there are very clear defined characteristics of a vu-Meter. You can read them in "Audio Program Level, The VU Meter, and The Peak Program Meter" - Hans Schmid, https://de.scribd.com/document/97823261/04-Audio-Prog-Level-Meters there, or in the DIN IEC 60268-17:1992-08. This is a vu-Meter nothing else.

 

Fair enough - as I said, I'm not a Graham fan as such. But I am neither a social media user so not used to those kinds of polarising arguments. What in his segment regarding RMS vs. PEAK was wrong? Which is exactly what I was taught at SAE as well. Respect that you didn't have tolerance for the video, but sticking to the RMS vs. PEAK argument?

p.s. listened back to the first 2 minutes of his video and didn't encounter any factual errors...?

 

Last edited: Nov 24, 2021

well, im kinda following both of you, but i think the answers you two are helping provide are a little finer in detail than my original question(s) about meters.
i think i took Randlefish's thread on a tangent. but i do want to say i respect opposing views. more can be learned, and the hearer can benefit by the closer examination. thank you
p.s @rowan im not a social media user either

 

@Djord Emer i saw the three separate metering options in MCP, are you refering to those three? my reference was of the one balistic (analog) style i found in the reaper stash, it didnt seem to hit the same line as VUMT with a bass and kick track. however, both are averaging though so its like measuring a Horseshoes near-pin to the other Horseshoes near-pin. answer is which Horseshoe was on top

 

Your OP was pretty much spot on for my own workflow. I'm not so concerned about individual channel outputs, as long as I gain stage them properly within the channel (for what works for me) into their respective busses or the 2bus (either by plugin output gain or another instance of the Hornet VU Meter). I put the Hornet on the 2bus as well before hitting any tape emulations, etc. I guess you just have to use what works for you... I've tried to explain what works for me and what I understand plugin manufacturers are trying to aim at. If someone else interprets it and uses it in another way, that's fine by me as well

 

Yeah, those three. I don't use them but I was eager to know why would they be useless. To me it sure doesn't look like it would be the case with JS or even Cockos plugins.

 

Just so you know, I don't like you either. Moving on.

 

Which?

Correct, but not on my side.

Agreed. EDIT: That needs some adjustment. I agree that VU meters and RMS meters show average values but the equation VU = RMS is wrong, ofc.

By beginning with a DAW has a sweet spot?
No, it doesn't, I proved this already here in the forum.

You're calling a forum a reference??? Aha.

In the DAW? Nope, why should I?

I don't understand this.

Maybe these two pics explain what I'm talking about:
The first one I've made quite a while ago. Compare the Mixer Master on the right (top value peak, bottom value RMS) and the top VU meter (the other two meters confirm the Mixer Master)


This one took me 30 seconds to 'set it up', maybe that's more clear?

 

Last edited: Nov 24, 2021

The first false statement is made right after the guy introduces himself. No, DAWs don't have a "sweet spot" where "things sound their best". The statement immediately following that DAWs have an "accumulating effect that gives you the best, cleanest, most musical sound possible" at the "sweet spot" is also wrong. The next statement that follows, that the old rule of thumb from the analog domain "record as hot as possible without clipping" no longer applies in the digital age, is also wrong.

But now we are only at minute 1. He has made 3 statements and all 3 statements are objectively wrong.
Until minute 2, the guy explains why this rule would no longer apply today and makes one wrong statement after the next.
I watched the rest of the video and it doesn't really get any better. Well, okay, it's getting a little better. The number of false statements per minute is decreasing. However, the number of sentences that contain informational content also decreases, so it roughly balances out.

I usually back up my statements with source evidence, but I'm on my lunch break right now and with the amount of false statements, a detailed discussion would go beyond the scope of a simple forum post and end up in an article. You say you graduated from SAE, so I assume you are smart enough and able to figure out for yourself which statements are false and why. Small hint: The keywords here are bit depth and preamp SNR. On the other hand, you are free to pay me for the time it takes to write a detailed article about this video and its content.

On the subject of VU meters:
To avoid confusion, let me clarify, we are talking about digital VU meters, not analog.
Digital VU meters are calibrated with a 1kHz sine tone at -18dBFS sample peak. You can also calibrate with -18dBFS RMS(+3), but by definition dBFS SP is used for calibration. 0dB VU is therefore -18dBFS SP at 1kHz.

