SpectraView Studio

1. Overview

SpectraView Studio is a professional audio analysis tool for iPad — and, thanks to Designed for iPad, available on Apple Silicon Macs from the Mac App Store as well. It gives you four complementary views of any audio file — waveform, spectrogram, loudness metering, and a real-time frequency analyzer — all designed around the workflows of audio engineers, mixing and mastering professionals, and sound designers.

The app analyses audio entirely on your device. Nothing is sent to a server, no account is required, and your files stay yours.

2. Getting Started

Importing Files

Tap the + button in the top-right corner to open the system file picker. You can import files from the Files app, iCloud Drive, or any connected storage. Multiple files can be selected at once.

Supported formats: WAV, M4A, MP3, AIFF, AAC, FLAC, CAF. There is no file size limit — SpectraView Studio handles long recordings (multi-hour files) efficiently using tile-based rendering.

Adding a Folder

Tap the folder icon to grant access to an entire directory (e.g. a project folder in iCloud Drive or on a connected drive). The folder stays linked across sessions — its contents appear alongside your individually imported files.

Opening a File

Tap any file in the list to open it. The app immediately begins building the waveform and spectrogram in the background while you can already play and navigate. The loudness analysis runs separately and may take a moment for very long files.

3. Navigation & Zoom

Scrolling

In the Waveform, Spectrogram, and Loudness views, the horizontal axis represents time. Scroll left or right to move through the file. The playhead (vertical line) stays fixed at the centre of the display; the audio scrolls beneath it during playback.

Zooming

Use the zoom buttons in the toolbar to zoom in and out on the time axis:

• − Zoom out — more time visible
• + Zoom in — finer detail
• ↔ Fit to window — entire file visible at once

4. Waveform View

The waveform displays amplitude over time. For stereo files, the left channel is shown above and the right channel below, with a subtle L/R label in the top-left corner. Mono files show a single waveform.

The waveform is rendered at full resolution regardless of zoom level — zooming in reveals finer detail rather than scaling up a lower-resolution image.

Common uses:

• Checking for clipping or unwanted silence
• Verifying edit points and fades
• Getting a quick sense of a recording's dynamic range and structure
• Spotting phase issues in stereo material (left and right waveforms moving symmetrically in opposite directions)

5. Spectrogram View

The spectrogram shows frequency content over time. The vertical axis is frequency (logarithmic, low frequencies at the bottom), the horizontal axis is time, and the colour intensity represents the level at that frequency and point in time.

Reading the Colours

With the default Magma palette: dark/black = low level, yellow/white = high level. Think of it as a heat map of the frequency content. The Inferno palette has a similar range with a slightly different gradient. Grayscale is useful in high-contrast environments or when printing.

What to Look For

• Tonal balance — is energy evenly distributed or heavily concentrated in one region?
• Noise and hiss — horizontal bands of low-level energy across the full frequency range
• Hum — bright horizontal lines at 50 or 60 Hz (and their harmonics: 100, 150, 200 Hz…)
• Resonances — vertical bright streaks at a fixed frequency that sustain unusually long
• Codec artefacts — a hard cutoff at a specific frequency (e.g. 16 kHz in low-bitrate MP3) is visible as a sharp dark band at the top of the display
• Transients — vertical bright lines that span many frequencies simultaneously (snare hits, clicks)

Settings that Affect the Spectrogram

• Window Size (FFT) — larger windows give better frequency resolution but poorer time resolution. For music analysis, 2048 or 4096 is a good starting point. For transient-heavy material, try a smaller window.
• Gamma — adjusts the brightness curve. Higher values bring out quiet details; lower values emphasise the dominant content.
• Floor — the dBFS level that maps to pure black. −100 dB shows everything; raise the floor (e.g. to −60 dB) to hide the noise floor and focus on the signal.
• Max Frequency — crops the display at a lower ceiling if you are only interested in a specific range (e.g. up to 8 kHz for voice work).

6. Loudness View

The loudness view is where SpectraView Studio earns its name for professional delivery work. It analyses the file according to EBU R128 / ITU-R BS.1770 and displays both a scrollable graph of loudness over time and a set of key measurements.

The Loudness Graph

The graph plots short-term loudness (3-second integration window, updated every second) across the entire duration of the file. This gives you a clear picture of how loudness develops over time — builds, drops, loud sections, and quiet passages are all immediately visible.

Horizontal reference lines mark common delivery targets. You can enable or disable each line individually in Settings:

You can also define a custom target level in Settings to match any platform or house standard.

AT PLAYHEAD — Live Measurements

As you play or scrub through the file, the panel in the lower-left shows real-time values at the current playhead position:

FILE SUMMARY — Whole-File Measurements

The panel in the lower-right shows values computed across the entire file once the loudness analysis is complete:

7. Frequency Analyzer

The Freq tab shows a real-time FFT spectrum — a vertical bar graph of the frequency content at the current playhead position. The horizontal axis is frequency (logarithmic), the vertical axis is level in dBFS.

