title: FFT - When to window?
body: <p>I've seen the various FFT questions on here but I'm confused on part of the implementation. Instead of performing the FFT in real time, I want to do it offline. Lets say I have the raw data in <code>float[] audio</code>. The sampling rate is 44100 and so <code>audio[0] to audio[44099]</code> will contain 1 seconds worth of audio. If my FFT function handles the windowing (e.g. Hanning), do I simply put the entire <code>audio</code> buffer into the function in one go? Or, do I have to cut the audio into chunks of 4096 (my window size) and then input that into the FFT which will then perform the windowing function on top?</p>