VU meters are loudness meters and all digital loudness meters are based on RMS. But this does not mean that all loudness meters show dBFS RMS. Digital RMS meters show digital RMS, digital VU meters show digital VU. It is as simple as that.
The first difference between VU meters and RMS meters, apart from the scale, is that VU meters are not calibrated to dBFS RMS, but to dBFS RMS(+3).
The second difference is that a VU meter emulates the physical behavior of the moving coil, including the inertia of the needle, which means that the response time and inertia of the VU meter, combined with the response over the frequency spectrum, is quite different from the behavior of a simple RMS meter.


Edit:

As you can see, max RMS and max VU do not have the values they should have if 0dB VU = -18dB RMS(+3) = -21dB RMS. Due to the inertia, there is about 1dB difference in this case. If I take another source, with different dynamics and frequency response, the level difference will be different from this result.

 

Last edited: Nov 24, 2021

yes the pictures help, so we dont confuse peak, RMS, and averaging.
i have a feeling most metering discussions battle with this. but what im using for is averaging, horseshoes, just to gauge buildup because im a little heavy handed in premix.
i know theres more than that like transients and sustained material, i just like averaging for some kind or starting point

 

as far as i've heard, the meters that are built into reaper are accurate. the JS codes are 3rd party and the needle style meter i found for averaging because it can be displayed right in the MCP didnt seem to be hitting the same line as my VUMT meter. thats why i was questioning it. one of the other posters pointed out a different JS needle style which is supposed to have the same balistics as VUMT, but its not working correctly yet

 

Oh, I think you misunderstood my statement or maybe I didn't make it clear enough. The meter works absolutely correct.
I just haven't dealt with how to optimize the scaling of the graphical display - with different channel modes - for the embedded display in the MCP or TCP.

TCP works pretty fine.




But in MCP, the display size of the meter still depends too much on the used reaper theme - or rather, the width of the mixertrack. Especially when the meter shows the mono sum. There is still a need for optimization here.



So far, the wider the track or the FX list, the better.

 

Last edited: Nov 24, 2021

The two match perfectly, if that's what you want. I have the VU slightly damped by default (because the needle then runs a little smoother). You can change the damping from 0.0053 to 0.0050 for absolutely the same behavior. To change it you can display the parameter in the track controls, make the parameter visible as a slider by removing the minus in front of "-Damping" in the edit window or reconfigure the default value directly in the edit window.

 

ahh yeah thats the zenomod you showed me? I've downloaded it and see if i can load it in MCP tonight. that would solve my realestate squeeze, if i can get whats basically a Klanghelm needle right in the master. nice feature with the damping

 

you have it in the TCP too? wow, im gonna have needles all over. just to see what that looks like haha. but really only using one at a time so master is as good a place as any

 

Sure, have fun with it.
Like I said, check the edit window, I hid all the extra features under the hood for screen space optimization.

 

Yeah, agree. No DAW has a "sweet spot". Of course not. Useful discussion though

Got a helpful reply from Hornet regarding their VU Meter:
*VU Meter MK4 measures VUs so it’s not peak nor RMS it’s another way to measure loudness though using a simple 300ms integrator so it can’t react to short peaks but it can represent the average level of a sound."

Absolutely correct that I wasn't on point re. RMS. But also on point that normalizing incoming signals to -18dBFS is far off when adjusting input gain for analog emulated plugins. Unless your whole song consists of unwavering pure sine waves. In which case it's perfect.

 

Right. This is often miscommunicated and therefore misunderstood. This also applies to the unfortunately quite common practice of normalizing all levels to 0dB VU. It's a bad practice.
It's simply that a plugin has been calibrated with a -18dBFS SP 1kHz sine wave. In most cases this means that the parameter control range has been optimized for 0dB VU. In other cases it means that the overtone structure and THD or the compression threshold are tuned for 0dB VU level.

 

This calibration is made with a sine wave. For musical content this doesn't work anymore in the sense that a moving signal (so not a sine) doesn't have -18dBFS peak or -21dBFS RMS when set to 0VU. The more and faster the signal is moving the bigger this difference becomes (a closed HH can easily peak at + 6dBFS and above when set to 0VU).
So adjusting a (musical) sound to -18dBFS peak is nonsense in terms of achieving 0VU. But I've really read in other forums that some people are doing this.

 

I can only agree with that! When I was learning to mix on analog consoles, my mentor would often assign me to prepare the tracks on the console. And it was never a matter of driving all channels to 0dB VU. Never!
It was always about using the input gain to create a balance between high signal-to-noise ratio and maximum fader resolution. That means, in the perfect case, a balanced raw mix with all faders on unity. And that's how I still work today.