TBProAudio releases dpMeter II - Free Digital Precision Meter Plugin including Loudne

[TBProAudio]

Update to V1.2.5: Set add gain on readout values changed from mouse click to shift mouse mouse click
(now avoids unintentional gain changes by just clicking on readout values)

[TBProAudio]

Update to 1.2.6
- RMS+3 added: Support for K-Metering
- VST3 preset handling improved

[sinkmusic]

Thank you

[JHughes]

Yay, K-Metering!

Thank you!

[heda]

Hi TBProAudio
Thank you for dpMeter again and all the updates.

one thing I find confusing in dpmeterII, is when you set a reference level, and set ON, the meters change from "LUFS" to "LU" being 0.0 the reference level. That's ok, but the labels below the meter numbers still display "LUFS". I think it should be "LU" then, isn't it? Because LUFS is for full scale.

[RDBOIS]

I really like the products of TBProAudio. A lot!

I especially appreciate the: "record metering results as automation data".

Something tells me that having this data is very powerful and can be used for many things. I've tried several things on my own, sometimes with good results and sometimes not so good.

I'm becoming a real fan of working with envelops and TBProAudio has got this in mind...

Having offered the flowers now here comes the pot flying...

Where's the documentation on how to use all these wonderful features? I have all the manuals, but they don't explain very much...

I've Googled to find 'tips' 'tricks' etc., but did not find what I needed.

Let me give an example of what I think I could be doing with TBProAudio's products: I could be printing the output data (e.g. short term loudness) to an envelop, then copy paste the envelop to the volume envelop, inverse it (there is a Reaper function that does that), and have a much smoother track. This would be like compression, but using LUFS to reduce or increase, and also like sidechaining because any other track could be used to create and envelop.

I think I saw a function in the roll down box that might be useful for automation? But who knows? Can't find any documentation...

I enjoy experimenting with the plugin features. It feels like I need to get into a reverse engineering mode to understand what it can or can't do. Or maybe I lack talent in figuring out how audio plugins work?

I wonder what others are doing with the automation data?

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by heda

Hi TBProAudio
Thank you for dpMeter again and all the updates.

one thing I find confusing in dpmeterII, is when you set a reference level, and set ON, the meters change from "LUFS" to "LU" being 0.0 the reference level. That's ok, but the labels below the meter numbers still display "LUFS". I think it should be "LU" then, isn't it? Because LUFS is for full scale.

You are right, it should display "LU" if offset is "on". I will correct this.
Thank you :-)

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by RDBOIS

I really like the products of TBProAudio. A lot!

I especially appreciate the: "record metering results as automation data".

Something tells me that having this data is very powerful and can be used for many things. I've tried several things on my own, sometimes with good results and sometimes not so good.

I'm becoming a real fan of working with envelops and TBProAudio has got this in mind...

Having offered the flowers now here comes the pot flying...

Where's the documentation on how to use all these wonderful features? I have all the manuals, but they don't explain very much...

I've Googled to find 'tips' 'tricks' etc., but did not find what I needed.

Let me give an example of what I think I could be doing with TBProAudio's products: I could be printing the output data (e.g. short term loudness) to an envelop, then copy paste the envelop to the volume envelop, inverse it (there is a Reaper function that does that), and have a much smoother track. This would be like compression, but using LUFS to reduce or increase, and also like sidechaining because any other track could be used to create and envelop.

I think I saw a function in the roll down box that might be useful for automation? But who knows? Can't find any documentation...

I enjoy experimenting with the plugin features. It feels like I need to get into a reverse engineering mode to understand what it can or can't do. Or maybe I lack talent in figuring out how audio plugins work?

I wonder what others are doing with the automation data?

Thank you for the flowers :-)
Regarding documentation of "record automation data": The function itself is very simple, but examples how to use it afterwards count to endless. And some work only in Reaper with its extensive automation data handling...

[heda]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

You are right, it should display "LU" if offset is "on". I will correct this.
Thank you :-)

thank you

[bezusheist]

hi,
i was trying this meter out and i noticed that the "true peak" level did not coincide with some of my other TP meters. i was just wondering if it's user error or just a different way of calculating TP or something.
i attached a pic showing the dpMeter II compared to the Youlean Loudness Meter. they are both on the same track / audio file.
i have also attached my source file for obtaining these values.
a third party outside of Reaper (iZotope RX5) gives me a value of about +7.32 dBTP for the file. (for reference)
just thought i'd ask here in case this was a bug/mistake or something.

