frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Show HN: Resonate – real-time high temporal resolution spectral analysis

https://alexandrefrancois.org/Resonate/
76•arjf•1y ago

Comments

james_a_craig•1y ago
For some reason the value of Pi given in the C++ code is wrong!

It's given in the source as 3.14159274101257324219 when the right value to the same number of digits is 3.14159265358979323846. Very weird. I noticed when I went to look at the C++ to see how this algorithm was actually implemented.

https://github.com/alexandrefrancois/noFFT/blob/main/src/Res... line 31.

pvg•1y ago
That is a very 'childhood exposure to 8 digit calculators' thing to notice.
james_a_craig•1y ago
Childhood exposure to pi generation algorithms; the correct version above was from memory.
pvg•1y ago
Close enough! The wrong 7 jumped out at me instantly although I didn't remember more than a few after.
2YwaZHXV•1y ago
seems since it's a float it's only 32-bits, and the representation of both 3.14159274101257324219 and 3.14159265358979323846 is the same in IEEE-754: 0x40490fdb

though I agree that it is odd to see, and not sure I see a reason why they wouldn't use 3.14159265358979323846

james_a_craig•1y ago
Yeah, it’s as if they wrote a program to calculate pi in a float and saved the output. Very strange choice given how many places the value of pi can be found.
arjf•1y ago
Indeed... I honestly don't remember where or how I sourced the value, and why I did not use the "correct" one - I will correct in the next release of the package. Thanks for pointing it out!
pvg•1y ago
You got off easy compared to this dude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shanks
phkahler•1y ago
This is very much like doing a Fourier Transform without using recursion and the butterflies to reduce the computation. It would be even closer to that if a "moving average" of the right length was used instead of an IIR low-pass filter. This is something I've considered superior for decades but it does take a lot more computation. I guess we're there now ;-)
arjf•1y ago
It only requires more computation if you really need to compute the full FFT with all the bins, in which case the FFT is more efficient... With this approach you only compute the bins you really need, without having to pre-filter your signal, or performing additional computations on the FFT result. Some sliding window FFT methods compute frequency bands independently, but they do require buffering and I really wanted to avoid that.
zevv•1y ago
I might be mistaking, but I don't see how this is novel. As far as I know, this has a proven DSP technique for ages, although it it usually only applied when a small amount of distinct frequencies need to be detected - for example DTMF.

When the number of frequencies/bins grows, it is computationally much cheaper to use the well known FFT algorithm instead, at the price of needing to handle input data by blocks instead of "streaming".

colanderman•1y ago
The difference from FFT is this is a multiresolution technique, like the constant-Q transform. And, unlike CQT (which is noncausal), this provides a better match to the actual behavior of our ears (by being causal). It's also "fast" in the sense of FFT (which CQT is not).
zipy124•1y ago
There exists the multiresolution FFT, and other forms of FFT which are based around sliding windows/SFFT techniques. CQT can also be implemented extremely quickly, utilising FFT's and kernels or other methods, like in the librosa library (dubbed pseudo-CQT).

I'm also not sure how this is causal? It has a weighted-time window (biasing the more recent sound), which is farily novel, but I wouldn't call that causal.

This is not to say I don't think this is cool, it certainly looks better than existing techniques like synchrosqueezing for pushing the limit of the heisenberg uncertainty principle (technically given ideal conditions synchrosqueezing can outperform the principle, but only a specific subset of signals).

waffletower•1y ago
Curious if there is available math to show the gain scale properties of this technique across the spectrum -- in other words its frequency response. The system doesn't appear to be LTI so I don't believe we can utilize the Z-transform to do this. Phase response would also be important as well.
arjf•1y ago
The Sliding Windowed Infinite Fourier Transform (SWIFT) has very similar math, and they provide some analysis in the paper. I use a different heuristic for alpha so I am not sure the analysis transfers directly. In my upcoming paper I have some numerical experiments and graphs that show resonator response across the range.
arjf•1y ago
Actually digging into SWIFT a bit more, the formulas differ by more than just the heuristic for alpha (unless I missed something) so the analysis in the SWIFT paper does not apply directly to(or maybe even at all).
dr_dshiv•1y ago
Thanks for your contribution! Reminds me of Helmholtz resonators.

