User Manual

WAVELAB
8 – 160 Metering
• The VU (Volume Unit) meters measure the average loudness (RMS) of each
channel.
These meters have a built-in inertia, evening out loudness variations over a user-defined
time span.
If you are monitoring playback or audio input, you will also note two vertical lines following
each VU meter bar, seemingly “trying to reach” the current RMS value. These lines indicate
the average of the most recent minimum RMS values (left line) and the average of the most
recent maximum RMS values (right line). To the left, the difference between the minimum
and maximum average values is displayed (the level value in brackets) – this gives you an
overview of the dynamic range of the audio material.
• If you are monitoring real-time audio (playback or input), the maximum peak and
loudness values are displayed numerically to the right of the meter bars.
Numbers in brackets to the right of the Maximum Peak values indicate the number of suc-
cessive clips (0dB signal peaks). 1 or 2 clips can be acceptable, but if you get a larger
number, you should lower the master level to avoid digital distortion.
Pan meters
The lower part of the window shows the pan (the difference in level be-
tween the left and right channel, only applicable when monitoring stereo
audio):
• The upper pan meters show the peak level difference between the channels,
graphically and numerically.
Note that the pan meters are “two-sided”; the level bars can go to the left or right, indicating
which channel is the loudest. The two sides are shown in different colors (which can be
edited – see “Making settings for the level and pan meters” on page 161).
• The lower pan meters show the average difference in loudness between the
channels, in a similar way.
This gives you a visual indication of whether a stereo recording is properly centered, etc.
Recent minimum Recent maximumDifference value