Any of you using, with success, Hornet's VU and LU auto-gain meter plugins? If so, are they really that helpful in gain staging, and is the real benefit to get the inputs into the "sweet spots" of various plugins/VST's? Or is it rather to simplify the process of RMS(?) staging of baselines so their relative loudness is appropriate?  Not sure what I'm even talking about...but I'm interested to learn more!

I'd like to know this too.
 

2:43AM
Not sure what I'm even talking about

Fear not, that's never stopped anybody on this forum before.

So based on the responses thus far--I know all y'all are up!--either nobody uses them or they're not much use.

I use a LUFS meter on every project, but only as the last plugin in the mastering chain. It's main value is to provide an objective reality check for overall loudness.
 
LUFS meters give you two values: short-term and long-term loudness. It's the latter you want to watch most carefully. I shoot for -12 or -11 long-term and try to stay below -8 short-term, but don't worry too much if the short-term occasionally pops up to -6.
 
If the meter informs you that it's above -10 (long-term), then your song is going to be noticeably turned down on normalized streaming services such as YouTube, iTunes or Pandora. If it's above -8, that means you're just too frickin' loud, regardless of genre. Above -6 and you should take up some less-technical hobby, like concrete pouring.
 
I've never had success with auto-gain plugins, except in very specific situations such as balancing multi-part vocal harmonies. I would never use one on a bus.

bitflipper
I use a LUFS meter on every project, but only as the last plugin in the mastering chain. It's main value is to provide an objective reality check for overall loudness.
 
LUFS meters give you two values: short-term and long-term loudness. It's the latter you want to watch most carefully. I shoot for -12 or -11 long-term and try to stay below -8 short-term, but don't worry too much if the short-term occasionally pops up to -6.
 
If the meter informs you that it's above -10 (long-term), then your song is going to be noticeably turned down on normalized streaming services such as YouTube, iTunes or Pandora. If it's above -8, that means you're just too frickin' loud, regardless of genre. Above -6 and you should take up some less-technical hobby, like concrete pouring.
 
I've never had success with auto-gain plugins, except in very specific situations such as balancing multi-part vocal harmonies. I would never use one on a bus.

Thanks, Mr. Bitflipper!  I always appreciate your responses!
 
So you're using it as the last item on your mastering chain, which is what I suppose I do when I check RMS values on the meter in Ozone. Perhaps the LUFS meters do a better job keeping loudness in check.
 
I guess the only time I've used a similar meter, the free Toneboosters EBU Loudness meter (no auto-gain) with its ability to plot loudness over time, was to check, like you, vocals (but a sample) that fluctuated all over the map in terms of loudness and peaks. Compression couldn't cut it.  I had to automate the volume fader as well as manually adjust gains and re-normalize parts in the sample beforehand.  During playback and checking the automation, I could then view the loudness over time using the plugins graphing function. My goal was to keep it relatively level.

I have both. For the money they are great!