Spectral analysis tools help to visualize the crowded spectrum of your music and so help you to better organize that spectrum. Organization is undertaken with the aim of improving mix coherence. Spectral analysis visualization shows the areas where individual voices or instruments compete for spectrum space, allowing you to use EQ shaping to make individual tracks "get out of each others' way."

VertexDSP's MultiInspector VST and AU plugin was designed for the specific problem of how to keep a handle on spectral analysis and organization during a multitrack recording/mixing session. Spectral visualization prior to MultiInspector was generally done in the stereo domain alone, such as at a mastering engineer's workstation. MultiInspector changes this by designing their plug to share visualization data among successive instances of the plug. The initial instance of MultiInspector displays the combined analysis data in realtime by using colored display to discern between source tracks/instances. This is a very cool way to really exposes spectrum allocation in your mix and maybe, just maybe, allow you to skip the mastering stage in your project! From VertexDSP:

By default, every editor window of MultiInspector shows the same content, but there are numerous options for customizing the display content so that different views of the audio signals can be achieved. MultiInspector supports up to 16 instances at any sample rate from 32 kHz up to 192 kHz. After opening all necessary plug-in instances it is sufficient to leave just the editor windows open you really need. The width of the level bars is adjusted according to the current number of signals that are selected for display.

MultiInspector incorporates a standard third octave frequency analyzer. The centre frequencies of the bands are based on the ISO 266:1997 standard (20 Hz to 20 kHz). Pink noise will appear flat in the frequency spectrum with the default slope setting of 3 dB per octave.

Features:

• 31 band third octave frequency analyzer showing the spectral analysis of other plug-in instances in the same window.
• Independent editor windows for different views of the same content.
• Level bar width automatically adapts to the number of signals currently viewed.
• Adjustable attack and release time for smooth level bar display.
• Adjustable slope with a default of 3 dB per octave for flat display of pink noise.
• Peak option and peak hold mode.
• Average mode.
• Solo/mute for signal selection.
• 8 memory slots per signal in every editor window (8 x 16 memory slots per window).
• Up to 16 instances.
• VST 2.4 compatible.
• Sample rates from 32 kHz up to 192 kHz.

VertexDSP’s MultiInspector is available as a plug-in for Windows (VST) and Mac OS X Universal Binary (VST and AU) and will retail for €59. Until May 31st, MultiInspector can be purchased for an introductory price of €49.