Filter
Top Products
Viewing selection statistics
Choosing Statistics from the Tools menu displays a Statistics window showing information about the current selection or, if there is no
selection, on the entire file.
The following table describes all statistical categories displayed in the Statistics window.
Statistical Category Description
Ruler Format Choose a setting from the drop-down list to determine the format you would like to
use for the Cursor position, Minimum sample position, and Maximum sample
position categories. For more information, see Selecting status formats on page 80.
Level Format Choose a setting from the drop-down list to specify how the left- and right-channel
levels at the cursor position will appear.
• Values Appears as an integer. The range is from -8388608 to 8388607 in 24-bit
audio, -32768 to 32767 in 16-bit audio and -128 and 127 in 8-bit audio.
• Decibels Appears as 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).
• Percentages Appears as a percentage ranging from -100 to 100 percent.
Cursor position The cursor position (in samples) from the start of the audio file.
Sample value at cursor The actual number stored by a single sample. The maximum allowed sample value is
often referred to as 100% or 0 dB.
Maximum/minimum sample The maximum and minimum sample values and the locations (in samples) where they
position and sample value occur.
These values may help determine if clipping will occur in the audio file. These values
can also be used to determine the noise level of a signal for use with the Noise Gate
effect (a built-in XFX plug-in installed with Sound Forge). For example, to determine
the noise amplitude of a file, run Statistics 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).
On short intervals, this value relates to the volume level of the audio file. If used on a
large selection with large volume variation, this value becomes less meaningful.
Average value The sum of all sample values in the selected region divided by the number of samples.
If this value is not zero, it usually indicates a DC offset in the recording process.
Zero crossings The number of times per second that the waveform fluctuates from a negative to a
positive value.
This value can be used as a rough estimate of the frequency of the audio data for very
simple waveforms.
Copy to Clipboard Copies all contents of the Statistics window to the clipboard. This can be useful if you
want to compare statistics of multiple files in a spreadsheet.
Note:
To copy specific data or cells, select the cells that you want to copy and press
Ctrl+C.
64 | CHAPTER 3