User Manual

150 Audio Montages
Using meter windows
There can only be one instance of each Audio Meter. For example, if you dock one meter in a
Workspace, it will be automatically removed from the place where it was previously located.
Audio Meters can appear in the Audio File, Audio Montage Workspaces as well as the Con-
trol Window. They can be used:
as a docked window in a Workspace
as a tabbed window in the control window
as an independent floating window. In this mode, it can be useful to make the window
"frameless" from Window > Hide frame, to save screen space. In this case, the whole
menu is accessed by right-clicking.
The axis of most Audio Meters may be rotated, to view the graphics horizontally or vertically.
Some meters can also have their visual style and display parameters customized via their
corresponding settings dialog. This can be accessed through the Functions > Settings...
menu in each meter window, or by using the icon.
Related topics
VU Meter
Spectroscope
Oscilloscope
Bit Meter
Phasescope
Spectrometer
Wavescope
6.1.1 VU Meter
The vu-meter is used to display the peak and average loudness/decibel level of your Audio
File. It also displays the pan, or the balance between the left and right channels in a stereo
file.
The upper part of the level/pan meter window shows the peak level and average loudness,
in the following way:
The Peak Level meters display the peak levels of each channel, graphically and numeri-
cally. By default, the meter segments and numerical peak values are displayed in green
for low levels, yellow for levels between -6dB and -2dB, and red for levels above -2dB.
You can change both the colors and the range boundaries if you wish via the Level/Pan
Meter Settings dialog. This can be accessed through the Functions > Settings...
menu, or by using the icon.
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
WaveLab 7