Whatever metering system you choose it should be an integral part of your workflow. In my case, I chose the workflow first and then I adopted the recommended metering for that system. VU metering may be old school, but it works fine in the right framework, and a lot of good music was produced the old fashioned way. In fact, some people are dismayed by modern music production standards (re: the loudness wars). In summary, decide with your own ears which methods are right for you, so that they can help you to achieve all of your musical goals.

 

Von_Steyr, damn you!

Generally a right joke at the right moment. Your brain works in interesting ways. You should make music, mate!

 

That's why I'm not bothered with LU at the musical stage. A VU meter will do just fine for as long as I don't clip the master bus [never happened] and the plugins get the optimal loudness. LU is for the mastering stage.

Plus, there is a nice choice of really spiffy VST VU meters! They make my heart tingle with joy. Hopefully not too much... cause I seem to have bought it second-hand.

 

Last edited: Jan 26, 2018

What is your favourite VU meter? There is something very alluring about those needles jumping back and forth

 

Klanghelm VUMT and Zplane PPMulator.

 

Maybe this video I created might help:
https://www.samplecraze.com/tutorials/metering-vu-lufs-lu-k-ref/

 

I got to thinking about this stuff because of this thread so I loaded up a test tone put that sucker on -18 and K. VUMT did what I assume is it's job while my DAW's meter showed exactly what I figured it would. It's set to K-20 metering, just so you know. OK great.

Then I tried a single kick sample on an audio track looped with some space and now I'm all confused.

Picture 1 is a test tone set to -18. My meters are set to K-20 and showing +2.0 db. VUMT is reading -18 dBFS with the needle on 0, max 0.0. That makes sense.



Picture 2 is the kick sample with the gain turned down till my meter hit +2.0 db but look what VUMT shows. Needle will not go anywhere near zero, read out says -14.6 max but it does show -18 lower right.





Picture 3 is the same kick no adjustment, balls to the wall. (old song) Everything is wacked.





So my question is why? What am I not understanding and or doing wrong? Besides use your ears and meters are guides, ect.

 

At first I thought I was going to crazy when Zebra and Predator seemed so quiet compared to Sylenth and Massive. Plugin creators should have standardized on a volume output level long ago.

 

this might be useful to this thread :

 

In Soviet Russia, Vu Meter calibrates you. Right @Yuri ?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Feb 1, 2018

K-20 , K-14 and K-12 meters measure the loudness on an integrated time ( an entire track ) and are not appropriate to measure percussive/short sounds.
For percussive sounds are better peak Full scale meters and eventually VU meters (eventually because the needle take 300 ms to rise on a VU meter).

 

Last edited: Feb 1, 2018

Software based K- meters are inaccurate and should never be trusted, I had the pleasure of working for Bob as an Intern many many years ago and know for a fact that the "K-Meters" we see in various software form are bullshit compared to what Igor Kapelevich(Google him) put together , the very same person that actually built Bobs Mastering system and even he says that it's nothing compared to the hardware, zero latency and for sure not 300ms delay V.U. meter bullshit. Never ever seen a V.U. hardware unit take that long to warm up. Audio is real time and in my world V.U's are only barley looked at when something is clipping but in today's world we have so much more than a simple V.U. Best of luck to anyone that make music in the box using V.U.'s as a reference

 

Last edited: Feb 1, 2018

Well, VU meter has always been a great reference for me for mixing. Maybe it's because I'm so used to them? [for almost 3 decades, lol] Thing is, IMO you have to use some kind of RMS metering for mixing, be it VU, K, or LU, so you can mix according to loudness, not peaks and without having to watch the master bus all the time. I actually have the master out of the view and only have a VU meter there. If the VU meter looks too hot, maybe I'm touching the 0dBFS. Maybe.

I know what the drums should look like on the VU to not overload the master bus when I turn on all the channels. I guess you can do the same with peak meters somehow, if you get used to them. Peaking at about -6 to -10dBFS with the drums and bass on? It's doable. With a VU meter, sometimes I get peaks all the way up to -3dBFS, depending on the track style. That's why I like it as I get the perfect loudness for mastering every time without ever having to watch the master channel.

 

I forgot to mention that VU meter is also really useful for gain staging as most of the analogue emulation plugins are calibrated for -18dBVU. How else can you know if the level into the plugin is right without a VU meter calibrated at -18dB?

But I agree that VU is definitely not so useful for mastering these days. You just have to use LU plus TP metering for mastering because all the different music services and Youtube use LU metering to evaluate loudness and turn your track's loudness down, too.

 

Personally I recently buy Audio Vitamins Structure which Using EBU128 level algorithms and my are most dynamic and airy and less work on element.... use only VU meters for nebula

 

Right, so this is what I'm interested in trying.

Say I have : Sampler> VUMT (VU Cal -18)> "analog" plugin, in this case the sampler is loaded with a drum sample, and for the sake of simplicity, always the same velocity.

What I don't get is what I should be aiming for so that I get the best performance out of the plugin in going into, as intended. Should I go with the needle at around/under 0 regardless of what the numbers say on VUMT (lower left & right) or my DAW's peak meters say? Or should I go with the peaks? Meaning the needle is not going very far like in the 2nd picture above.

See, I thought I should be aiming for something around what the test tone shows. It never gets anywhere near those results on any musical material, so it had me all fucked up. Come to think of it, I don't know what the point was in using the test tone at all, other than to say: look it works.

So what gives wise one with 3 decades under your belt? I'm tempted to just say screw it and get that Hornet VU, I'm just kinda of a control freak.

 

Last edited: Feb 3, 2018

I wouldn't know, but I have noticed I get the same reading either way with percussive/short sounds. Switching between the built in K-20 and peak meter makes no discernable difference other than how I'm reading the numbers. In this case, the peak meter shows -18 and the K-20 meter shows +2.0 db. Either way they seemingly equal the same output.

 

This is the point that was made in the video I posted above, and it is exactly how I use it. I have a -18 signal flowing through all of my plugin chains. It sounded better to my ears compared to what I was doing previously, so I stuck with it.

 

Last edited: Feb 4, 2018