Brought to you by Box Of Rules

Stop arguing with your ears.
Measure the chain.

Upload a recording and get the numbers behind the tone: spectral fingerprint, energy in seven frequency bands, dynamics, LUFS, harmonic content, plus charts you can drop straight into your session notes. Compare two takes side by side and see exactly where they differ.

The process

Upload. Measure. Read the numbers.

1

Upload a file

Drop in a WAV, MP3, FLAC, OGG or AIFF. No plugin to install and no account needed to try it.

2

We measure it

The analyser runs the full feature set against your recording while you wait.

3

Read the numbers

Get a plain-English read-out plus the raw spectral, dynamic and harmonic figures behind it.

What you get per run

Numbers first, opinions second

Spectral fingerprint

Centroid, rolloff, bandwidth, flatness and contrast. One glance tells you which of two takes is brighter, and by how much, not "a bit".

Seven-band energy

Sub bass through brilliance, as ratios of total energy. This is where mic choices and pedal settings stop being vibes and start being percentages.

Dynamics and loudness

Dynamic range, crest factor, peak and LUFS. Spot the over-compressed take before it costs you a mix revision.

Harmonic content

Harmonic ratio, fundamental frequency and inharmonicity. Useful for judging saturation stages and spotting a channel that is quietly misbehaving.

Timbre data

MFCCs and chroma, the raw material for matching one chain against another. All of it comes back as data you keep.

Charts

Waveform, spectrogram, mel spectrogram and band distribution per file. Comparisons add stacked views and a spectrum overlay of both takes.

Proven on my own sessions

This tool made the record

The desk assessment

Before tracking I ran pink noise through all 24 channels of the studio's 1980s British console and pushed the captures through this analyser. Four channels returned no signal at all, one was measurably the brightest and most saturated on the desk, and the numbers handed me the five cleanest channels for kick, snare and vocal plus the tightest-matched pairs for stereo mics. That is a morning of listening tests done in minutes, with receipts.

The mic shootout

Six vocal mics at WaterBear, same passage, gain-matched, twelve takes. The analysis showed every mic dumps three quarters of its energy into the same core mids, so the choice actually lives in the edge bands: one mic owned the body, one owned the presence, one owned the air. It also proved two of my mics are spectrally near-identical, so layering them was adding level, not width.

Read both write-ups with the actual numbers

How it works

Three steps, no setup

1. Record honestly

Change one thing at a time and gain-match your takes. Louder always sounds better, so level differences will lie to you. WAV at 44.1k/24-bit is ideal; MP3, FLAC, OGG and AIFF work too.

2. Upload

One token analyses a file. Two tokens compare a pair. Your audio is analysed and then deleted from the server; the features and charts are yours to keep. Tokens are shared with Box Of Synths.

3. Decide with data

Pick the mic, the channel, the pedal setting, the cab. Or prove that the expensive option and the cheap one measure the same, which is its own kind of win.

Turn the numbers into a patch

Hand your measurements to Box Of Synths

Every run on this analyser produces a summary Box Of Synths can read directly: spectral fingerprint, band energies, dynamics and harmonic content. Feed it a measured recording and it will design a patch aimed at that exact sound.

Try Box Of Synths
Who is behind this

Box Of Rules

Box Of Rules is my bass-led project from Brighton: songs, and the tools used to make them. A decade and change of software development is the reason a one-person outfit can ship audio software at all, and this analyser comes from the same place as my plugins: measured rather than modelled, built for a record first and released because it earned its keep. You'll hear Box Of Rules plugins on Box Of Rules songs, and the analysis behind those plugins came through this exact tool. Doesn't get more transparent than that!

The music and the plugins live at boxofrules.com