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by bezusheist

hi,
i was trying this meter out and i noticed that the "true peak" level did not coincide with some of my other TP meters. i was just wondering if it's user error or just a different way of calculating TP or something.
i attached a pic showing the dpMeter II compared to the Youlean Loudness Meter. they are both on the same track / audio file.
i have also attached my source file for obtaining these values.
a third party outside of Reaper (iZotope RX5) gives me a value of about +7.32 dBTP for the file. (for reference)
just thought i'd ask here in case this was a bug/mistake or something.

Well, i cannot comment the implementation of other products, but i can say that dpMeter II implements TP measurement according ITU 1770 (4xOS + upsample filter), which is our reference!
When we started our TP measurement codeing we tried several interpolation schemes (e.g. bicubic and sinc). All of them gave similar high TP values. So finally we switched to official scheme proposed by ITU.
Of course ITU 1770 implementation costs more CPU resources but is much more accurate ...
I hope this helps.

[TBProAudio]

Update to V1.2.8: RMS/EBU, corrected unit labels if offset active (dB/dBFS/LU/LUFS)

[airon]

All you need is a 4xoversampling limiter to prevent those peaks from happening. Barricade is really cheap and good, and there are plenty of other products available as well. LA xLimit II from TBProaudio for example .

To be honest, I'd rather turn off truepeak measurement, because I simply don't need to know, except when I'm doing the final normalization of a mix. My limiter takes care of that anyway.

I'd just prefer to save the CPU resources, and get an easy to read momentary and short term meter. No numbers necessary for me. This is of course my own personal preference.

Thanks for putting this meter out there.

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by bezusheist

hi,
i was trying this meter out and i noticed that the "true peak" level did not coincide with some of my other TP meters. i was just wondering if it's user error or just a different way of calculating TP or something.
i attached a pic showing the dpMeter II compared to the Youlean Loudness Meter. they are both on the same track / audio file.
i have also attached my source file for obtaining these values.
a third party outside of Reaper (iZotope RX5) gives me a value of about +7.32 dBTP for the file. (for reference)
just thought i'd ask here in case this was a bug/mistake or something.

BTW: we measure a value of 8.1 dBFS with the attached file mono_noise_0dBFS.wav. Maybe you repeat your measurement.
(Youlean LM V1.0.5 gives 8.1 dBFS as well)

[bezusheist]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

BTW: we measure a value of 8.1 dBFS with the attached file mono_noise_0dBFS.wav. Maybe you repeat your measurement.
(Youlean LM V1.0.5 gives 8.1 dBFS as well)

I will have to check again, something seemed not right when using it.
Thank you for checking that out, I didn't mean to be rude, I genuinely thought something was wrong or broken. (I kept getting inconsistent results).

The only meter I got to read "8.1" was the meter on DMG Limitless (64x OS on).

[heda]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

Update to V1.2.8: RMS/EBU, corrected unit labels if offset active (dB/dBFS/LU/LUFS)

thank you for the fix.

One small thing, I've noticed also that changing the offset it also changes the automation output of the values. I'm not saying this is necessarily wrong, but maybe it is better to leave automation parameter outputs always in LUFS if possible so it wouldn't be affected by the offset. Let me know what do you think. If it is going to cause any problem, don't worry about it.

[europa_man]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

BTW: we measure a value of 8.1 dBFS with the attached file mono_noise_0dBFS.wav. Maybe you repeat your measurement.
(Youlean LM V1.0.5 gives 8.1 dBFS as well)

I've download the plug in and thank you for this!

Are there any instructional videos available for this plug in?

Regards,
Eric

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by heda

thank you for the fix.

One small thing, I've noticed also that changing the offset it also changes the automation output of the values. I'm not saying this is necessarily wrong, but maybe it is better to leave automation parameter outputs always in LUFS if possible so it wouldn't be affected by the offset. Let me know what do you think. If it is going to cause any problem, don't worry about it.

Hello Heda,

well, we have a lot customers who like the current functionality. So I propose no change :-)

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by europa_man

I've download the plug in and thank you for this!

