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Introduction

- -

- An engineer reading and using audio level meters compares to a musician - reading or writing sheet-music. Just like there are virtuoso musicians - who can't read a single note, there are great sound-engineers who just - go by their ears and produce great mixes and masters without ever looking - at a single meter. -

- -

- Yet, if you want to work in or with the broadcast industry, it is - usually unavoidable to use meters. -

- -

- Audio level meters are very powerful tools that are useful in every - part of the entire production chain: -

- - - -

Meter Types

- -

- A general treatise on metering is beyond the scope of this - manual. It is a complex subject with a history... - For background information and further reading we recommend: -

- - - -

- There are different metering standards, most of which are available in Ardour. In short: -

- -
-
Digital peak-meter
-
A Digital Peak Meter displays the absolute maximum signal - of the raw audio PCM signal (for a given time). It is commonly used when - tracking to make sure the recorded audio never clips. To that end, DPMs - are always calibrated to 0 dBFS, or the maximum level that can be represented digitally - in a given system. This value has no musical reason whatsoever and depends - only on the properties of the signal chain or target medium. There are - conventions for fall-off-time and peak-hold, but no - exact specifications. -

- Various conventions for DPM fall-off times and dBFS line-up level can be - chosen in Edit > Preferences > GUI. -

-
- -
RMS meters
-
An RMS-type meter - is an averaging meter that looks at the energy in the signal. It - provides a general indication of loudness as perceived by humans. Ardour - features three RMS meters, all of which offer additonal peak indication. - -
- -
IEC PPMs
-
IEC-type - PPMs are a mix between DPMs and - RMS meters, created mainly for the purpose of - interoperability. Many national and institutional varieties exist (EBU, BBC, DIN). -

- These loudness and metering standards provide a common point of - reference which is used by broadcasters in particular so that the - interchange of material is uniform across their sphere of influence, - regardless of the equipment used to play it back. -

-

- For home recording, there is no real need for this level of - interoperability, and these meters are only strictly required when - working in or with the broadcast industry. However, IEC-type meters have - certain characteristics (rise-time, ballistics) that make them useful - outside the context of broadcast. -

-

- Their specification is very exact, and consquently, there are no - customizable parameters. -

-
- -
VU meters
-
VU meters are the dinosaurs (1939) - amongst the meters. They react very slowly, averaging out peaks. - Their specification is very strict (300ms rise-time, 1 - 1.5% overshoot, - flat frequency response). Ardour's VU meter adheres to that spec, but for - visual consistency it is displayed as a bar-graph rather than needle-style - (more below). -
-
- -

Ardour Specifics

- -mixer strip meter context menu - -

- Meters are available in various places in ardour: -

- - - -

- They all share the same configuration and color-theme which is available in - preferences and the theme-manager. Settings for the Peak and RMS+Peak meters - as well as VU meter standards are found in - Edit > Preferences > GUI > Metering. -

- -

- The type of meter and the metering point (the place in the signal chain - where the meter taps the signal) are configurable in the context menu of each meter. - Depending on the Edit > Preferences > GUI > Mixer - Strip settings, the metering point is also accessible via a button in - each Mixer strip. -

- - - -

- Regardless of meter type and standard the meter display will highlight red if - the signal on the given channel exceeds the configured peak threshold. -

- -

- Left on the peak-indicator button resets the - peak-hold indicator of a single channel.
- Left resets a whole group, and
- Left resets all meters. -

- -

Overview of meter types

- -

- The figure on the left below shows all available meter-types in Ardour 3.4 when fed with a -18 dBFS 1 kHz sine wave. -

- - - -

- -

- Due to layout concerns and consistent look & feel, all meters available in - Ardour itself are bar-graph type meters. Corresponding needle-style meters—which take up more visual screen space—are available as - LV2 plugins (see image on the upper right). -

-