Mixcraft STOCK VU Meter Plugin?

[TrevsAudio]

Hey guys.

I'm doing a video series on MX 10 for Old Farts like myself, and complete beginners. I'd like to stick, as far as possible, to the stock Mixcraft plugins.

I can't seem to find anything with a VU meter to monitor recording input levels. Yes, there is that scale on the right of the master track in the mixer (is that a VU meter?) but it's much too small when trying to see a level of between say -18 and -12 dbVU. And yes, I know there are a number of free ones out there.

Am I missing anything here?

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

No, there's not a stock VU meter. We have to keep plugin companies in business somehow. Maybe use a free one?

Greg

[cactus-head]

Hi,

This was something I had hunted for in the past. Bundled with Mixcraft - though not a dedicated VU meter is TB Ferox Tape Emulator. If you zero the controls that affect the sound and set the HP and LP to the min and max respectively - the sound should pass through without changing. You could use it last on a track or the master to see how things are and then in the mix disable it to make sure it isn't changing your sound.

Are you talking about a peak meter? Use SPAN. I think that comes in the box.

[TrevsAudio]

Yeah, thanks cactus. It's a dedicated meter I'm after - I normally use this one, (has a number of other references as well) - and it's free.
https://www.tbproaudio.de/products/mvmeter2

[cactus-head]

Yeah, mvMeter2 is great.

If you want something similar to the meter on the master track, SPAN would be a great option and it has different scales you can use.

[aquataur]

I looked at that meter. Looks great, incredibly.
But I have learned to distrust meters, particularly needle meters.
In times bygone when I had a cassette recorder with VU meters, I had been taking for granted that I was safe as long as the needle would never cross into the red. Little did I know. VU characteristics show us the average loudness level. Which was fine for a tape...

Later I learned about something like a peak meter, which was much faster as the term suggests, but in order to be recogniced, a peak would need a slow decay.

So what is the damned meter telling me in terms of a DAW?
This is benign too, since DAWs internally work with floating point numbers.... until you leave the DAW environment.
Look at their comprehensive preset specification list at the end of the user manual, and you are probably totally overwhelmed like I am.
Apart from that, I think the visual clues two meters like this one give me are too far distant to be recognized properly. I find needle meters annoying. Those guys in the radio stations that used them were accustomed to them, I am not.

Bottom line is, you have to know what you are looking for, and in what position. In other words: know thy meter.
So not for me. If anybody comes up with a meter how to, let me know.

[TrevsAudio]

Thanks for the input.

I really just want to show how to keep recording input levels between -18 and - 12 db - just ballpark figures.

[aquataur]

Thanks for sharing the link. It will be useful one day.

[cactus-head]

Bottom line is, you have to know what you are looking for, and in what position. In other words: know thy meter.
So not for me. If anybody comes up with a meter how to, let me know.

Hi,

I've posted this elsewhere as a high level primer for mvMeter2 in relation to the peak meter on the Mixcraft mixer. Some of it is basic and you probably are well aware of it, but it also talks about the relationship of the peak to a VU meter.

Often I've seen people mix up the track fader reference scale or volume control indicator, with the peak meter scale next to it. The numbers on the left of the fader indicate how much of a change in volume you want to apply to the track signal. At 0, no change is being applied. at +6, the top value, you are adding +6 dB amplitude to the signal output. At -12, for instance, you are lowering the output signal by -12. The peak meter on the right of the fader however has a top value of 0 dbFS . If the amplitude rises above 0, the signal will clip and distort. So based on where the meter is peaking, you adjust the fader according to volume increases or decrease to try and keep the peak meter below 0 in general.

However, in a mix you need headroom to allow for volume control so everything isn't too loud and distorted. You want some room to adjust the faders and keep the master peak level in check.

Along the same line as gain staging, a VU meter can be very helpful.

If you choose the VU Standard preset for the mvMeter2 plugin for instance, the reference level tells you the headroom when the needle points to 0 dB. The default is -18. Generally, I would put this on the Master track so I can see the results of the mix. However there are cases where I would place it on individual tracks as well.

mvMeter2.JPG (72.25 KiB) Viewed 152897 times

mvMeter2_clean.JPG (63.4 KiB) Viewed 152897 times

So if you throw the VU meter on your master track, you can check each track individually and adjust the track's fader and/or gain; and you can check the mix as a whole to try and keep the amplitude within your headroom threshold for more controllable mixing and mastering later on. Watch the needle and watch the MAX box. If your desired reference level is -18, you'll want the MAX box in mvMeter2 to be as close to zero as you can get it. A little over or under on average is fine. If you click in the MAX box, it will reset it so you can test the levels again.

