Spectrum View (Audacity)

[Noplasticrobots]

There are a few waveform views in Audacity that have never made sense to me and I can't find very much info on the interent about them. These views would be Spectrum and Pitch EAC. How does one read these?

Also, is there an effctive way to use the Plot Spectrum function to aid in anything like mixing or mastering (being that it gives you a list of frequencies and dB levels)?

[scrubs]

Well, you should always mix with your ears, rather than with pictures, but I think the spectrum view just gives you a view of frequencies so you can see where the energy of your mixes is located. For example, if you notice that certain bass notes are too heavy in your mix, you can look in the spectrum analyzer to see which frequencies are the main offenders (say you have a spike at 175Hz that is 6 dB louder than other frequencies) and perhaps make some eq adjustments so that note isn't so loud (often enough, the summing of different instruments and problems with the acoustics of your room can result in weird frequency problems).

These tools may be useful for those in the "loudness wars" who are trying to make their mixes louder than everyone else's. Making eq adjustments to get rid of spikes will give you more headroom for compression/limiting. Now, the overall effect on the sound is an entirely different discussion.

Sometimes it's a good idea to load a mix of a commercial song that you are using as a reference into the frequency analyzer and compare it to your mix. That may give you some additional input into things you're doing right/wrong.