I wrote this cross-disciplinary paper about resonance a few years ago. You may find it useful or at least interesting.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurorobotics/articles/...

arjf•1y ago
Interesting - thanks for sharing!
colanderman•1y ago
Nice! I've used a homegrown CQT-based visualizer for a while for audio analysis. It's far superior to the STFT-based view you get from e.g. Audacity, since it is multiresolution, which is a better match to how we actually experience sound. I have for a while wanted to switch my tool to a gammatone-filter-based method [1] but I didn't know how to make it efficient.

Actually I wonder if this technique can be adapted to use gammatone filters specifically, rather than simple bandpass filters.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gammatone_filter

mofeien•1y ago
If you already have the implementation for the CQT, wouldn't you just be able to replace the morlet wavelet used in the CQT by the gammatone wavelet without much of on efficiency hit? I'm just learning about the gammatone filter, and it sounds interesting since it apparently better models human hearing.
vessenes•1y ago
Nice! Can any signals/AI folks comment on whether using this would improve vocoder outputs? The visuals look much higher res, which makes me think a vocoder using them would have more nuance. But, I'm a hobbyist.
drmikeando•1y ago
You can view this result as the convolution of the signal with an exponentially decaying sine and cosine.

That is, `y(t') = integral e^kt x(t' - t) dt`, with k complex and negative real part.

If you discretize that using simple integration and t' = i dt, t = j dt you get

    y_i = dt sum_j e^(k j dt) x_{i - j}
    y_{i+1} = dt sum_j e^(k j dt) x_{i+1 - j}
            = (dt e^(k dt) sum_j' e^(k j' dt) x_{i - j'}) + x_i 
            = dt e^(k dt) y_i + x_i
If we then scale this by some value, such that A y_i = z_i we can write this as

    z_{i+1} = dt e^(k dt) z_i + A x_i
Here the `dt e^(k dt)` plays a similar role to (1-alpha) and A is similar to P alpha - the difference being that P changes over time, while A is constant.

We can write `z_i = e^{w dt i} r_i` where w is the imaginary part of k

   e^{w dt (i+1)} r_{i+1} = dt e^(k dt) e^{w dt i} r_i + A x_i
             r_{i+1} = dt e^((k - w) dt) r_i + e^{-w dt (i+1) } A x_i
                     = (1-alpha) r_i + p_i x_i
Where p_i = e^{-w dt (i+1) } A = e^{-w dt ) p_{i-1} Which is exactly the result from the resonate web-page.

The neat thing about recognising this as a convolution integral, is that we can use shaping other than exponential decay - we can implement a box filter using only two states, or a triangular filter (this is a bit trickier and takes more states). While they're tricky to derive, they tend to run really quickly.

arjf•1y ago
This formulation is close to that of the Sliding Windowed Infinite Fourier Transform (SWIFT), of which I became aware only yesterday.

For me the main motivation developing Resonate was for interactive systems: very simple, no buffering, no window... Also, no need to compute all the FFT bins so in that sense more efficient!

arjf•1y ago
Just want to call out the resources listed at the bottom of the Resonate website:

- The Oscillators app demonstrates real-time linear, log and Mel scale spectrograms, as well as derived audio features such as chromagrams and MFCCs https://alexandrefrancois.org/Oscillators/

- The Resonate Youtube playlist features video captures of real-time demonstrations. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVcB_ABiKC_cbemxXUUJX...

- The open source Oscillators Swift package contains reference implementations in Swift and C++.https://github.com/alexandrefrancois/Oscillators

- The open source python module noFFT provides python and C++ implementations of Resonate functions and Jupyter notebooks illustrating their use in offline settings. https://github.com/alexandrefrancois/noFFT

Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

https://github.com/pgbackrest/pgbackrest
135•c0l0•1h ago•56 comments

Fully Featured Audio DSP Firmware for the Raspberry Pi Pico

https://github.com/WeebLabs/DSPi
70•BoingBoomTschak•1d ago•10 comments

Flipdiscs

https://flipdisc.io
357•skogstokig•3d ago•60 comments

I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

https://ca98am79.medium.com/i-bought-friendster-for-30k-heres-what-i-m-doing-with-it-d5e8ddb3991d
893•ca98am79•15h ago•455 comments

