Level meter feature suggestions

[djimbe]

Hi guys,

I just bought the Analysis pack. I especially like the multitrack features on the frequency analyser and stereoscope. There's a couple of things I'd love to see added to the level meter, though:

1. The option to have a vertical orientation. I prefer my meters to be vertical and a lot of plugins around these days let you pick the orientation, so sidey people and vertical people can both be happy.

2. That the highest displayable level on the meter be adjustable, and that it could be over 0.

I'm coming from Inspector XL, which showed levels up to +6. The advantage of this is that you could see how much a sound had gone over at the visual level the same way the meter tells you everything else. You instantly know by eye whether a sound just poked over 0, or if something bigger happened and it slammed way over. I don't like it stopping at 0 because, well, you can't see that stuff. An at 0 level is to the eye the same as an over, and if you do notice the clip light, you then have to look elsewhere on the display for a numerical reading of the amount that the level went over by.

I know that at the moment I can get a similar effect by

(a) adding 6db to headroom
(b) sticking a gain plugin in front of the meter and taking it back -6

but there are sideeffects to having to remember to do these things. Like having to remember to undo them before final mixdown, dragging the yellow and green areas around to match, and also changing the gain on other stuff in the mastering chain. It'd be way cooler if I could just configure the meter a bit more.

Thanks for these plugins

- Wade

[Blue Cat Audio]

Hi,

Thanks for choosing our solutions and for the feedback!

(1) This has been asked a couple of times, so we will probably update the plug-in with a vertical skin (it will probably not display all views though, as it's more difficult to find an appropriate layout for all with vertical meters)

(2) As you noticed, even if the meters are limited to 0 dB, the actual peak values (when showing statistics) go up to +10dB. So in case of overshoot, you should actually be able to see the max peak value so that you can adjust the gain accordingly. It is not as visual as what you are looking for, but it is actually more accurate. We'll have to think twice before modifying this behavior, technically speaking. Maybe adding a "headroom" or "overshoot" option would be possible.

[djimbe]

Thanks for the response guys. Also, I'm now, after some time, starting to get used to the horizontal meters. But don't take that to mean I wish to retract my request for a vertical view

[Blue Cat Audio]

Thank you for your message. Don't worry, it is still in the plans