Are there any instructional videos available for this plug in?

Regards,
Eric

What would you like to know?
dpMeter II is pretty straight forward....

[europa_man]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

What would you like to know?
dpMeter II is pretty straight forward....

I'd really like to see some real-life examples of how to use the plugin.

How it would be used in Mastering and on individual tracks.

Thanks
Eric

[iqi616]

Great tool but I'm not sure which readout I need to use for -23 LUFS/-1 TP compliance.

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by iqi616

Great tool but I'm not sure which readout I need to use for -23 LUFS/-1 TP compliance.

For compliance you need basically the Integrated (IL) and True Peak (TP) readout (EBU mode).

[iqi616]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

For compliance you need basically the Integrated (IL) and True Peak (TP) readout (EBU mode).

Great. Thanks.

By the way, I'm impressed by the channel strip. It sounds great and the EQ bands match my approach to EQ perfectly.

[TBProAudio]

- A/B/C-Weighting adjusted for better performance from 10k-100k

[karbomusic]

This could be a reaper bug but if you place this meter in monitoring FX (which is about the only place I would use it). Since it uses 6 channels, it breaks hardware outputs 3/4 and 5/6. Meaning that if it is there and I want to send some random track to hardware outputs 3, 4, 5 or 6, that hardware output will not pass signal unless I remove DPMeter from monitor FX. Strange sounding correlation but true and IIRC it doesn't happen with all multi-channel plugins but would need to confirm.

My suggestion would be when using it in stereo (which is the only way I use it), it should not cause this behavior.

[emarsk]

It would be nice to have (optional?) meters in addition to numbers. Numbers are fine but meters are much easier to read.

[endorka]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

This could be a reaper bug but if you place this meter in monitoring FX (which is about the only place I would use it). Since it uses 6 channels, it breaks hardware outputs 3/4 and 5/6. Meaning that if it is there and I want to send some random track to hardware outputs 3, 4, 5 or 6, that hardware output will not pass signal unless I remove DPMeter from monitor FX. Strange sounding correlation but true and IIRC it doesn't happen with all multi-channel plugins but would need to confirm.

My suggestion would be when using it in stereo (which is the only way I use it), it should not cause this behavior.

Youlean loudness meter does exactly the same. I've mentioned it to the developer on another thread.

Not a massive deal, but I sometimes get tripped up by it when prepping for a recording session. Before the musicians arrive I like to prepare rough headphone mixes on hardware out 3,4 etc. For a minute or two I'm sometimes puzzled that no sound is coming out until I remember to set the meter offline.

Cheers,
Jennifer

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by emarsk

It would be nice to have (optional?) meters in addition to numbers. Numbers are fine but meters are much easier to read.

dpMeterXT has meters!

[emarsk]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

dpMeterXT has meters!

But dpMeterXT is not dpMeter II

[winbe]

Originally Posted by endorka

Youlean loudness meter does exactly the same. I've mentioned it to the developer on another thread.

Not a massive deal, but I sometimes get tripped up by it when prepping for a recording session. Before the musicians arrive I like to prepare rough headphone mixes on hardware out 3,4 etc. For a minute or two I'm sometimes puzzled that no sound is coming out until I remember to set the meter offline.

Cheers,
Jennifer

Ah, so I am not completely nuts
Also, on my side, I noticed that I get slightly different readings when using monitoring FX... do you have the same behavior ?

(see https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=199184 )

[G-Sun]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

Update to V1.2.5: Set add gain on readout values changed from mouse click to shift mouse mouse click
(now avoids unintentional gain changes by just clicking on readout values)

I got some gain-drop when clicking on something.
How can I better understand how this feature works?

[RDBOIS]

I'm still trying to figure out how to squeeze a compression-like tool out for this plugin.

I did manage to copy-paste some OUT envelops onto a Volume envelop to modulate the loudness, but failed at my attempt to link some output to ReaComp's Threshold slider.

Perhaps this can't be done, I'm not ready to give up yet.

Basically, not really know what I was doing, I,

1) lined up ReaComp behind dpMeter
2) Clicked the PARAM button, Opened the Parameter Modulation/Midi Link and selected THRESH
3) Checked the box for LINK to Parameter Effect
4) Select from the (none) box, 18:OUT ML from dpMeter
5) Clicked on Auto Control

Then, I was looking to adjust some setting so that the Threshold of ReaComp would move according to the dpMeter LUFS ML values.

