# Getting the FFT data from a non-playing Soundfile

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/getting-the-fft-data-from-a-non-playing-soundfile/280808>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [February 1, 2009, 2:46pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/getting-the-fft-data-from-a-non-playing-soundfile/280808 "2009-02-01T14:46:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Shui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Shui](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Shui)\
**Post date:** [February 1, 2009, 2:46pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/getting-the-fft-data-from-a-non-playing-soundfile/280808/1 "2009-02-01T14:46:44Z")

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I’m desperately searching for a way to get the frequencys of a soundfile without having to play it.

I was shocked to see that the computespectrum method only processes real-time sound.  
I made some research and came across [this](http://www.bytearray.org/?p=329=1). Ok so now I’d have the array of the amplitudes.  
Next step would be to make the [Fast Fourier Transformation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Fourier_transform).

What I tried so far :

- Load external C++ dll. With [fftw and [URL=“http://www.northcode.com/swfstudio.php”]SwfStudio](http://www.fftw.org/index.html).  
I failed at understanding how to create an SwfStudio Plugin or even to understand how to implement that software in my actionscript code.

- Try to Transform the C++ code to actionscript.  
Well, [this guy could do it](http://stephan.acidcats.nl/blog/). He has exactly what I’m desperatly trying to do. If he’d ever release his source :cry3: but I failed at understanding how the transformation process works.

- Letting Java do the work and then read the Data from an external swf.  
Ok, [this](http://javaflash-fft.sourceforge.net/) could’ve worked if I could only use Actionscript 2. It seems that AS3 can’t read variables from imported AS2 swfs.

- Do it yourself !  
No, my knowledge just isn’t high enough to understand all those complex things.  
I tried to transform a Java Library to Actionscript. But I lack at Java knowledge and failed.  
I even tried [J2As](http://osflash.org/j2as)

- Try to understand how other people solved similar problems.  
[This guy](http://rest-term.com/archives/1345/)’s written some kind of a class wich would create an FFT effect on pictures.  
Unfortunately I didn’t see how I could use it in my situation ☹

as you see, I’m on a dead end. I didn’t even find any other possibilitys to try.

I’d greatly apreciate any help.