The Experts team wondered what we thought people would want to find behind the windows of a dream studio advent calendar. Some of the things we own, some we wish we did. Owned or not, we think any of the things we name in the next 20 days would be a gift to a professional studio owner

Day 5 - Nugen VisLM

Of all the plug-ins I own, there’s one which I use every day. Working in audio post, loudness metering is an essential part of the workflow. Sure, it’s not the most exciting aspect of production but it’s important because no matter what platform your mix is destined for, there’s always a loudness standard to work to.

Nugen VisLM is a very well featured loudness meter which supports channel counts up to 7.1.2 and includes a load of presets for different loudness standards. Whether it’s ATSC A/85, EBU R128, OP-59, Netflix or the TASA standard for film trailers, it’s all there in VisLM.

Supporting all of these standards of course means that the plug-in supports metering in ITU (BS.1770), Leq(a), TASA and SAWA modes. A loudness history graph is generated, and the plug-in can be resized to suit your needs as you work and different parts of the display can easily be shown or hidden, allowing you to customise the display to meet your needs. There’s also a loudness history zoom control which lets you choose the time range shown in the zoom window, from 10 seconds to 24 hours.

A great feature is the ability to work with time code. Using time code as a time reference generates a loudness history based on the timecode locations within your session. This means that if you modify a section of a mix, playing that same section again will simply replace the previously recorded loudness values for that range of the timeline. By updating sections like this, a complete and accurate loudness history for the whole mix is calculated, and an accurate integrated loudness value is given.

As you’d expect, there’s True Peak metering but VisLM also displays visual warnings within the loudness history graph if loudness parameters deviate from desired values for a given amount of time. Each preset has this included but the level at which these alerts are triggered can be tailored as needed. The alerts appear as red lines in the loudness graph.

Another feature which makes Nugen VisLM stand out is the export tab. VisLM can export loudness data to both a text file and as automation data for display of loudness data in the timeline.

Ultimately, Nugen VisLM is an intuitive loudness meter which works well, offers all of the metering standards I need and is clear to read. It’s easy to work with on a day to day basis and provides me with all of the features I need to ensure that the mixes I work on meet the requirements for whatever loudness spec I’m working to that day.

Take a look at this video to see Nugen VisLM in action.