Question about the compatibility with specific equipment

[NexTySa]

Hello everyone,

In short: I do not have that much experience with LabView product, but i know it's possible to connect specific hardware to LabView and program it (example Arduino / Raspberry).

I've assigned myself a project to program this equipment:

http://www.economik.com/dpa/4007a/      (microphone)

+

https://www.thomann.de/gb/focusrite_scarlett_solo_2nd_gen.htm    (Focusrite - audio soundcard)

I want to create with LabView a graph that shows the [dB] level (information recieved from the mic). So my question is, do you think it's possible that LabView and this hardware will be compatible via USB serial connection? Will i be possible to get the signal from the microphone?

I'm asking this because i still have not bought the equipment, and can't really try if it will work.

Thank you for your help and have a nice day! 🙂

[Kyle97330]

I can't tell for sure but it looks like that plugs in and is detected as a standard Windows sound device over USB.  If so, then the Acquire Sound express VI or the sound input VIs palette should be able to use it.

[NexTySa]

Thank you for your answer. I was thinking so too. I tried the VI and the sound input block with my laptop integrated mic and everything works. But now some new questions popped up and i couldnt find out how to do it.
Can I convert microphone signal to a dB scale, and how do i do that exactly? And can i make my signal response to be faster?

[Kyle97330]

By default LabVIEW doesn't have anything special for converting audio data to dB.  If you use graphs you can set them to a log scale, and there are math nodes that do logs and such to do it yourself.

To speed it up, you can reduce the "number of samples" value that's an in input on the "Sound input read" VI.  The larger the number of samples, the longer the wait and therefore the slower response.  If you're using the express VI, reduce the duration... but it's probably best to use the individual VIs.

If this is for a project with a budget, you could look at the Sound and Vibration toolkit, it might have more options for you (and NI engineers could talk about it, I haven't used it), but it looks like this might be a personal project?

[Bob_Schor]

Do you understand what the decibel scale measures?  You have a "microphone signal" which is in some units (let's say "volts"), and you want to convert it to decibels.  Relative to what?  You need a "reference" signal against which to compare your measured sound.  Have you thought about how you will get this?  If you have the value (in, say, "volts") of your reference sound, do you know what to do with this, and the value of your "microphone signal" to express the latter in dB?

"Doing the math" is, I think, easy, by comparison.

Bob Schor