If you eyeball MC's digital peak meter, once you have your VU meter responding how you want ( that means in the example we've got the view meter reference set to -18 and we've adjusted the track fader and/or gain until the VU meter max hovers around 0 ) you'll see MC's master track peak meter moving between -18 and -9.

There are also gain dials in mvMeter2. This will allow you to fine tune or tweak the meter itself to read and control output in a way that makes more sense to how you want to measure your headroom or manage your mix. Maybe a track is too hot or cold in the overall mix. With mcMeter2 on that track, turn up or down the gain on the plugin itself. That may give you a little more play with the track fader to control your mix overall.

[TrevsAudio]

Thanks for that insight, cactus.

[cactus-head]

sorry - not trying to takeover your thread - just responding to aqua's statement.

[aquataur]

Cactus-Head, thanks for your work.
I am aware of this all.

The problems with needle meters are different. Imagine ten of those meters spead over your screen all jumping around gayly in a seemingly non related manner - this will drive you mad.

A visual clue reflecting the momentary level information spread over a circle segment does not bear any more information than a linear array. Moreover the physical distance between two adjacent displays showing left/right resp. mid/side channel or whatever, does not aid easy recoginition of their relation.

Their frequent re-appearing is thus in my opionion less attributed to the inherent superiority of needle meters, but owed to an ongoing trend to be retro-as-retro-can, as meticulously sculpted and as beautiful that may be. And note, I do not claim that the quality suffers from optics.

So on the contrary, a led-bar style meter may reflect the same information on a much consensed space,which will aid good recognition of channel relation, letting alone preserving screen real eastate.

They incorporate all those modern standards, which can be intimidating. How many of us do know what EBUR128SL tells us? The way a human being works (and this is well known in psychology) you are much better off in having just two choices. Everything else can lead to overwhelming quickly.

VU metering is an ancient method, and as I mentioned earlier, it was being used for keeping loudness levels contained, for scenarios like transmission over telephone lines or for recording onto magnetic tape. I know that they used a 300ms integration time for attack and
decay, which would give you a good measure of the overall loudness. RMS would be similar.

A PEAK meter used a 10ms integration window which would be fast enough to show peaks longer than that. It would ignore shorter peaks for all practical means, because they were considered inaudible.

Of course, in order to be recognized, a needle meter of the latter kind would need some longer decay. If you look at a PEAK meter, how sure can you be that your signal´s "screen shot" is current?

PEAK HOLD is similar, except it does not climb downwards at a predetermined rate, but stays for a few seconds and disappears completely. This is an improvement, but it does not show if there was an overload either.

In my opinion, the most meaningful information is to be had from a time-persistent display, which some of those plug-ins have.

In this light, plain VU and PEAK metering might appear a little out-dated in terms of a DAW. Modern standards like EBU involve some highly evolved psychological loudness perceiption algorithms. Sigh, the all-knowing mysterious *science* again.

So what does that mean in a modern, digital world?
What integration time does my meter have, what fallback time? (And this does by the way concern all meters in general). Would I recognize the difference? Does the meter give me some information that I can translate into some meaningful action? Does VU still work, or is this obsolete in terms of a DAW? Does my peak meter reveal digital clipping? (No it can not, as explained before).
Should I use one of the modern standards? (But what do they tell me?)

It appears inevitable to thoroughly understand what a meter tells you, and as a consequence, what an alleged move it suggests to you. There should be a big caveat sign on all meters.

Overall, while a device like mVmeter may not worsen your work per se, it does not necessarily improve it.
And the vision can be cluttered by design. You have to know about all that, or you won´t be aware of the things that can go wrong. In the most benign case you do not achive what you intended (if indeed, you knew that exaclty beforehand).
And you have to understand the language of the meter, what it tells you in those terms.
Blessed the ones that are unaware of all that and get good results despite.

I am far from claiming that I know the answer for all that, but at least I am aware of that.
Compared to Sergeant Pepper´s times we have incredibly powerful equipment in our homes for next to nothing, but
compared to those times most of us cannot remotely harness that. Thats truth, and that my be a curse.

