How to get more precise output out of an FFT? - ios

Question

I am trying to make a colored waveform using the output of the following code. But when I run it, I only get certain numbers (see the freq variable, it uses the bin size, frame rate and index to make these frequencies) as output frequencies. I'm no math expert, even though I cobbled this together from existing code and answers.
//
// colored_waveform.c
// MixDJ
//
// Created by Jonathan Silverman on 3/14/19.
// Copyright © 2019 Jonathan Silverman. All rights reserved.
//
#include "colored_waveform.h"
#include "fftw3.h"
#include <math.h>
#include "sndfile.h"
//int N = 1024;
// helper function to apply a windowing function to a frame of samples
void calcWindow(double* in, double* out, int size) {
for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
double multiplier = 0.5 * (1 - cos(2*M_PI*i/(size - 1)));
out[i] = multiplier * in[i];
}
}
// helper function to compute FFT
void fft(double* samples, fftw_complex* out, int size) {
fftw_plan p;
p = fftw_plan_dft_r2c_1d(size, samples, out, FFTW_ESTIMATE);
fftw_execute(p);
fftw_destroy_plan(p);
}
// find the index of array element with the highest absolute value
// probably want to take some kind of moving average of buf[i]^2
// and return the maximum found
double maxFreqIndex(fftw_complex* buf, int size, float fS) {
double max_freq = 0;
double last_magnitude = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < (size / 2) - 1; i++) {
double freq = i * fS / size;
// printf("freq: %f\n", freq);
double magnitude = sqrt(buf[i][0]*buf[i][0] + buf[i][1]*buf[i][1]);
if(magnitude > last_magnitude)
max_freq = freq;
last_magnitude = magnitude;
}
return max_freq;
}
//
//// map a frequency to a color, red = lower freq -> violet = high freq
//int freqToColor(int i) {
//
//}
void generateWaveformColors(const char path[]) {
printf("Generating waveform colors\n");
SNDFILE *infile = NULL;
SF_INFO sfinfo;
infile = sf_open(path, SFM_READ, &sfinfo);
sf_count_t numSamples = sfinfo.frames;
// sample rate
float fS = 44100;
// float songLengLengthSeconds = numSamples / fS;
// printf("seconds: %f", songLengLengthSeconds);
// size of frame for analysis, you may want to play with this
float frameMsec = 5;
// samples in a frame
int frameSamples = (int)(fS / (frameMsec * 1000));
// how much overlap each frame, you may want to play with this one too
int frameOverlap = (frameSamples / 2);
// color to use for each frame
// int outColors[(numSamples / frameOverlap) + 1];
// scratch buffers
double* tmpWindow;
fftw_complex* tmpFFT;
tmpWindow = (double*) fftw_malloc(sizeof(double) * frameSamples);
tmpFFT = (fftw_complex*) fftw_malloc(sizeof(fftw_complex) * frameSamples);
printf("Processing waveform for colors\n");
for (int i = 0, outptr = 0; i < numSamples; i += frameOverlap, outptr++)
{
double inSamples[frameSamples];
sf_read_double(infile, inSamples, frameSamples);
// window another frame for FFT
calcWindow(inSamples, tmpWindow, frameSamples);
// compute the FFT on the next frame
fft(tmpWindow, tmpFFT, frameSamples);
// which frequency is the highest?
double freqIndex = maxFreqIndex(tmpFFT, frameSamples, fS);
printf("%i: ", i);
printf("Max freq: %f\n", freqIndex);
// map to color
// outColors[outptr] = freqToColor(freqIndex);
}
printf("Done.");
sf_close (infile);
}
Here is some of the output:
2094216: Max freq: 5512.500000
2094220: Max freq: 0.000000
2094224: Max freq: 0.000000
2094228: Max freq: 0.000000
2094232: Max freq: 5512.500000
2094236: Max freq: 5512.500000
It only shows certain numbers, not a wide variety of frequencies like it maybe should. Or am I wrong? Is there anything wrong with my code you guys can see? The color stuff is commented out because I haven't done it yet.

Answer 1

The frequency resolution of an FFT is limited by the length of the data sample you have. The more samples you have, the higher the frequency resolution.
In your specific case you chose frames of 5 milliseconds, which is then transformed to a number of samples on the following line:
// samples in a frame
int frameSamples = (int)(fS / (frameMsec * 1000));
This corresponds to only 8 samples at the specified 44100Hz sampling rate. The frequency resolution with such a small frame size can be computed to be
44100 / 8
or 5512.5Hz, a rather poor resolution. Correspondingly, the observed frequencies will always be one of 0, 5512.5, 11025, 16537.5 or 22050Hz.
To get a higher resolution you should increase the number of samples used for analysis by increasing frameMsec (as suggested by the comment "size of frame for analysis, you may want to play with this").