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I'm trying to recover amplitude/magnitude from an audio stream. I'm using FFT to go from time domain to frequency.

If I feed in a signal of known amplitude, the results I get from either windowing or using scipy.signal.stft are lower than what is being fed in.

I wonder if this is inherent to using a window, or if I'm just missing something.

sr = 44100
t = np.arange(sr) / float(sr)
sig = np.sin(2 * np.pi * 200 * t) #amp = 1, frequency = 200hz

A = np.fft.rfft(sig[:2048])
A = np.abs(A * 2/2048.0)
np.max(A)
#0.8720133060255314

(zf, zt, B) = signal.stft(sig[:2048], fs=sr, nperseg=2048)
B = np.abs(B)
np.max(B)
#0.4738186881461125

What I'd really like is to be able to combine the windowed results in B to get something close to the amplitude of the data, but a linear scale average does not seem to help. I'm not sure if its inherent or if I'm missing a scaling factor.

I did notice if I window the rfft I get pretty close to the results of stft, e.g.

win = np.hanning(2048)
A = np.fft.rfft(sig[:2048] * win)
np.max(np.abs(A * 1/win.sum()))
#0.4738443584361969

If I use a frequency picked to be the centre of an FFT bin (150.73), np.max(A) ~= 1.0 and np.max(B) ~= 0.5.

scipy.signal.check_NOLA is True for my parameters, and I can recover the original signal from complex B with istft.

I would appreciate any advice or guidance, thanks.

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Firstly, STFT is fundamentally a time-frequency transform: convolutions with windowed complex sinusoids (i.e. bandpass filtering). You aren't going to "frequency", and "windowed Fourier transform" is just one perspective. And time-frequency is bound by Heisenberg: all parameters are imperfectly localized, including amplitude.

STFT is subject to the one-integral inverse (but not via scipy or librosa as their complex-valued transforms are flawed). What this means is, all STFT rows sum to the original input (if satisfiying one-integral's criteria), so if input amplitude is 1, the sum will reflect that value, not any of its parts. Moreover, specifically for amplitude, strict analyticity must hold (negative frequencies = 0), which isn't the case with STFT near DC and Nyquist; the narrower the window, the worse the problem.

scipy also internally normalizes according to fs to better compute some physical quantities, but that's just a distortion if we're seeking direct signal parameters. I don't know its implementation inside out so I'll just illustrate with ssqueezepy (which also lacks the flaw).

Amplitude extraction criteria

  1. Strict analyticity: abs(fft(window)), centered at frequency of interest, is 0 for negative frequencies.
  2. Analyticity scaling: (relevant, Hilbert transform) double non-DC and non-Nyquist bins
  3. L1-normalized window, in time or frequency: if in time, the peak of |STFT| will sometimes yield the exact amplitude; if in frequency, the sum of |STFT| will always yield the exact amplitude for a pure tone; both assume 1-3 hold.
    • Frequency norm, window /= sum(abs(fft(window))) (window padded to n_fft) | Advantage: for a pure tone, the recovery is exact regardless of tone's frequency and n_fft. Disadvantage: it's useless for non-pure tones.
    • Time norm, window /= sum(window) | Advantage: works for any signal. Disadvantage: being exact requires n_fft = inf or signal spectrum matching those of the transform's peak frequencies; though "inexact" is still often very close

Example

What I've done in code:

  1. Handle 2 & 3
  2. Avoid signal that's near DC or Nyquist; this handles 1
  3. Use a window well-localized in time and frequency: if time fails, there's worse edge effects, if frequency fails, we lose analyticity over wider frequential intervals. This handles 1.
  4. Use a window L1-normalized in time

Left is |STFT|, right is a temporal slice (rows) of its complex values at time index 0, and printed below is the sum of the right plot:

sum(Sx[:, 0]) = (256-1.8782743491467817e-12j)
max(abs(Sx[:, 0])) / sum(window) = 1.0000000000000018

enter image description here

I used hop_len=1 for maximum information, but greater hop_len is just its subset: Sx_strided = Sx[:, ::hop_len].

Alternative: synchrosqueezing

All the work is done for us:

enter image description here

though of course it's no silver bullet, see article.

