ShowMe

ShowMe is an audio display Max utility for Ableton Live that lets you see audio in three different views: scope view, spectrum view, and sonogram view. This is not a precision analysis tool, but a easy solution for showing qualitative changes in audio signals from anywhere in your Ableton Live session.

Scope view shows the audio signal as a waveform. This can be helpful for visualizing the rudimentary quality of the audio signal and identifying any potential problems, such as clipping or distortion.

Spectrum view shows the audio signal as an amplitude over frequency spectrum. This can be helpful for identifying the different frequencies that are present in the audio signal. Its not a high resolution spectrum though, so I do not use this for any precision analysis. Span [vst plugin by Voxengo] is the tool for that.

Sonogram view shows the audio signal as a spectrogram. This can be helpful for visualizing the changes in frequency over time. I have used this mode for demonstrating synths. You may notice a split around 2kHz as there are two sonograms, one running on linear mode for lower frequencies and one running on logarithmic mode for the higher frequencies. The source device isn't ready for prime time showing the full frequency range like you might expect from MetaSynth and related visualizers.

The floating display window can be placed anywhere on the screen, and it can be resized and repositioned as needed. The window can also be set to have a transparent background, so that you can stack multiple windows to view signals on multiple channels.

To change the colors of the display, click on the wrench icon in the device. This will open the color editing tab, where you can change the colors for the Left/Right/Mono scopes, the spectrum, and the sonogram.

If you accidentally put a floating window in your way and cannot close it via the M4L device, you can click on the window and tap the Esc key to close the window. Deactivating the device will also close the floating window.

The gain control in this device is for display only, it does not affect that audio signal passing through the device. The xy-slider is not so smooth when controlling the position continuously. I have found its best for clicking to drop the display window in a general location, then using the numbers to get more precise.

This Max for Live device has been developed and tested only in Live 11.2 using Max 8.5. You may find your bundled version of Max (8.2 or 8.3) not playing nice, if so, please try downloading the latest version of Max for free (cycling74.com) and pointing Live to that version via the Live preferences. You can always go back to the bundled version if needed.

Enter a price of zero to get this device for free or pay a dollar or two to help support this work and future projects.

If you are looking for a top notch VST/AU plugin that provides these features in DAWs other than Ableton Live, please check out minimeters: https://minimeters.app/