Viewing File Statistics

Sound Forge Pro b statistics Statistics

Ctrl+O

Tools Menu

The Statistics dialog displays information about the selected sound file region. To display the dialog, choose Statistics from the Tools menu.

Item

Description

Ruler Format

Choose a setting from the drop-down list to choose the format that will be used to display the Cursor position, Minimum sample position, and Maximum sample position values.

Level Format

Choose a setting from the drop-down list to choose the format that will be used to display the Sample value at cursor, Minimum sample value, Maximum sample value, RMS level, and Average value values.

Sample value

Displays audio levels as integers.

  • In 32-bit (IEEE float) audio, these values range from -1.0000000 to 1.0000000.

  • In 24-bit audio, they range from -8388608 to 8388607.

  • In 16-bit audio, they range from -32768 to 32767.

  • In 8-bit audio, they range from -128 to 127.

Percent

Displays audio levels as percentages of the maximum allowed sample value. The range is from -100 to 100 percent.

Decibels (dB)

Displays audio levels in decibels. A value of 0 dB corresponds to maximum absolute amplitude and negative infinity (-Inf.) corresponds to complete silence. In 16-bit audio, -90.3 dB is the lowest possible dB value (sample value of 1).

Cursor position

The cursor position from the start of the sound file.

Sample value at cursor

The number stored by a single sample at the cursor position.

Minimum/Maximum sample position and sample value

The maximum and minimum sample values and the locations where they occur.

These values can help you determine if any clipping occurs in the sound file. It can also be used to determine the noise level of a signal for use with the Noise Gate effect. For example, to find the noise amplitude, run the Statistics function on a region of noisy silence.

RMS level

The Root Mean Square of the sample values relative to the RMS value of a maximum-amplitude square wave (the loudest possible recording).

When use
d on short intervals, this value relates to the volume level of the sound file. However, if used on a large selection with large volume variation, this value becomes less meaningful. For another way to measure loudness, use the Scan Levels button in the Normalize dialog.

Average value

The sum of all sample values in the selected region divided by the number of samples.

An average value that does not equal zero (-inf dB) can indicate a DC offset.

Zero crossings

The number of times per second that the waveform changes from a negative value to a positive value.

This value can be used as a rough estimate of the frequency of the sound data for very simple waveforms.

Copy to Clipboard

Copies the contents of the window to the clipboard—especially handy if you want to compare statistics from multiple files in a spreadsheet.

Sound Forge Pro tip StatisticsIf you want to copy only the data in the table (or specific data cells), select the cells you want to copy and press Ctrl+C.

Statistics