FabFilter User Forum
RMS metering please - to encourage sanity
Please consider adding RMS metering to more of your plug-ins along with some encouragement to keep the signal at a level similar to 0VU. Analog style VU meters do such a good job of showing users “hey your audio levels are going crazy”, and RMS seems like a logical evolution of VU provided that the meters discourage excessive levels which are becoming quite standard due to clipping no longer being a concern.
Try as I might to encourage clients to use sane gain staging, time and time again I’m seeing clipped vocals and plug-ins with maxed out meters peaking at +10. It seems like dudes just want to use up all the meter real estate and don’t understand the negative consequences of this since. I encourage the use of VU meters for gain staging but having intuitive RMS meters in plug-ins could work just as well.
Given FabFilter’s emphasis on workflow it seems like revamping the meters to guide producers towards smarter mix decisions could be a great workflow consideration.
I get that your plug-ins have a certain “you should already know what you’re doing if you’re using these” vibe. But there’s also a lot of new producers who just get Pro Q because everyone else uses it. And then they like boost their bass +15dB and send this to really confused compressor which is expecting -14RMS.
On behalf of dynamic range advocates everywhere I thank you for your consideration.
Hi Cicada,
Thanks for the feedback. Some of our plug-ins already offer different metering. Pro-L 2 has more extensive options, and Pro-C 2 shows the peak value in more dimmed colors and a momentary LUFS value using brighter colors in the meter section. Would this be helpful for other plug-ins as well or would you like to see more extensive options?
We cannot make any promises whether it will be implemented, but we'll surely have a look when plug-ins are ready for an update.
Thank you for the response sir,
I do really like the meters in Pro L2. In Pro Q and Pro C it feels as though the existing meters look a bit too friendly in the upper regions and don't communicate any information regarding gain staging best practices (something that VU meters do pretty well). Maybe not such a big deal if you're very experienced. But it may be really helpful for newcomers if there was additional emphasis on RMS and some visual cues to encourage people to hit certain targets and pay closer attention to their gain structure to prevent situations where their levels are crazy high.
Just an observation, not a complaint.