User Manual

WAVELAB
Metering 8 – 163
3. If you want to store your settings for later use (or assign them to a preset),
select “Save as…” from the pop-up menu at the bottom of the dialog, and
specify a name for the preset in the file dialog that appears.
4. To make the settings instantly available for selection in the Meter window,
use the “Assign to preset button” submenu on the pop-up menu.
5. When you are finished, click OK to close the dialog.
Clicking Cancel closes the dialog and discards any changes you have made (even if you
have used the Apply button to apply them to the meters).
About the K-System VU meter modes
Mastering engineer Bob Katz has proposed the “K-System” which inte-
grates standardized metering, monitor calibration and level practices.
• The technical concept behind this proposed standardization is described in
detail on “www.digido.com”.
Go to the “Articles” section and select the “Level practices” page. Here, in an illuminating
two part article, Bob Katz explains the theory behind the K-System. Anybody genuinely in-
terested in sound mastering practices should read this!
In WaveLab, the K-System’s loudness metering standard is available as
an option. There are three metering modes which all set the 0 dB VU
point below the standard VU meter. This allows much more headroom for
transients and peaks to be accommodated at their normal level. The
meter is still just a scale of course, and the basic audio material will be the
same regardless how you meter it. But by adapting to the K-System way
of metering average loudness and peak levels (and understanding the ba-
sic principles behind it), you may find that your mastered audio material
will sound better.
• To fully utilize the K-System you need to calibrate your monitor level so
that 0VU equals 83dB.
You should use a pink noise reference signal and a SPL level meter. Use C weighting (slow
response), and adjust your playback level so that your noise meter indicates 83dB SPL per
channel or 86dB SPL when played on the two channels simultaneously.
During mixing or mastering digital audio, many strive to keep the level as
close to maximum as possible, without introducing clipping. This is done
to “maximize” the loudness of the recording. This practice has been an
ongoing and escalating trend over the last couple of decades, so that it
has now virtually become standard practice (the overuse of Loudness
Panning Meter In this section, you can turn the pan meter on or off, change the colors
used for the pan meter bars and adjust the dB range of the pan meter.
Setting Description