During Playback

The spectrum updates continuously, driven by the audio output. Each bar represents the energy in a frequency band at that instant, with configurable smoothing to make the display easier to read.

When Paused

Move the playhead to any point. The analyzer computes the spectrum for the audio window around that position and displays it as a static snapshot — useful for examining a specific chord, note, or problematic moment in detail.

Peak Hold

Small markers above each bar show the recent peak level, held for a configurable time. This makes it easy to see the spectral envelope of dynamic material that would otherwise be hard to read.

Frequency Cursor

Tap anywhere on the spectrum to place a draggable cursor. A floating pill above the cursor shows the exact frequency and level under it, so you can read off the value of a specific peak — a kick fundamental, a snare ring, a resonance you want to notch — without estimating from the axis labels. Drag the cursor across the spectrum to scan; tap the small × on the pill to dismiss.

Slope Correction

Natural sounds and music have more energy at low frequencies than high frequencies (the classic 1/f distribution). The slope correction applies a rising tilt to the display (default: +3 dB/octave, matching pink noise) so that a well-balanced mix looks roughly flat. Set the slope to 0 for a flat (white noise) reference. Adjust to taste or to match the analysis standard you use in your DAW.

8. Level Meter

The vertical level meter on the right side of the display shows real-time levels during playback. Two bars represent the left and right channels.

• The RMS bar (the filled portion) represents the signal power — analogous to a classic VU meter.
• The white peak-hold line marks the highest recent sample peak. It holds for approximately 2 seconds before falling.
• A red flash at the peak-hold line indicates a digital clip (0 dBFS reached). Each new clipping event triggers its own flash independently, so rapid successive clips are clearly distinguishable.

9. Transport Controls

The transport bar at the bottom of the screen provides playback controls:

Scrubbing

Tap anywhere in the waveform, spectrogram, or loudness view to move the playhead to that position. Drag to scrub continuously.

10. A/B Loop

The A/B loop lets you mark a region and repeat it continuously — useful for closely studying a passage, comparing before and after an edit, or evaluating a specific section against loudness targets.

1. Navigate to the point where the loop should start.
2. Tap A to set the in-point.
3. Navigate to the loop end point.
4. Tap B to set the out-point.
5. Tap the ↻ (repeat) button to activate the loop. Playback jumps to A and loops continuously between A and B.

The loop region is shown as a highlighted orange band in the timeline. When a loop is set, the Skip to Start and Skip to End buttons jump to the A and B markers respectively.

Tap A or B again to clear the respective marker. Clearing either marker deactivates the loop.

11. Recording

SpectraView Studio includes a microphone recording feature. Tap the Record button (microphone icon) in the top-right of the file list to open the recording screen.

Recordings are saved as .m4a files in the app's Documents folder and appear in the file list immediately after stopping. They can be shared via the standard iPadOS share sheet (swipe left on the file in the list).

Microphone access can be granted or revoked at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone.

12. Settings

Tap the settings icon (sliders) in the toolbar to open the settings panel. All settings are saved automatically and persist across sessions.

General

• Peak Display — choose between True Peak (dBTP, the broadcast and streaming standard, recommended) and Sample Peak (dBFS, the raw sample maximum). Affects the level meter, the loudness live panel, and the file summary.
• Label Size — adjusts the font size of axis labels across all views.

Spectrogram

• Resampling — if the file has an unusual or very high sample rate, this forces resampling to a standard rate before analysis. Leave at Auto unless you have a specific reason to change it.
• Window Size — the FFT window length in samples. Larger = better frequency resolution, lower time resolution. Smaller = better time resolution, lower frequency resolution. Try 2048 for a balanced starting point, 4096 for detailed tonal analysis, 512 for transient-heavy material.
• Overlap — the percentage overlap between consecutive FFT windows. Higher overlap produces a smoother, denser spectrogram at the cost of rendering time. 75–87.5% is a good working range.
• Max Frequency — the upper boundary of the displayed frequency range. Reduce to focus on a specific range.
• Colormap — Magma (default), Inferno, or Grayscale.
• Gamma — brightness curve. Increase to reveal quiet detail; decrease to focus on the dominant signal content.
• Floor — the dBFS level that maps to black. Raise to hide the noise floor.

Frequency Analyzer

• Smoothing — temporal smoothing of the bar display. High values (90–100%) give a stable, easy-to-read display; low values show fast transient detail.
• Peak Hold — how long the peak markers are held (in seconds).
• Floor — the lowest level shown on the vertical axis.
• Slope — the tilt correction applied to the display in dB/octave. 3 dB/octave (default) compensates for the natural 1/f roll-off of programme material and makes pink noise appear flat. Set to 0 for a flat (white noise) reference.

Loudness Targets

Enable or disable the reference lines at −14, −16, and −23 LUFS individually. You can also define a custom target level and toggle it independently.

Questions? support@jee-media.de