At one point I did see the Threshold slider nob move back and forth, but I concluded it was still reading ReaCOmp output of compressing the RMS signal of the track.

I know I'm doing something wrong. Maybe even nonsensical.

But I want a compression what reacts on LUFS not RMS. Perhaps my goal is pointless? Is LUFS a relatively more accurate measure of 'perceived loudness'? Would a LUFS compressor be valuable?

Just messing around with stuff. I bet there's a tool out there already doing that, with a missing user manual, I bet...

Is routing dpMeter to ReaComp possible?

[karbomusic]

I probably read too fast but why don't you just place the copied envelope onto a threshold envelope? Probably super easy using an automation item... I don't see the need for param modulation but possibly being dense. Not 100% sure why you want to do this since such volume type automation is usually preferred as an alternative to compression. I suppose it can control the compression real time but it's still just turning stuff up and down no?

[RDBOIS]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

I probably read too fast but why don't you just place the copied envelope onto a threshold envelope? Probably super easy using an automation item... I don't see the need for param modulation but possibly being dense. Not 100% sure why you want to do this since such volume type automation is usually preferred as an alternative to compression. I suppose it can control the compression real time but it's still just turning stuff up and down no?

Ohhh darn I didn't actually think of copying the points over the ReaComp threshold envelop. I guess I was toying with linking stuff to stuff, as part of my Reaper training.

Soooo if I write my own threshold envelop in ReaComp, will I still be able to play around with the other nobs in real time?


The point is... Wait, what's me point again? Well, I was doing some 'gain staging' the other day and was thinking to myself, "what exactly am I aiming for here?". Max dB peaks, RMS, what my ear are hearing?

If I set, say, a guitar track at the same peak level as a synth, it so happens that the RMS of the synth is WAY LOUDER than the guitar. If I gain stage the RMS then when I mix I can't go any higher than the max peak of the guitar, which we already determined is actually not that loud. And therefore, came the idea that I should try to gain stage according to the best perceived loudness value (LUFS), while compressing the peaks. Hence my, not so brillant, idea of creating an LUFS peak compressor. Does that make any sense?

I know I could simply mix using my ears and then use a plugin to 'shave off' the peaks that don't really contribute to the overall loudness, but produce clipping. I'm also trying to figure out way to 'not' have to use a limiter on the master to raise the integrated LUFS. I'm getting sort of tired of doing that kind of pony trick. Like I mentioned elsewhere, I normally like the sound of my mix, but ruin it at the end when in the Master compressor and Limiting phase. Normally I wouldn't care so much, but sometimes I want to Render a song with a per-determined LUFS. Simply raising the level off the tracks doesn't cut it; the song will clip before I get anything loud enough.

[TBProAudio]

- Small GUI fixes
- Preset adjustments
- VST3: Support WaveLab offline Render
- VST3: Fixed sync function in WaveLab

[poetnprophet]

ah, from the maker of sTilt! I've been using sTilt for a while now, great little plug that has lots of uses. Thanks, I'll check this out for sure.

[heda]

@TBProAudio
It seems update dpmeter2 to 1.3.4 is not working well. It doesn't report the automation parameters to REAPER if the dpmeter window is not visible (but running), while it is working well in 1.3.3
Can you check it? Thanks!

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by heda

@TBProAudio
It seems update dpmeter2 to 1.3.4 is not working well. It doesn't report the automation parameters to REAPER if the dpmeter window is not visible (but running), while it is working well in 1.3.3
Can you check it? Thanks!

Yes, recently changed the way how automation is reported to the DAW to get compatibility with Studio One. I will review it again.

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by heda

@TBProAudio
It seems update dpmeter2 to 1.3.4 is not working well. It doesn't report the automation parameters to REAPER if the dpmeter window is not visible (but running), while it is working well in 1.3.3
Can you check it? Thanks!

OK, new version 1.3.5 fixes the issue. Please let me know if it works again, thank you.

[heda]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

OK, new version 1.3.5 fixes the issue. Please let me know if it works again, thank you.

yes. it works again. Thank you!