foo_vis_spectrum_analyzer is a foobar2000 component that implements a spectrum analyzer panel.

It is an attempt to recreate the foo_musical_spectrum component by fismineur and the Audio Spectrum project for foobar2000 64-bit.

^{Spectrum analyzer Bars Mode with gradient colors}

^{Spectrum analyzer LED Bars Mode with gradient colors}

^{Spectrum analyzer Curve Mode with album art background, a peak meter and a level meter}

^{Spectrum analyzer wit mirrored Curve Mode}

^{Multiple Spectrum analyzer graphs for the separate channels}

^{Horizontal scrolling spectrogram visualization}

^{Spectrum analyzer Radial Bars Mode}

^{Spectrum analyzer Radial Curve Mode}

^Oscilloscope

^{Oscilloscope with Y-axis in dBFS}

^{Oscilloscope in X-Y mode}

^{Bit Meter using varying bar heights}

^{Bit Meter using varying bar opacity}

• Spectrum Analyzer (Bars, Curve, Radial Bars, Radial Curve), Spectrogram, Peak Meter, Level Meter, Oscilloscope and Bit Meter visualizations.
• Fast Fourier (FFT), Constant-Q (CQT), Sliding Windowed Infinite Fourier (SWIFT) and Analog-style transforms
• Multiple frequency range and smoothing options
• Multiple graphs
• Styling of all visual elements
• Artwork background and color extraction
• Uses DirectX rendering.
• Supports the Default User Interface (DUI) and the Columns User Interface (CUI).
• Supports dark mode.
• Supports foobar2000 2.0 and later (32 and 64-bit version).

• Tested on foobar2000 v2.0 or later (32 or 64-bit).
• Tested on Microsoft Windows 10 and later.
• Tested with Columns UI 2.1.0.

• Double-click foo_vis_spectrum_analyzer.fbk2-component.

or

• Import foo_vis_spectrum_analyzer.fbk2-component into foobar2000 using the "File / Preferences / Components / Install..." menu item.

You can find the user guide here.

To build the code you need:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition or later
• foobar2000 SDK 2025-03-07
• Windows Template Library (WTL) 10.0.10320
• Columns UI SDK 7.0.0

The following library is included in the code:

• Project Nayuki FFT

To create the deployment package you need:

• PowerShell 7.2 or later

Create the following directory structure:

3rdParty
    columns_ui-sdk
    WTL10_10320
bin
bin.x86
foo_vis_spectrum_analyzer
out
sdk

• 3rdParty/columns_ui-sdk contains the Columns UI SDK 7.0.0.
• 3rdParty/WTL10_10320 contains WTL 10.0.10320.
• bin contains a portable version of foobar2000 64-bit for debugging purposes.
• bin.x86 contains a portable version of foobar2000 32-bit for debugging purposes.
• foo_vis_spectrum_analyzer contains the Git repository.
• out receives a deployable version of the component.
• sdk contains the foobar2000 SDK.

Open foo_vis_spectrum_analyzer.sln with Visual Studio and build the solution.

To create the component first build the x86 configuration and next the x64 configuration.

v0.10.0.0, 2026-03-15

• New: Implemented a high resolution timer.
  • Refresh rates greater than 60Hz are now achievable if your machine can handle it.
• New: All / None button in configuration dialog to quickly select all or no channels.
• New: Visualize during pause option. Enable to continue visualization when playback is paused. (Default: Enabled)
• New: Scale lines option. Enable to draw scale lines on the bar area of a peak meter. (Default: Enabled)
• New: Swap channels option to swap the channels of a channel pair during visualisation e.g. the X and Y axis of an X/Y oscilloscope.
• New: Rotation option to rotate the X/Y oscilloscope.
• New: Bit Meter vizualisation
  • New Sign Bits, Exponent Bits and Mantissa Bits styles
  • Opacity Mode renders the bit histogram by varying the bar opacity instead of the bar height.
• Improved: Complete rewrite of Peak meter visualization.
  • Reduced CPU and GPU load.
  • Fixed known graphical glitches and inconsistencies.
  • New: Center scale setting to draw scales between the peak meter bars.
  • New: Max. bar size setting to constrain the width/height of a meter bar. (Forum feature request)
• Improved: Raised the max. number of frequency bins from 512 to 8192.
• Improved: Completely refactored the configuration dialog.
  • It became too complex to maintain.
  • Faster interaction with the render thread.
• Improved: The preset location supports %fb2k_path%, %fb2k_component_path% and %fb2k_profile_path%.
• Fixed: Annoying tooltip appearing all over the place in the configuration dialog.
• Fixed: SWIFT optimization bug.
• Fixed: Lanczos interpolation bug.
• Fixed: While editing the stops of a color gradient the component would appear to hang if the stops were not in ascending order.
• Fixed: The Preset directory no longer resets to the foobar2000 profile directory when loading a preset.
• Fixed: The gradient stops are no longer reset when editing a color of the gradient.
• Fixed: Oscilloscope did not implement all of the Y-axis settings.
• Fixed: Oscilloscope did not render the chunk duration on the X-axis correctly.
• Fixed: Oscilloscope did not render the vertical grid lines correctly.
• Fixed: Spectrum visualization did not render the peak top correctly when the peak area style was set to None. Git Issue 78

You can read the full history here.

• Peter Pawlowski for the foobar2000 audio player.
• TF3RDL for the advice, the help and his:
  • Frequency bands spectrum analyzer using either FFT or CQT
  • SWIFT, Sliding Windowed Infinite Fourier Transform
  • Analog-style spectrum analyzer and sliding DFT visualization using AudioWorklet
• Project Nayuki
• Holger Stenger for foo_vis_oscilloscope.
• fismineur for foo_musical_spectrum that inspired this component.
• Oleg V. Polikarpotchkin and Peter Lee for their Bezier Spline article.
• Bedapisl for Fast ColorThief.

• The Audio Frequency Spectrum Explained
• Fast Fourier Transformation FFT - Basics
• Sine Tone Generator
• A440
• Constant-Q transform
• Mel-frequency cepstrum
• Mel scale
• Sliding windowed infinite Fourier transform

• The SOS Audio Test Files
• HTML5 AAC Audio Playback Tests - Multichannel

• Home page: https://github.com/stuerp/foo_vis_spectrum_analyzer
• Repository: https://github.com/stuerp/foo_vis_spectrum_analyzer.git
• Issue tracker: https://github.com/stuerp/foo_vis_spectrum_analyzer/issues
• Support: https://hydrogenaudio.org/index.php/topic,125031.0.html.