[Mark Bliss]

My own experience aligns with @Aquataur.

Simply put- When I first began to study digital audio and as I attempted to apply what I learned, I bought in to the Vu meter hype and acquired a few, found one I liked and inserted, experimented, Because Vu was what I was familiar with from recording and operating mixers long ago in the pre-digital age.

I soon learned that this was actually less than ideal for me, and that modern technical applications are far better for me.

And I would also suggest, that as @Aquataur also seems to imply he has discovered, it often seems we fuss over this subject far more than is really necessary.
There are a few technical points on level to adhere to, but it's not that complicated. My own methods may still obsess over it more than necessary to be honest- but:

The basics-

Recording level-
Don't record too hot. You can't undo clipping the A/D conversion and a little headroom is better.
Recording too low could be a problem if there is background noise etc. to contend with, As anything that gets turned up may become an issue. But this is far less a frequent problem in my experience than too hot. I used to see it constantly, but less so anymore.

Mixing/working within the DAW realm-
Due to floating point processing, level is far less an issue than one might think. Just be aware that some plug ins output or function is affected by input level.
I personally feel it is best practice to gain stage with intention. IOW be aware of input and output levels at every point. Be consistent for consistent results. But I don't suggest it needs to be obsessive.

Mixdown/mastering-
You must be aware of both level/perceived loudness and how the final digital file is going to affect the eventual D/A conversion process for playback. IE: Don't clip the converter.
Leave a little headroom for mastering.

[aquataur]

But this is far less a frequent problem in my experience than too hot. I used to see it constantly, but less so anymore.

This of course stems from us old-timers who used to record on magnetic tape, where we were constantly combating hiss.
And, from my own experience, because a track whose content looks more or less like a straight line with occational excursions does not look like much in the DAW, particularly if the track is collapsed to its minimum. This is particularly annoying if you want to do some gain-riding before any compression to iron out the worst parts. Hence the urge to record hotter.

As we both found, this is of course a non-issue in digital world, as long as the plug-ins collaborate (which some don´t, particularly older ones...).
So this is another reason for a clear gain staging strategy.

I was browsing the web and found a few videos by a guy, Freddie from Distinct Mastering, who makes it quite clear what has to be done:

• What you need to know about gain staging

• Polishing your mix with K-metering

• Mixing with pink noise

This basically aligns with what you listed before.

While this is just arbitrary reference point, it helps a lot. And it is not so arbitrary if we consider that many vintage units (such as 1176 or Pultec EQ) expect a certain signal magnitude that resides exactly in this range.

The beauty is that this works with any old (and free) (K-) meter, and indeed, probably with many other meters too if you don´t insist on the K-scale. He uses Voxengo SPAN which is free and reliable.

For establishing initial working values I find the above outlined procedures very useful.
K-System uses some form of RMS measurement.

[aquataur]

Folks, you might find the following to be eye-opening:
Bob Katz on Peak and VU meters:

Contrary to popular belief, the levels on a digital peak meter have (almost) nothing to do with loudness.
(...) the VU meter responds more closely to the response of the ear. For loudness judgment, if all you have is a peak meter, use your ears. If you have a VU, use it as a guide, not an absolute, because the meter can be fooled.

Bob Katz, Level Practises (part 1)

Bob Katz on VU meters:

This instrument [the VU-meter] was intended to help program producers create consistent loudness amongst program elements, but was not a suitable measure of when the recording medium was being exceeded, or overloaded.
(...)
In General, the meter’s ballistics, scale, and frequency response all contribute to an inaccurate indicator.
(...)
The meter’s ballistics were designed to “look good” with spoken word.
(...)
With uncompressed material, the needle fluctuates far greater than the perceived loudness change and it is difficult to distinguish compressed from uncompressed material by the meter.
(...)
There are large numbers of improperly-terminated mechanical VU meters and inexpensively-constructed indicators which are labelled “VU” in current use.

(...) the VU meter is a very primitive loudness meter.

Bob Katz, Level Practises (part 2)

Vojtech Meluzin, Founder of Melda Productions, on loudness gauging meters in general:

Please note that you should still use your ears to judge loudness properly as there is still no accurate model of human loudness
perception and every measurement is only an approximation. Loudness perception is also individual.

Vojtech Meluzin, MLoudnessAnalyzer manual p8.

So going with the K- scale certainly is not the worth path one can follow.