Simon Francis of Wired Masters, the mastering facility behind labels like Planet E and Cadenza, discusses why it is his mission to encourage more producers to embrace the analogue VU meter.

So glad to read this! Full support!

Apart from an issue of beauty... I wish mixers would still have this feature. The only one having VU meters is the big A&H... from what I know...

So full support!

agreed fully with simon's points, sounds like he knows his onions.

Really great article. I would love to see more articles on mastering topics.

Great article, its worth mentioning that not all VU meters are created equal. Very few VU meters even come close to the correct specification, including some found on relatively expensive hardware. The meters listed in the article are great examples especially the MBP2 (£350 in the uk).

I find it hard to believe there isn't (or couldn't be) a good software emulation of the behaviour of a VU meter - I don't know too much about the specifics of how they work but surely it's all just physics which could be modelled in a fairly straightforward manner? Not saying that a proper analogue one doesn't look super cool but the article seems to imply a hardware VU meter is the only real choice - surely this can't be correct?

Interesting read anyway!

I would love too

Does this also apply to digital dj'ing? I find that a lot of the digital mixes I'm hearing sound very monotonous, not just because everyone seems to play the same boring 'tech house', but also in terms of dynamics. I think the autogain feature, in for instance Traktor, is negatively influencing the dynamics of many sets. This is why I've switched it off and went back to using my Xone's hardware channel gains.

Wired Masters did our last Ep, Amazing results and amazing service can't recommend them enough.

Im know expert and could be talking out my backside but the closest plugin to monitoring Loudness , RMS is Waves Dorough

From the Waves manual

While traditional VU meters are useful for determining average sound levels, and PPM meters are known for their ability to catch fast transient peaks, neither provides both average and peak level displays, which are needed to get an indication of overall program loudness.

Thoughts on this anyone ??

Cheers

Alyx

Spot On Mr Francis. My "Volume Units" Meters are absolutely essential. A solid investment also. Can't remember the last time i had them repaired.

cool read

interesting read. excuse my ignorance but what is the difference between VU, dBV and dBu?

I thought in digital you could not go over 0 or it starts clipping, whereas in analogue you can to get over saturation to give warmth?

Man, this article could have been so good. But unfortunately for novice producers and those trying to even just make sense of the highly technical side of production (the math and physics), it doesn't do much to explain the issue in detail. I feel that words like "VU", "PPM", "loudness", "presence", and "energy" all need to be spelled out and defined while given a little back story for people to understand what is being talked about. After producing tracks for the last 6-7 years I still struggle to make sense of the math and physics of the process. I get the gist of what is being talked about but the contextual information I need to link it all together is unfortunately missing. Any good articles (that get down to the nuts and bolts) folks can recommend for this subject would be very appreciated!

Also- RA, please publish more technically oriented articles. I feel I can speak for most producers who read your material that while all the sceney info is fine and good, what we all really want is insight into a producer's technical process (how the hell they achieved that insane bassline for instance), not what kind of music they listened to when they were 13, and how many parties they went to in the '90's. Same goes with mastering, there's a serious lack of publications on the technical end of this subject. Being in the midst of a loudness war perpetuated by unexperienced producers using tools incorrectly, it seems almost a social responsibility of RA (being the standard in EDM publications) to cover this range of subject matter. Apologies if I sound crass, but tis the truth. Thank you!

Ozone comes with VU and not PPM monitoring as a default, and the response times are adjustable to boot. That's already a big step up. Also, I have to object to this ongoing trend of hardware/analog mysticism. It amounts to a "pay to play" system where only high rollers can expect to get that "magical" sound. Not that I don't believe in that magic (I design and build tube stereos for a reason), but I don't think it's worth paying $500+ for a hardware VU meter when it can go towards records, food, etc.

A pretty poor piece. If it had just said "I find moving coil VUs really useful when mastering and, for some strange reason, they're easier on the eye and give me a better "feel" than bargraphs or virtual meters" that would've done nicely. All the other stuff is, to make a sweeping generalisation, nonsense.

@ HaroonK. dB's are a relative measure i.e. a ratio. To give a meaning to that ratio, certain reference values are used. the "u" and "V" after the dB tell you the reference.

dBV is with reference to 1 Volt. So a signal of amplitude 1 Volt is 0dBV.
dBu is with reference to 0.775 Volts.

VU stands for "Volume Unit" and is a metering Standard. 0VU = +4dBu

i agree with you, it just doesn't sound right. but i know very very little about production and mastering so i can't know for sure.

anyway, it's hard to believe a delicate analog design that relies on ballistics is superior to digital measurement. when you work with digital signals, it isn't hard to integrate whatever you want with great precision.

milkplant!!!!

Total agree!! Guys sitting on RA try to do themselfs 99%

I found the read interesting, but agree with what milkplant points out.

Wuuurd.

What he said, think of it as this - your DAW's metering is probably giving you relative DB's - a physical VU meter is telling you exactly how much "energy" (voltage) elements are taking up in your track. Really good for dialing in kicks / low end in a small home studio. There are some workarounds yes, there are some digital metering options that will get you closer, there are also some guidelines for setting relative Db levels... however nothing will be quite like an old fashioned VU meter.