tested-Works-NICE-/291990919858?hash=item43fc03dab2:g:5GEAAOSwZQRYbIKw
Best,
Guy
 
Working on a few tape machines this year and could do with a wow and flutter meter.
Anyone know of a software solution?

Very old post, but I will leave this link here for future reference.
There's a FREE software app for Windows dedicated to Wow and Flutter measurements, it can even save a log file and measures in the different standards.
No need to buy an analog meter

It's called WFGUI, you can download it here:

http://www.ant-audio.co.uk/index.php?cat=post&qry=library
 
I found an app called platter speed for android/iphone , I wasnt able to try it as I dont have that os.
Its obviously dedicated to turntables and uses a test record , probably works fine with tape decks also .
 
I tried the WFGUI software and it works very well, simple layout and simple to use.
I just need a good test cassette tape as I don’t have any at the moment.

If anyone has a Test Cassette tape to sell please let me know.


some videos on the WFGUI:






And a really good video explaining Wow and Flutter technical details and measurement standards:


 
I found an app called platter speed for android/iphone , I wasnt able to try it as I dont have that os.
Its obviously dedicated to turntables and uses a test record , probably works fine with tape decks also .

There's an iOS emulator from Apple that should allow running the iOS version. I think something like it is available for Android?

There's BlueStack for Windows, fi:

https://www.bluestacks.com/bluestacks-5.html
 
I think I tried Bluestacks before , can remember which app I was trying to get running now .
It may have been a video streaming app that went along with a mini drone I have , it didnt work in the end. Just gave it a whirl again , needs 8gb of free space to install .
 
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