›

VU Meters not accurate?

kadathkadath
edited December 2012 in General
Is it just me, or are BM2's VU meters just not at all accurate? When I export tracks into desktop audio editors, their VU meters always accurately represent the track's volume, whereas BM2's meters don't.

Also, it always bothered me that the master track's VU meter turns orange after you start hitting 0dB and above, and then red at 3dB. Anything above 0dB on the master VU meter should technically be clipping, yes?

I would think, on the master volume meter, -6dB and above should be orange, and 0dB and above should be red.

Maybe someone with more professional mixing knowledge can chime in here. I may be wrong on this, but practically every other DAW I've used has displayed volume levels much more clearly than BM2 does.

While we're on the topic of volume, it would be very useful if BM2 had a tunable limiter I could apply to the master channel when I've finished mixing a track so that when I export to WAV, I can make sure the track is appropriately loud enough (I say a tunable limiter because not everyone wants to participate in the loudness war and squash the all of the dynamics out of their tracks for the sake of volume).

Comments

  • dubhausdiscodubhausdisco
    edited 1:15PM
    In protools, I always prefer the metering to be prefader,(BM2 is post fader).
    Also the meters are labeled like an analog console would be, so you are correct in saying that they are not necessarily accurate. I don't really use the meters at all.

    When exporting separate tracks, I find that I get accurate levels per track when everything is set at unity(0). The mix buss in BM2 overloads pretty quick, but you have to push it pretty hard for the sound to be offensive. That's the good news!
  • kadathkadath
    edited 1:15PM
    To be sure I don't end up with any clipping while writing a track, I pull every channel's volume fader down to -6dB by default (except for the master, which I never touch). This gives me enough headroom for when I do a quick final mastering job. I export a finished track to my laptop and apply some limiting to make sure my track is loud enough with no clipping.

    I really wish I could do this with BM2, however. I may end up buying Auria just to do mastering, as Auria has accurate volume meters and a brick-wall limiter.
  • dubhausdiscodubhausdisco
    edited 1:15PM
    "kadath&quot wrote:
    To be sure I don't end up with any clipping while writing a track, I pull every channel's volume fader down to -6dB by default (except for the master, which I never touch). This gives me enough headroom for when I do a quick final mastering job. I export a finished track to my laptop and apply some limiting to make sure my track is loud enough with no clipping.

    I really wish I could do this with BM2, however. I may end up buying Auria just to do mastering, as Auria has accurate volume meters and a brick-wall limiter.

    These are good policies!
    Auria is cool, but since you also are using a laptop, consider Reaper, which is in the same price range as Auria. Then you could export individual files and mix in reaper.
  • kadathkadath
    edited 1:15PM
    "dubhausdisco&quot wrote:
    These are good policies!
    Auria is cool, but since you also are using a laptop, consider Reaper, which is in the same price range as Auria. Then you could export individual files and mix in reaper.

    I've actually tried Reaper and found it to be pretty good, but I'd really like to have an all-iPad production environment. Although my laptop is small and relatively light (11.6" screen, about 3 pounds), my iPad is far more portable and has much better battery life.

    I do all of my mixing in BM2, I just export my finished tracks to my laptop to maximize the volume with Audacity.
  • dubhausdiscodubhausdisco
    edited 1:15PM
    In that case Auria is the shit! They will be doing audiobus as well...
Sign In or Register to comment.