Meters Made Simple (See Your Sound, Better.)

[@SonicScoop]

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[@aaroncafaro2]

Ahh, Justin is human! He slightly slipped up on his harmonic/fundamental talk; the fundamental frequency IS the first harmonic. What he is calling the "first harmonic" is actually the 2nd harmonic, or the first 'overtone.' Justin, you're amazing and I know you know this, I'm just taking this opportunity to pick on you as you rarely misspeak. Keep up the good content dude!

[@SonicScoop]

Haha, you’re 100% right! It would be the first overtone, or second harmonic. Colloquially, I think a lot of people use the two terms interchangeably, and I must have picked up the habit along the way somewhere. But you’re absolutely right: pick up any textbook on music theory or acoustics, and the distinction will be just as you said. Good catch! I’ll have to watch myself I the future :-) Interesting that you found this error more worthy of comment than the one where I had almost a full minute of dead air because I found out I didn’t really know how OBS works right in the middle of a livestream 🤣 Kudos for getting to the end! Very best, Justin

[@teebagz1]

ADPTR AUDIO Metric AB is great metering combined with great referencing. It's almost all ya need. I'm surprised this doesn't get more attention.

[@SonicScoop]

Love that plugin! -Justin

[@teebagz1]

@@SonicScoop your ever present referencing advice is so spot on.

[@UncleBenjs]

I love metric A/B and use it to reference on every mix. Their metering isn't accurate tho, so don't rely on it as if it is. I use hardware metering (tc electronic clarity m stereo) which shows accurate metering, comparing to metric ab showing metric to be off, the tc meter is also perfectly correlated with the levels post bounce but metric isn't. Just keep that in mind when using vst meters

[@hansomolde]

It's great! I just managed to get the A|B button permanently stuck to a button on a midi controller. Highly recommended!

[@sealinski]

@@hansomoldethat’s awesome! I need to do that!

[@TheShpmusic]

I've been on this side of the music for 2 weeks now Understanding the scale and what every db represents on the meter. Am also working with pink noise and monitoring my meter read outs. This is fun and this is where am learning..

[@SonicScoop]

Great to have you here Kevon! Hope to see more of your around. -Justin

[@Beatledave7]

Very interesting thanks Justin!

[@SaintJayTV]

If you are still struggling with OBS, perhaps try using "Screen Capture" instead of capturing full screen applications. It should capture anything happening on the screen as opposed to just the window that is fullscreened. This can put more stress on the CPU though, if that is a potential issue for you.

[@scohills]

Great subject to cover Justin. One consideration is microphone self noise and proximity effect. When recording quieter sources like fingerpicked acoustic with a ribbon(?) or anything else very dependent on the acoustics, then aiming for 0db VU is a good target. Despite the digital dynamic range, microphone self noise is still a variable. Using proximity effect will increase amplitude, without having to play harder.

[@UncleBenjs]

Great video JC

[@SonicScoop]

Thanks Benj! Even with my OBS blunder early on??😅 I may eventually make this one members only and redo the topic down the road without the technical hiccup in the beginning. But all the information got out there in the end, which is nice. -Justin

[@UncleBenjs]

@@SonicScoop The blunder was minor and over pretty soon :) Not a big deal

[@kenwatts3848]

All good!

[@lorenz3152]

You can do no wrong. Thank you for this.

[@SonicScoop]

I appreciate hearing this after messing up with a technical glitch somewhere in this video! 😅 Thanks for tuning in, and for the kind words Lorenz -Justin

[@xMaSSxHyST3RiA]

Thank thank you thank you thank you!!! Been waiting for a video like this 👍 Def gonna have to play around with some meters and references now that you've opened my eyes! (P.S. Soundtoys plugins are amazing and everyone should have them)

[@matiasruda]

Justin es el number 1

[@SonicScoop]

Awwwww..... No, you! :-) -Justin

[@carlos-ni4hn]

for this fall you could bring engineer leslie brathwaite showing his great mix of the song "need i" by los migos, RIP Take off

[@SonicScoop]

I’d love to have Leslie on! -Justin

[@carlos-ni4hn]

@@SonicScoop this fall will be amazing if you bring it with migos "i need it"

[@yanii_138]

Amazing video too see🔥🔥

[@stix2slivers]

Looking forward to education

[@RocknRollkat]

-18 dB in the 16 bit CD world means that you're recording with a 78 dB noise floor instead of the 96 dB you think you have. It's the equivalent of recording with 13 bits instead of 16 bits.

[@SonicScoop]

This is one of the reasons 24 bit is the standard for recording and 16 bit is just a final delivery format 🙃 Shooting for -18 at 24 bit gives you 21 effective bits and a whopping 126 dB of dynamic range. Chances are that little of any of your analog equipment can take full advantage of that. That said, even 78dB of effective dynamic is still way better than most analog technology that most people ever used for most records you’ve ever heard. And, it helps ensure you don’t clip, and makes the mixing process easier. Hope that makes sense! Justin

[@RocknRollkat]

@@SonicScoop Yes, of course it makes sense and you are totally correct. Until you realize that the final delivery to CD or the web is 16 bit. The 24 bit data stream is resampled and converted to 16 bit for final delivery to CD or the web, etc. Then that 16 bits drops to 13 bits, and your best case noise floor is 78 dB. I have done the experiments and I will make the empirical data available soon. I think you will find it interesting. Best regards, Bill P.