Reference Guide

609
Metering
Mixing
flowing through the bus.
Main Outs
Each enabled hardware channel has a main out channel strip in the Console view. Main outs are the
final destination for all of your audio in SONAR. Main outs accept input from both tracks and buses.
Main outs contains a left channel and a right channel, but only one volume fader. You control the left/
right balance of each main out with the balance slider.
Here’s what you can do in a main out module:
Metering
The Console and Track views both have meters to measure playback level, record level, bus output
level, and main output level. The Track view also has bus return meters. You can configure the
meters differently in each view, if you want.
The responsiveness of your record meters (which also measure input monitoring) is dependent upon
the latency setting in the Audio Options dialog and the settings in the Audio Meter Settings dialog.
With higher latency settings the meters may appear sluggish.
There are three basic things you should know about meters:
• What the meters measure
• How to show or hide different kinds of meters
• How to choose display options for each kind of meter
See:
What the Meters Measure
Hiding and Showing Meters
To do this Do this
Set the output volume Adjust the Volume control
Adjust the left/right balance Adjust the Pan slider that’s on that output module
Table 127.
Note: Metering uses significant amounts of your computer’s processing power, especially
RMS metering. If you need to free up resources, turning off metering where you don’t absolutely
need it helps. Using peak metering on tracks and peak plus RMS metering on the main out is a
good option. To disable all metering, turn off metering in both the Track view and Console
view.