Klanghelm VUMT 2.0 and Deluxe

jinx

I just posted this in the Techniques forum in response to a kick/bass question, but this shows a really neat "trick" for balancing the low end of a mix using Klanghelm's VUMT. For anyone who may not know, +/- 3 dB = double/half volume.
 

I use real hardware VU meters (expensive ones!) as well as virtual VU meters.  And no,  hardware meters do not offer any of the features that digital meters do.  But what they do have though is a ballistic that is just so smooth and sublime it is very hard to describe.  Ballistics refer to how the meter actually moves or dances to the music.  Once you get onto ballistics there is a lot of hidden information that can be gleaned from watching the ballistic but that is another story.
 
I have devised some special tests that compare meter ballistics from real meters to the virtual ones.
 
I think this is the hardest thing to emulate by far and to be honest no virtual meter is still as good as the real thing.  They all read the correct 0 dB VU for example at the ref level but they all move quite differently.
 
The Sleepy Time meter is rubbish and by far the worse so do not waste your time with these.  The PSP meters are better and the Klanghelm meter is the closest I can get.  I have to fiddle the settings in the Klanghelm meter though in order to get it moving like the real thing.
 
What is weird though is the real meter rises faster than any virtual meter does and is slower in falling back and it also has this lovely little bounce when it falls back too.  Speeding up the rise time of the Klanghelm meter to 200mS or even 150 sort brings it in line.  But there is a trade off though.  As you speed up the rise time the ballistic changes a little.
 
V2 of the Klanghelm meter is great and the extra skins are welcome too as well as resizing the GUI etc.. In case you are wondering the different skins are cool on tracks, buses and the final mix.  It helps to identify these things faster.
 
The Deluxe version offers a single band dynamic EQ which is pretty cool.  What often happens when you put a VU meter over a whole mix say is you might see some wild swinging well over 0 dB VU at various times.  What this is telling you often is there might be one rogue track/channel that has got some wild levels going on and once you mute it then the mix VU just settles down to a beautiful ballistic just peaking 0 dB VU all the time.  So you know that you have isolated it down to just that right track.
 
What should happen next is the track is fixed using a plugin/s and then when it is returned to the mix the track becomes audible again but the wild swinging has gone away.
 
The deluxe version of VUMT now incorporates this repair option if you like within the VU meter itself   (eg it becomes an insert effect)  so this dynamic EQ can be setup around the trouble frequency range and with care in setting it can tame any rogue level changes in that area.  Very cool indeed.  Not to mention more metering options and other things as well.
 
I have not got deluxe yet but I will get it and test out how effective this dynamic EQ actually is.