Moleskine's AI Lord of the Rings collection can only mock

https://cjleo.com/blog/moleskine-ai-lord-of-the-rings-collection-can-only-mock/
49•lentil_soup•3h ago•38 comments

AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

https://www.koshyjohn.com/blog/ai-should-elevate-your-thinking-not-replace-it/
591•koshyjohn•16h ago•433 comments

TurboQuant: A first-principles walkthrough

https://arkaung.github.io/interactive-turboquant/
204•kweezar•10h ago•43 comments

Self-updating screenshots

https://interblah.net/self-updating-screenshots
355•bjhess•1d ago•57 comments

The Prompt API

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/prompt-api
175•gslin•10h ago•91 comments

It's OK to abandon your side-project (2024)

https://robbowen.digital/wrote-about/abandoned-side-projects/
113•hisamafahri•4h ago•56 comments

Branimir Lambov from IBM on Cassandra

https://theconsensus.dev/p/2026/04/26/branimir-lambov-from-ibm-on-cassandra.html
13•eatonphil•22h ago•0 comments

Rust Memory Management: Ownership vs. Reference Counting

https://slicker.me/rust/ownership_and_borrowing_vs_reference_counting.html
38•vinhnx•2d ago•19 comments

Three constraints before I build anything

https://jordanlord.co.uk/blog/3-constraints/
248•nervous_north•1d ago•42 comments

Quarkdown – Markdown with Superpowers

https://quarkdown.com/
20•amai•3h ago•4 comments

Fast16: High-precision software sabotage 5 years before Stuxnet

https://www.sentinelone.com/labs/fast16-mystery-shadowbrokers-reference-reveals-high-precision-so...
282•dd23•16h ago•59 comments

France's Mistral Built a $14B AI Empire by Not Being American

https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2026/04/16/how-frances-mistral-built-a-14-billion-ai-empi...
53•rzk•2h ago•19 comments

A Guide to CubeSat Mission and Bus Design

https://pressbooks-dev.oer.hawaii.edu/epet302/
47•o4c•1d ago•3 comments

Electrostatics and High Voltage Links

http://amasci.com/static/electrostatic1.html
15•ludicrousdispla•3d ago•2 comments

Getting my daily news from a dot matrix printer 2024

https://aschmelyun.com/blog/getting-my-daily-news-from-a-dot-matrix-printer/
6•xupybd•2d ago•1 comments

Box to save memory in Rust

https://dystroy.org/blog/box-to-save-memory/
149•emschwartz•3d ago•42 comments

SWE-bench Verified no longer measures frontier coding capabilities

https://openai.com/index/why-we-no-longer-evaluate-swe-bench-verified/
323•kmdupree•22h ago•171 comments

Mystery Cpuid Bit

http://www.os2museum.com/wp/mystery-cpuid-bit/
24•userbinator•2d ago•2 comments

Bob Odenkirk would like to remind you that life is a meaningless farce

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/25/magazine/bob-odenkirk-interview.html
91•wslh•23h ago•88 comments

When the cheap one is the cool one

https://arun.is/blog/cheap-cool/
145•ddrmaxgt37•1d ago•83 comments

Sawe becomes first athlete to run a sub-two-hour marathon in a competitive race

https://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/articles/crm1m7e0zwzo
431•berkeleyjunk•15h ago•277 comments

FreeBSD Device Drivers Book

https://github.com/ebrandi/FDD-book
101•myth_drannon•13h ago•21 comments

The Mushroom That Makes People Have the Exact Same Hallucination

https://www.vice.com/en/article/meet-the-mushroom-that-make-people-have-the-exact-same-hallucinat...
76•thunderbong•5h ago•52 comments

EvanFlow – A TDD driven feedback loop for Claude Code

https://github.com/evanklem/evanflow
82•evanklem2004•10h ago•42 comments

Quirks of Human Anatomy

https://www.sdbonline.org/sites/fly/lewheldquirk/figlegq6.htm
143•gurjeet•2d ago•83 comments

Magic: The Gathering took me from N2 to Japanese fluency

https://www.tokyodev.com/articles/how-magic-the-gathering-took-me-from-n2-to-japanese-fluency
150•pwim•3d ago•66 comments