Listen for sounds and display it in decibels

[ugh3012]

Does VB.net have the ability to listen for sounds and display it in decibels using microphones? I was asked to do this but this is way off of what I normally do but I am looking forward to this new challenge.

 

[jwh]

this could be interesting, but very difficult.

you would need way of calibrating the microphones, and i'm pretty sure you would need a special type of mic

 

[Anti-Rich]

why would you need a special type of microphone? a mic, is a mic is a mic

is there some sort of open source analysis program out there that could point you in the right direction as to how to go about analyzing a sound file? even if its in a different language you might be able to get the gist of how it works?

i just googled 'open source sound analysis program', and this might be a step in the right direction
http://www.transana.org/

good luck mate


just my 2cents
adam

 

[Blake81]

It seems to me like VB should be able to do this. Obviously, you'd probably need some kind of DLL, but if you think about it, lots of programs out there have a little bar that goes from green to red, based on the volume from the mic, so it shouldn't be that bad to do.

 

[ugh3012]

It does not need to be scientific accurate. I just need something that listen and gives me some kind of numbers that I could translate to some kind of bar graph or progress bar. It’s more of animated feedback for the audience as they scream in applause or disapproval.

I will check http://www.transana.org/ and keep looking. If I find something, I will post here in case someone else in the future is looking for something like this.

 

[jwh]

The reason i mention special types of mic, is that not all microphones have the same frequency response, do they?

And if all mics were equal, then you would see singers with £1.99 microphones from pc world, but that doesn't happen.

I thought it would be complicated due to you asking for a decibel readout, which, in itself is not a linear scale.

 

[Anti-Rich]

lol yeah very true, i get what you mean. he would just have to make sure the end user uses a good quality mic...

could he account for this in his program? ie, somehow eliminate background noise, static etc?

never done this sort of stuff, so i wouldnt know.

cheers
adam