For some engineers, peak meters are of little to no use on channels. When using a console, they tend to look at calibrated VUs and would like to do the same in Cubase. These users would like the ability in Cubase to switch any audio meter between peak reading and VU, or to display multiple meters in thinner lines, similar to Pro Tools’ implementation.
It’s really surprising that DAWs continue to focus on peak metering. Peak meters really aren’t useful for mixing. (You might as well just have a clipping light that goes off whenever 0dBFS is exceeded - the peaks themselves don’t help with mixing.) However, continuously integrating/averaging meters like VU, LUFS, etc. are hugely useful because you get a better idea on the overall energy of each track.
Cubase users shouldn’t have to buy third-party meters just to get per-channel averaging analysis. It’s a fairly basic, fundamental requirement - almost as important as having faders in the mixer.
Maggie, thank you for adding this to the list of options.
Would you agree that it would be preferable to have such meters built-in to Cubase? See Harrison Mixbus for an example of how this could be done.
A big challenge with using third-party tools is that they cannot be easily integrated into the MixConsole view or per channel; the user has to manually add the meters per channel and then open/close them in a plugin interface. This requires a lot of extra work and gets “in the way”; alternatively, having them built into the mixer would streamline the process. Also, the meters have to be manually calibrated depending on Cubase configuration, which many users might not realize; built-in meters could automatically adjust to the Cubase configuration.
Yes, I would agree. I have also used the SleepyTime tools as a free alternative, until Steinberg integrates it into Cubase. Steinberg and Harrison are working together, maybe something is coming in this direction.
+1 oh yes please. Right now I changed colours in ‘metering-appearance’ to reproduce visually what I could expect by seeing VU meter. Not perfect but easier than inserting 3rd party plugin on every channel
This would be a great addition to cubase. I use klanghelm VUMT as an insert plugin but having a RMS reading in each channel as an option would be a nice feature for me!!
