Caution with this method. A VU meter has an integration time of 300ms (usually) so whether this method works or not depends heavily on the lenght of the sounds (and their freq distribution).

Additionally (@Randlefish), short sounds (percussions) set to 0VU can cause signals several dB above 0dB FS, so digital clipping!

 

That's such an automotive and amateurish thing to do, honestly. But hey, whatever. Nobody's born an engineer (most people aren't, at least (and I sure as shit wasn't)). Do what gets you better, but be ready to abandon things that hold you back.

Dan Worrall just uploaded a video for you! Check it out.

 

i like Dan Worall hes a good salesman. and yes automotive, im a drummer what did you expect. everyone knows not to let the drummer touch the board

 

I'm a drummer myself, so Iunno. I taught at least one guitarist how to come up with tones...

 

The main advantage of gain staging @ -18dBFS besides satisfying the requirements of certain plugins, e.g. Nebula, is that all your faders are up when it comes to mixing. Personally, I couldn't work with my faders all over the place due to a sloppy workflow.

 

This explains a lot!

 

Okay, let's make this really short. Load a VU meter on your master track insert. Set all faders to unity position.
Insert gain plugins on all track inserts or use clip gain.
If the track levels of the song are already set, then raise or lower all gain plugins/clip gain equally until the maximum level on the VU meter shows 0dB VU. If the track levels of the song are not yet set, then first level the tracks with the most low frequency content (e.g. kick, sub, bass) until the VU meter shows 0dB VU. Then add the remaining tracks according to taste. Done.

The JS VU meters in Reaper are absolutely useless. You could try this VU. The ballistic is the same as in VUMT. It can be embedded in MCP or TCP, but does not always scale correctly.

 

big thanks @Sinus Well , i kinda suspected the JS wasnt that great. more a matter of screen realestate but i can make room for the VUMT

 

Until i stopped streaming porn while recording & mixing i had just the same problem!

 

We may be talking at cross-purposes here, but this seems to be a very widely misunderstood point. VU meters are RMS meters. Not a particular fan, but Graham illustrates this quite well in this video:

You can find several other references to this (e.g. here in a Logic discussion forum): https://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=132227

You definitely want your incoming signal to be hovering around 0dBVU, calibrated to -18dBFS, the VU meter being an RMS meter, in order to analog modeled plugins to be responding "in their sweet spot" (if they are calibrated to -18dBFS=0VU). This is precisely why Hornet has a separate "reference" point and "maximum". The "reference being that -18dBFS RMS sweet spot, and the "maximum" to catch the peaks and then adjusting the gain lower accordingly if the signal exceeds that peak value. If the object of that gain staging plugin was just to normalize the incoming signal to -18dBFS (PEAK)=0dBVU there would be no need for a "maximum" value.

 

VUMT is resizable. I am still experimenting about how best to use the plugin in conjunction with the bypass/mute options, or just dragging it around a track. I don't think you need to use two instances on each track, or maybe that's just me. I have even tried it only on the group bus, and it kinda worked ok.

 

Last edited: Nov 24, 2021

Now this is next level overthinking. I have yet to find someone that can discern and decides that peaking at 0 dBFS through a plugin sounds worse than peaking at -20. You'll either end up with faders super low (and hard to mix) either with a gain trim & faders at unity but in both cases unreadable levels on daw's mixer because you work at such low levels. Not to mention the hassle of setting a compressor threshold at -37.2 dB.
Not saying not to do gain staging, but do it sanely - usually a trim of -10 dB is enough to accomodate a fairly large project (also forces you to really clean up your spectrum, instead of piling up signals at low level only to find out when you start mixing that you'll never manage to get a decent loudness out of it)

 

i use both clip gain and hornet to gain stage to -18dbfs when i first receive tracks, as levels track to track are generally inconsistent and all over the place. i use mostly analog modeled plugins when mixing, so i use mvmeter2 by TBProaudio (free!!) to make sure my level is staying consistent from plugin to plugin as i mix (helpful if the plugins have a "sweet spot", inconsequential if they don't)

once i have all the individual tracks bussed down to their main groups, i set the level of the drum bus to around -23 short term LUFS just like in the dan worrall video posted up above (i measure that using izotope insight 2). that drum bus level becomes my north star and i bring everything else up to where it is sitting nicely around the drums. i then add my mix bus processing with whatever small adjustments i think are necessary for the overall mix

i typically pop a limiter on the end of the chain and crank the output when sending reference mixes, and i will bounce each final track at whatever level the mastering engineer prefers to receive them at

 

hmm, great idea resizing VUMT. well not as good as turning down the porn but pretty good lol. I do like the averaging meter for comparing (soloing) two materials together

 

well im not sure how @Randlefish feels about being hijacked @rowan but i am taking it all in

 

I didn't even make it to minute 2, because even in the beginning every second sentence contains a false statement...

 

Care to elaborate why they're currently useless?

 

Useless as a VU meter...

Because they show usual rms levels on a VU meter inspired scale and the ballistic (related to VU) is off. It is simply not a VU meter emulation, but a RMS meter in fancy moving coil optics.

 

Ok, but just for clarification, what VU meter are you referring to? There are 3 basic JS VU meters that come with Reaper, otherwise the recent Loudness Meter shows RMS/LUFS and Peak levels and the same goes with the "Master VU" settings. If that's what you're talking about, well, it's pretty clear those aren't VU meters.

 

The VU meters that come as JSFX stock plugins with Reaper. I don't remember their exact names.