VU meters

You didn't know VU stands for Very Useless? What it is, is that there are these people that only know how to make these meters and we can't let them starve.
 
VU meters measure the percieved loudness of a signal

The VU meter began life in 1939. It was designed by a committee made up of American broadcasters and the good folks from Bell Labs. They both agreed that a system was needed that would allow them to exchange program audio over telephone lines without compromising dynamic range, headroom or adding distortion.

The response of a VU meter is that of an averaging type meter. If you apply a 1 kHz tone at "0" VU a true VU meter will take 300 milliseconds for the indicator to reach zero on the scale. The rise time of a VU meter is therefore 300 milliseconds. The fall time is also 300 milliseconds.

The VU meter was designed to respond to sounds in the same way our brains perceive "loudness". The duration of a sound will affect our perception of how loud the sound is. A drum roll will sound louder than a single hit on a drum. Guess what? The VU will register higher on the drum roll. The bottom line is that a VU will work well on sounds of continuous duration but will not show rapid transient peaks.
 
les666paul said:
are they any better than a stack of LED's

Nothing is better than LEDs. I use them in places where it's not even appropriate. And if we have light-emitting diodes, and light-emitting resistors (AKA light bulbs), why not light-emitting transistors and capacitors? Further research is needed in this area :D
 
I find that, for the maximum in client satisfaction, a combination of LEDs and VU meters is essential. My own studio (if you'll permit me to boast) features both VU meters and LED arrays, both vertical and horizontal. They are connected to a device that randomly illuminates rows of LEDs and/or bounces the needles of VU meters constantly while clients are in the room. Since installation of these, my billing hours have increased by 932%. Note: the VU meters must be backlighted for best effect.
 
lpdeluxe said:
I find that, for the maximum in client satisfaction, a combination of LEDs and VU meters is essential. My own studio (if you'll permit me to boast) features both VU meters and LED arrays, both vertical and horizontal. They are connected to a device that randomly illuminates rows of LEDs and/or bounces the needles of VU meters constantly while clients are in the room. Since installation of these, my billing hours have increased by 932%. Note: the VU meters must be backlighted for best effect.

What about a VU meter with an acrylic needle lighted by a LED? :cool:
 
so i guess the question is DO I NEED A FUCKIN VU METER FOR MY DAW/BOARD (FOR HEADPHONE MIX)

sorry bout the yelling :)

MAYBE IF I HAD A FUCKIN VU METER I COULD TELL HOW LOUD I "REALLY" AM

my reputation has been shattered :(
 
With LEDs, LCDs you can have stuff like peak hold and slow and fast metering. With analog meters, they usually have to add an LED for clip or peak indicators...as far as I know. Analog meters are fine with an analog input or something, but they are kind of useless with digital stuff, I think.
 
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