Hello,
I make electronic music for quite some years now, using Reaper and FL Studio.
When mixing and mastering, I compare my music to level matched commercial tracks to get an idea how my music should sound.
I know some people make use of VU meter emulators like this one:
http://klanghelm.com/VUMT.php
But can someone explain in layman's words how to use and setup such VU meters and how my music would benefit from it?
I'm raised in the digital world, never worked with analogue gear. I know dBFS and RMS but never understood how to combine this with a VU meter.
How should I use/read a VU meter?
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- KVRAF
- 1800 posts since 10 Feb, 2007
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- KVRAF
- 21348 posts since 26 Jul, 2005 from Gone
In my experience in analog studios they were used to make sure nothing redlined. You'd want to turn down the gain on the desk if the input was redlining (often you'd hear whoever was due to play to be told 'hit it hard', or something like that...).
Once you had the instruments recorded, gain and channel level would be moved about a lot based on the VU meters as you really didn't want to mix down anything too hot before sending for mastering. Back then no one cared about how loud you were compared to other people's recordings (except maybe Iggy Pop), because everyone has a volume control on the gear they play it back on.
People still have volume controls, so you don't really need to care about how loud something is. Mix it right without it being too hot, and master it without it being too hot. Leave the volume to whoever listens to the end product, then you won't overcompress it or clip the mix.
Once you had the instruments recorded, gain and channel level would be moved about a lot based on the VU meters as you really didn't want to mix down anything too hot before sending for mastering. Back then no one cared about how loud you were compared to other people's recordings (except maybe Iggy Pop), because everyone has a volume control on the gear they play it back on.
People still have volume controls, so you don't really need to care about how loud something is. Mix it right without it being too hot, and master it without it being too hot. Leave the volume to whoever listens to the end product, then you won't overcompress it or clip the mix.