Three things on a spectrogram
- The horizontal axis is time, from the start of the track to the end.
- The vertical axis is frequency. The bottom is bass (kick, bassline), the top is highs (hi-hats, cymbals). The scale usually runs from 20 Hz to about 20–22 kHz.
- Color and brightness are strength. Brighter is louder, dark means quiet or nothing at all.
Read it left to right to see the structure: drops are bright and dense, breakdowns sparser and darker.
What a good file looks like
In the densest section, the spectrum is full from bottom to top. The highs fade out naturally at the very top, with no flat cutoff line. There are darker gaps between kicks, which means the track still has punch.
The fastest way to learn is to open a track you know is a good original, study it, and use it as your reference.
Five signs to watch for
- A flat wall at about 16 kHz or lower. The file was once a low-bitrate MP3, even if it's a FLAC now. See how to spot a fake FLAC.
- Holes and speckles in the highs. Signs of heavy compression: the encoder drops whole patches of highs when it runs out of bitrate.
- Bright vertical lines running the full height. Clicks, pops, or a spot where two pieces of audio were joined.
- A bright horizontal band through the whole track. Mains hum (50 or 60 Hz) or a whine at one frequency.
- The loudest section looks smeared, with no gaps between kicks. The track was pushed too loud, often with clipping. See what clipping is.
Quick tips
- Always look at the densest section, never judge from the intro.
- Zoom in above 15 kHz, where compression leaves its marks.
- One sign isn't proof. Two or three together almost always are.
With TaxonomyDJ
The Inspector tab in TaxonomyDJ shows the full-track spectrogram, lets you zoom in, and reads out the frequency as you hover. Next to it are plain-language findings: upscaled, clipping, loudness compared to your library, color-coded green, yellow, and red. Free on every plan.