![]() ![]() To get the VU meter working right, your master channel RMS level needs to be somewhere around -18dB. THIS is exactly what VU meters do to save your mix from four or five other disastrous problems all at once. VU METERS HELP YOU KEEP THE HEADROOM IN YOUR MIX! This will put your average mix level around -18db, and now we have arrived at the real reason you should be using VU meters. The right way to use a VU meter is to leave your master volume at 0, and lower all the other channels in your session until the meter is bouncing near 0. That red light labelled "OL" means OverLoad and it's telling you that your master channel is already way too loud.īut don't touch the master volume fader! You will not get anywhere by trying to lower your master volume. ![]() When you first try to use VU mode on the master channel, the meter will probably be spiked in the red. Click the word "Peak in the center to see the options for VU and other standards of reference. but in a big session that can take up too much space.ĭownload the PDF manual along with the plugin. If you want to see the numbers, you need to expand the tracks horizontally. I love it that Ableton added this function, but it's still not easy to read numbers for the average level. In Live, the light-green bars on top show Peak, and the dark green bars in the middle show RMS. You need a VU meter plugin because the Ableton meters don't show RMS / VU level very clearly. And music has to appeal to the ear, right? You can't really use Peak meters to compare the loudness of two sounds as they appear to our sense of hearing. VU meters react more slowly, like our ears, which gives you a realistic picture of the loudness that a sound is pushing. But if you set both your bassline and drum loop to -5db using RMS/ VU meters, they will sound balanced to the ear. Drums are a sound that peaks with very short, loud transient spikes far higher than the actual loudness of the whole kit - but a bassline has low, fat transients that peak very close to its average level.Įnd result, a bassline will sound way louder than drums when you measure them with a Peak meter. If you have a bassline that peaks at -5dB, and a drum loop that also peaks at -5dB, it does not mean they will sound balanced next to each other. (A peak meter doesn't do this very well.) ![]() Use RMS, or VU meters, to compare two sounds to each other and get a realistic picture of how loud they are. You need them to compare how much space a sound takes in the mix. VU meters (RMS) show you how loud a sound feels in real life. You already get this concept, it's obvious like a stop sign. Peak meters are simple to use, just keep the meter in the green and bring down the volume if it turns red. This is really important because digital audio has a hard limit and beyond that you get a particularly awful type of distortion. Peak meters tell you how to avoid digital distortion. Why do you need them both? Because they do two different things. RMS means average, Peak means Peak and you need them both. It was originally a mathematical average taken from the square root of the signal voltage over time. ![]()
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