tone generator software

[scott17]

Anyone have any experience with a good software application to generate clean square waves? I have tried Visual Analyser however the square wave generated by it is not very good.

Anyone have experience with NCH Tone Generator software?

[stratus46]

Originally Posted by scitizen17

Anyone have any experience with a good software application to generate clean square waves? I have tried Visual Analyser however the square wave generated by it is not very good.

Anyone have experience with NCH Tone Generator software?

Define 'not very good'. Are you seeing symmetrical overshoots / ringing? That would be normal for a bandwidth limited system. A photo would help a lot.

G²

[scott17]

Originally Posted by stratus46

Define 'not very good'. Are you seeing symmetrical overshoots / ringing? That would be normal for a bandwidth limited system. A photo would help a lot.

G²

By "not very good", referring to the Visual Analyser software, I mean extreme ringing across the entire top and bottom of the waveform, no matter what the frequency.

[stratus46]

Originally Posted by scitizen17

By "not very good", referring to the Visual Analyser software, I mean extreme ringing across the entire top and bottom of the waveform, no matter what the frequency.

I don't know about your software as I use Adobe Audition 3.0 but the point is, with a limited bandwidth system you will have ringing. The problem is the equation of a squarewave has components out to infinity but in your sampled digital world you only use a handful of the components. I got the same result as you with a 1 KHz square using a 44100 sample rate. It looks much better with a sample rate of 192000. BTW if you look up old reviews of CD players the 1 KHz square response has symmetrical ringing.

If you need a ring free square you could buy a sine / square audio generator or run your computer output into a comparator to clean up the edges. you'd still need line drive and level set stages after the comparator.

G²

[DRONE7]

There is a nice tone generator here...
* JSigGen
It runs as a Java applet so will work on Win/Lin/and Mac and is careware.
(check the application author's careware definition page but the app is free to download and use and asks you to "pay' for it by caring more about your fellow humans- a lovely way to promote a better world for all.

* The CareWare Idea

[scott17]

stratus46
Thanks for the info. I have an HP3311A but it has problems at the moment.

DRONE7
I'll check out the JSigGen, thanks.

[stratus46]

Originally Posted by DRONE7

There is a nice tone generator here...
* JSigGen
It runs as a Java applet so will work on Win/Lin/and Mac and is careware.
(check the application author's careware definition page but the app is free to download and use and asks you to "pay' for it by caring more about your fellow humans- a lovely way to promote a better world for all.

* The CareWare Idea

But it will have the same problem scitizen17 is having. The software isn't the problem. The re-construction filter is the limiting factor and there is nothing to be done about it except to use a different signal generator.

G²

[DRONE7]

Yes, thank you.
I was following up on your comment...

It looks much better with a sample rate of 192000.

and as * JSigGen is selectable for that thought that it may be an improvement on the o/p's current software.
(and unlike Adobe Audition 3.0 it is free so the o/p would lose nothing by trialling it..

best regards, Bob

[webspider]

Hello Friends,
For generating arbitrary tones? No. There is a beep [doc.qt.nokia.com] function in QApplication that will play your system beep. But not a tone generator in the “play simple tunes” sense.
There are various multimedia APIs in Qt, but primarily are concerned with playback of media files and that sort of thing.
Thanks


Circuit Design Program
FPGA Implementation

[Pano]

I used the NHC tone gen many years ago, liked it fine. But now I stay FAR away from their stuff. Anything they make installs tons of bloatware, adware and other crap. Beware.

Audacity is free (get the current Beta) and will generate tones. Or the trial version of ARTA, or Goldwave (not free, but long trial). I think even WinISD has a tone generator.