Criteria demos

Above we've shown the complex Sx, but of interest is abs(Sx), and they only matched by (simplifying) coincidence. Below,

  • Sx_adj refers to having non-DC & non-Nyquist bins doubled
  • window_adj refers to having window zero-padded to the row-wise length of the STFT convolution (i.e. time dimension), which provides the true frequency response of the window
  • window_adj_f refers to having window zero-padded to length n_fft, which is how frequency norm is computed

1. Everything's right

max(abs(x)) = 1
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) = 256
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) = 7.18
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) / sum(window_adj) = 1 -- time norm
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) / sum(abs(fft(window_adj_f))) = 1 -- freq norm

enter image description here

2. Nonstationary (but single-component) case

max(abs(x)) = 1
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) = 257
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) = 7.17
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) / sum(window_adj) = 0.998 -- time norm
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) / sum(abs(fft(window_adj_f))) = 1 -- freq norm

The imperfection in time norm is due to (very small) boundary effects; freq norm just lucked out.

enter image description here

3. Too close to Nyquist

max(abs(x)) = 1
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 32])) = 133
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 32])) = 5.23
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 32])) / sum(window_adj) = 0.729 -- time norm
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 32])) / sum(abs(fft(window_adj_f))) = 0.519 -- freq norm

Nothing works! Analyticity.

enter image description here

4. Too close to DC

max(abs(x)) = 1
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 32])) = 133
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 32])) = 5.23
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 32])) / sum(window_adj) = 0.729 -- time norm
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 32])) / sum(abs(fft(window_adj_f))) = 0.519 -- freq norm

Same story.

enter image description here

5. Multi-component intersection

max(abs(x)) = 2
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) = 142
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) = 2.94
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) / sum(window_adj) = 0.41 -- time norm
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) / sum(abs(fft(window_adj_f))) = 0.553 -- freq norm

enter image description here

6. Insufficient n_fft

max(abs(x)) = 1
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) = 38.1
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) = 15.9
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) / sum(window_adj) = 0.882 -- time norm
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) / sum(abs(fft(window_adj_f))) = 1.06 -- freq norm

enter image description here

7a. Excessive hop_size

max(abs(x)) = 1
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 2])) = 78
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 2])) = 4.54
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 2])) / sum(window_adj) = 0.226 -- time norm
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 2])) / sum(abs(fft(window_adj_f))) = 0.305 -- freq norm

This uses hop_size=64, with len(x)=256. All other examples use hop_size=1.

enter image description here

7b. Minimal (best) hop_size

max(abs(x)) = 1
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 96])) = 256
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 96])) = 18.6
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 96])) / sum(window_adj) = 0.926 -- time norm
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 96])) / sum(abs(fft(window_adj_f))) = 1 -- freq norm

Note, from accuracy standpoint, lower hop_size is always better, and higher risks aliasing.

enter image description here

8. Non-localized window

max(abs(x)) = 1
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) = 1.03e+03
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) = 50.2
max(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) / sum(window_adj) = 0.928 -- time norm
sum(abs(Sx_adj[:, 128])) / sum(abs(fft(window_adj_f))) = 0.7 -- freq norm

Despite the sine being in nearly the ideal spot (which is f=64, right between DC and Nyquist), the results are still off because the window is |noise|, which has long tails in frequency and never achieves analyticity.

This is a frequency localization example, one can also be made for time.

enter image description here

How's it work?

Unless already familiar, this should be read first: Equivalence between "windowed Fourier transform" and STFT as convolutions/filtering.

  • Time norm: dividing by sum(window) makes the filters peak at 1. Recall, a filter at frequency f is just fft(window) shifted to f, and the DC bin of fft(window) is its peak, and DC is sum, so we're just cancelling that sum.

    • For a pure sine with frequency that exactly matches that tiled by STFT - conv in time <=> mult in freq - it's filter peaking at 1 multiplied by a unit impulse that peaks at the sine's amplitude. STFT takes the time result - which is ifft of this result, which is just a sine of the exact same amplitude and frequency.
    • For a pure sine with frequency that doesn't exactly match that tiled by STFT, no filter can perfectly align its peak of 1 with the sine's, hence the time norm fails.
    • For a single-component AM-FM signal, we favor the time domain perspective and observe that locally in time, it's the same story with same results.

  • Freq norm: n_fft=N is convolving fft(window) with fft(x), so dividing by fft(window) recovers the amplitude of x, even if the sine's freq doesn't exactly match STFT's tiling. n_fft < N is this convolution but aliased, so the result is no longer guaranteed. Since n_fft = N is both prohibitively expensive and completely unnecessary from feature standpoint, the frequency norm is pretty useless. But maybe it's still sufficiently accurate with n_fft << N in most cases, I've not checked.

  • Analyticity / "components": refer to this post.

Re: another answer

The window gain is in most cases just the mean of the window, i.e. for a hanning window it's 0.5.

It's sum, not mean, as was shown. "Mean" implies that every point of the window is equally weighed, and that zero-padding the window changes STFT results, neither of which are true. It happens to be mean if we apply a specific normalization to STFT, but just because it cancels said norm.

Time-norm snippet

If Sx = stft(x, window, ...) and x is real-valued, for any config, we do

Sx[1:-1] *= 2
Sx /= sum(window)

but again be sure the library doesn't do its own norms (e.g. scipy fs).

Answer Code

Available on Github.

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This is indeed caused by windowing. The window obviously reduces the energy in every single frame but of course, due to the overlap there are twice as many frames.

The window gain is in most cases just the mean of the window, i.e. for a hanning window it's 0.5.

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