can someone explain why you use a VU meter in a daw

do you use a VU meter for all tracks?

and why

thanks

 

haha! Where is the "Only Answer Within First 30 mins" button! lol

@Voekit You happened to forget the most important point about VU meters, which really the member who is asking should know:
VU meters hear like the human ear. THIS is the main point we value them hugely.
Not as accurate as an FS fader, but that isn't how we hear.
FS fader meter shows volume; VU meter shows loudness.

You have said little of specific use here, along with your subjective thoughts.
"Better clipping, better THD" is nothing to with a VU meter per se although it will aid you in many tasks because it reads loudness.
Where is the Worst Answer button, @samsome ?

 

Last edited: Sep 16, 2021

its for gain staging , which imo is bullshit driving emulation plugins is the only unique thing about them

 

While Daws are linear and have infinite headroom (at least theoratically) VU meter are there to help you hit sweet spots as @Voekit suggested for certain plugins, but what's more important, is that VU meters help you being consistant, one of the sound engineer's important thing, is to be consistant with your mixes, so you can build your own sound signature and somehow standout, but records are unique and each recording is different from other records, so the best way to stay again "consistant" is to target each bus with a certain loudness, hit each plugin in a certain loudness, and hit your master buss compressor in a certain loudness, for exemple you always have your bass buss at let's say -12LUFS, your drums at -6 and so on, this way you kinda know what to expect and your mixes does not sound as if they were mixed by another person, especially when you mix an EP or an album...

hope it makes sense for you, and good luck.

 

MMyeah; all of that, and everything you said, can be done more accurately with an FS fader.
So, no, kind of...
Also you just talk of volume, when VU shows loudness.

 

What's an FS fader?

to my knowledge a fader can never measure leadness.

 

balance

 

FFS! GIYF! lol FS are the full scale faders in your daw and they have a visual meter! The ones that look at the momentary peaks of all our audio! lol. Volume.
VU sees loudness as the ear does.

 

Sorry, what?
A VU METER?!

 

troll posting, he does not even know what it is.

 

? How?
What I said is true.
Oh, I see with your edit now!

 

Could have said daw integrated meter, but well...

That being said i don't personally use a VU meter per say, i use something a bit more advanced, Pure Analyzer from flux...

 

yes, of course him. :P

 

Which I would have had to have made up, seeing as FS is unversally used and understood.
And yes I meant the meter of the fader, not the fader itself! You got me! lol

 

One of the uses of a VU meter:
Plugin manufacturers have certain sweet spots and a VU meter makes it easy for you to level your signal as it goes into a plugin.

One thing to keep in mind is that companies like Plugin Alliance have floating point processing, that is what matters is not how loud your signal is going into the plugin but making sure you don't clip on your way out.

Using a VU meter would be dependent on the manufacturer/plugin and what their suggest sweet spot is.

 

Last edited: Sep 16, 2021

If you have better suggestions, I believe others will be happier.
Rather than making a rude attack, it is impolite to deny others at will without considering the context. It's not funny.

If you are close to 0dBVU, then obviously higher THD will appear.
VU could NOT change the sound, but you can, with this you definitely do. YOU TURN THE KNOBS.

If you continue to refute, the conclusion is:
If a person can hear that saturation is beyond the sweet spot, he can definitely determine the effect of plugins that only provide RMS digital meters on audio dynamics without relying on VU meters - the so called "VU meter can help me hear the dynamics and loudness changes, but it cannot help me understand the current overload in the chain." is totally bullshit.

You don't even understand what I'm talking about.

Unless, you have never tried to insert any digital plugins with unlimited headroom among multiple analog modeled plugins—those that do not have a built-in VU meter but have a sweet spot.
Or, you have a very high level of listening, and can easily adjust the input and output of the modeling plugins to ensure that they do not produce too much distortion in the chain, which will benefit the subsequent digital plugins.

 

Cause it looks cool as fuck.

 

I did. They are.

I didn't. Where?

I didn't. I am sorry if I came across like that! My apologies.

Totally considered. Your assumption is wrong.

 

Last edited: Sep 17, 2021

It depends! In PT I mix with VU meters (the ones next to the faders, you know) and in Reaper with LUFS-M and LUFS-S meters.
Peak levels are only interesting for me when recording and on the master out.