Naiant

VU meter plugin

Finally, a VST plugin that doesn't do anything at all! To your audio, that is. But if you've ever wanted a realistic VU meter bridge inside your DAW, VU just might be exactly what you are looking for!

There are three versions:

VU Dual gives you one meter for each stereo channel.

VU Mono has only a single input and output, which is sometimes required for certain DAWs on mono channels.

VU Stereo has a single VU meter for both stereo channels.

Audio signals pass through completely unchanged . . . input signal levels may exceed 0dBFS, although the maximum calibration point is -3dBFS RMS, which corresponds to 0dBFS peak for a sine wave signal (even if AES doesn't agree with me, it's a mathematical fact! ;). Please note that VU will thus register -3dB compared with meters calibrated to the AES standard. Could I make a version of VU with the AES calibration? Sure, it would take me five minutes . . . but I'm not going to, because the AES standard doesn't make any sense :D

New for VU v3.0, all versions have a setscrew to select the 0VU calibration point, measured in dBFS RMS, which is displayed in the meter. Also new for v3 is a peak indicator LED, which will indicate 0dBFS peak irrespective of VU calibration. The v2 ballistics knob has also been replaced by a setscrew, to reduce the size of the interface. Minimum calibration point is now -36dBFS RMS, and default is -18dBFS RMS.

Known issues:

VU v3.0 Not all hosts handle audio stop consistently--some will release the VU meter, some will freeze the meter. I have not found a solution that will work for all hosts tested.

Version history:

VU v3.0 (11/16/10) replaces former controls with setscrews, and adds peak indicator LED.

VU v2.1 (11/6/10) corrects a bug where settings (ballistics, calibration) were not being stored.

VU v2.0 (1/16/10) adds a ballistics control knob so you can customize how fast you want the meter to track. Slightly left of center will give the proper ballistics of a classic VU meter. Left (counterclockwise) is slower and right (clockwise) is faster.

VU v1.0 (3/12/09) initial release.

Special thanks to cymsilly and loopeytunes for graphics!

VU v3.0