PT Lack of Metering

[Peter Groom]

HI All
Given that PT Le appears to have (please tell me Im wrong) no real metering to quantify mixdown levels, what method to users prefer to achieve this, and how to they feed/plug in the devices.
I want to KNOW that a mixdown relates absolutely to the tones laid down on a Digi Beta master and transmission tape, and thiat Im not over level by even 1/4 db or under due to lack of metering.

Cheers

Peter

[JohnT]

Peter,
There are few metering plugins that are quite solid. Elemental Audio's Inspector is excellent. There's a free version with very accurate and legible RMS and Peak meters. It also has an alarm system to look for overs of a determined length. You can put one on the master fader or on tracks. There's a paid version that has more options including Bob Katz's K-System.

The meter I'm relying on most lately (I do radio programs) is the Katz metering in Universal Audio's Precision Limiter plug in. Even if I'm not limiting the program, the meter works great!

Jt

[David Kalosi]

Well a month earlier I would say Elemental audio Inspector XL ..

But the company was bougth by roger nichols and the renamed and repriced "inspectorizer" plug isn't shipping yet

So at the moment you could buy spectrafoo from metric halo but that's really expensive.

PSP are making an free plugin called vintage meter but it's only a VU.

[froyo]

Hello. You have a couple of options. You could do Spectra Foo on OSX but as of now I believe it's still just standalone and not available as a plug in yet. You could wait a little while and buy the Inspector XL from Roger Nichols when it comes out. I would think it shouldn't be too long from now. It will probably be about $250 to $350 which is not that bad really (I always felt Elemental Audio plug ins were obscenely underpriced, specifically the Inspector XL for $89, but that is indeed another story for another thread.) You could probably get the regular Inspector from somebody that has the install somewhere. It was free so maybe it's kosher to just do it that way. Or you could buy an Inspector XL from somebody on eBay or something like that. However you won't get anymore support for it I suspect. Or as I said you could wait until RND makes their version available.

The other option is Trillium Lane Labs MasterMeter, included in the Utilities bundle for $145. Check out this description.

TL MasterMeter — The first over-sampling meter for Pro Tools, designed for critical mixing and mastering applications.

Displays both regular and inter-sample peaks

2x, 4x, and 8x over-sampling DSP models

Sample-accurate historical peak list, which can be exported to the clipboard

Time code displayed in either samples or minutes and seconds

Programmable time code offset

Support for sessions at up to 192 kHz

Check the Digidesign website for more info. That's definitely an option. However the Inspector has so many, many things as far as meters, spectrum analysis, etc that it may be the better option to wait for it.

[Peter Groom]

Thanks for those thoughts guys.
I find it amazing, no disapointing, that Digidesign have the ability to make such a powerful and stable product, but seem completely unaware of probably the most important issue (in my opinion) involved in the recording, editing and mixing chain. Metering.
Its great software that Im warming to over time with a glaring omission.
Peter

[tsd]

do you not have the free bombfactory essential meterbridge? are you not making stereo master faders in your sessions?

[M.Brane]

PSP are making an free plugin called vintage meter but it's only a VU.

No PSP VM does peak too. It's a really good plug for the price.

The only meter I pay much attention to during mixing is the master fader with the peak display enabled (command+click on the numerical volume box) but then I record my tracks below -12dbFS to leave myself plenty of headroom for processing, and work with pre-fader metering always. Infinate peak hold, and never run any fader above 0db.

Don't worry about making your mix loud. Just make it good, and save the loudness for the mastering stage.

[StudioRhythm]

I'm curious too what it is that you guys want -- the BF meterbridge works fine for monitoring your average levels, and the peak meter on each channel works well also. What more do you need? The only thing I'd like to see would be an adjustable OVU point for the BF meter rather than just the preselected ones. If you're looking for infintely adjustable VU metering, the PSP VintageMeter is free and does anything you'd want.

An oversampling meter would be a tiny bit more accurate at the very top of the scale, if you're willing to give up the DSP resources to use it, but why bother? Just leave a couple dB of headroom, and there's no reason to spend all your time staring at a peak meter. Save the loudness for mastering (or better yet, save it for someone else....)

[StudioRhythm]

The only meter I pay much attention to during mixing is the master fader with the peak display enabled (command+click on the numerical volume box) but then I record my tracks below -12dbFS to leave myself plenty of headroom for processing, and work with pre-fader metering always.

Wow, that's even more conservative than I am! (not talking politics, here....) You don't really need to peak that low, but it shouldn't really cause any problems. You're almost always safe peaking as high as -3; I usually just mix to OVU=-20dBFS and as long as the peaks aren't hitting higher than -2 or -3 I call it a day.

never run any fader above 0db.

Now there's really no reason to do this -- if you have a track that peaked to -10, say, there's certainly room to push the fader up before you have any problems. There's nothing different about a whether the fader is above or below unity, the only thing that matters is where the resulting track output will peak. Just don't peak your track outputs and you're fine (also leaving some headroom there too).

Don't worry about making your mix loud. Just make it good, and save the loudness for the mastering stage.

I agree 100%!

[TVPostSound]

If you MUST use software meters, I agree that Inspector XL, is the closest to my Dorrough meters I have seen.
Using it in the "K-20" mode yields great results.

You should call Elemental, and see if you could still prchase it from them, since Roger Nichols has not released
it under his cartoony name yet.

Funny thing, I contacted EAS requesting a surround version, and they were very open to discussing my request.
But alas they handed marketing over to RN, who will most likely lose his shirt.