freeware PPM / level meters, loads of them...

This topic has 3 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated February 10, 2012 at 2:21 pm by Ry.

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February 4, 2012 at 10:13 pm #1052325
General Lighting
Moderator
just found these – really impressive for free/donation ware, especially as proper analogue PPM meters are way expensive and hard to get nowadays as the main places stopped making them..

A PPM meter makes it easier to keep track of the overall level of something like a mix or a radio program – these also have a “over” warning light which reacts instantly (and you can set the level at which it triggers, giving a bit of headroom) – perfect for internet radio or any other kind of digital transmission/recording.

Clipping on this sounds really nasty (and bad for your listeners speakers and ears!) but its often easy to do by accident epecially if playing vinyl with surface noise, and because meters on most DJ mixers are analogue VU meters.

if you run this program on the PC sending the stream to your servers it will pick up the soundcard input and display your levels in real time and is much easier to read than the normal “shoutcast encoder” level meters….

Also useful if you make video/films as these need good sound (something often neglected on many youtubes i’ve seen).

Most are based around the BBC ME/12 design so the levels “out of the box” are a bit conservative for todays digital audio and other nations use different levels but everything can be changed. there are some of the sound mixers from the curent Doctor Who saying how good the meters are and that they use them. I’ve run a quick test with both a digtal meter and a ME/12 running on the second screen of a cheap Win 7 32 bit laptop, as well as Audacity recording at 48khz sample rate display its own meter real time and all of them are working perfectly raaa

Audio Level Meter
February 4, 2012 at 10:22 pm #1248944
dubstep_joe
Participant
@General Lighting 466450 wrote:

just found these – really impressive for free/donation ware, especially as proper analogue PPM meters are way expensive and hard to get nowadays as the main places stopped making them..

A PPM meter makes it easier to keep track of the overall level of something like a mix or a radio program – these also have a “over” warning light which reacts instantly (and you can set the level at which it triggers, giving a bit of headroom) – perfect for internet radio or any other kind of digital transmission/recording.

Clipping on this sounds really nasty (and bad for your listeners speakers and ears!) but its often easy to do by accident epecially if playing vinyl with surface noise, and because meters on most DJ mixers are analogue VU meters.

if you run this program on the PC sending the stream to your servers it will pick up the soundcard input and display your levels in real time and is much easier to read than the normal “shoutcast encoder” level meters….

Also useful if you make video/films as these need good sound (something often neglected on many youtubes i’ve seen).

Most are based around the BBC ME/12 design so the levels “out of the box” are a bit conservative for todays digital audio and other nations use different levels but everything can be changed. there are some of the sound mixers from the curent Doctor Who saying how good the meters are and that they use them. I’ve run a quick test with both a digtal meter and a ME/12 running on the second screen of a cheap Win 7 32 bit laptop, as well as Audacity recording at 48khz sample rate display its own meter real time and all of them are working perfectly raaa

Audio Level Meter

Sorry if this derails your topic. Does analouge tapse/vinyl have any level/volume limit? Would this be limited by the groove size/width in vinyl for example?
February 4, 2012 at 10:40 pm #1248943
General Lighting
Moderator
yes, both do and with vinyl too much level will actually cause thecutter to break into the next groove making the recording useless – most cutting lathes therefore have a hard limiter on the circuit to the cutting needle coils.

Analogue tape will let you get away with about 3dB of distortion especially at lower frequencies (and is thus sometimes preferred by drum and bass producers) but any more and the recording will be badly distorted.

In fact that is also why a PPM meter was preferred by many European broadcasters (as earlier designed ignored short overloads) though in studios and for live performances VU meters are still used. some richer radio stations and also film crews would use a Nagra portable tape recorder and that had a sort of PPM meter on it. (It also cost as much as a car and weighed many kilos). you can see the meter on the left in the pic below.
February 10, 2012 at 2:21 pm #1248945
Ry
Participant
Gotta check this out, probably sunday. People are often put off by things that don’t look fresh and new, but I’ve found some of the least aesthetical things to be the most functional. Thanks a lot General! =)
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