Meters have always been important but in the days of Loudness normalisation and LUFS they are more important than ever. As the person who mixes the Production Expert Podcast every week I’ve been delivering podcasts to a target loudness for a long time. Being someone who favours a single monitor screen, something I’ve always done is tuck my loudness plugin away in the corner of my screen, out of the way, but with the crucial three figures of Integrated, Short Term and Momentary loudness always visible.

Decible, a new plugin from PROCESS.AUDIO, caught my attention. As well as being a comprehensive solution for metering, (just as good as the tools I was using), it has the ability to simultaneously display customisable metering to multiple mobile devices built in. If I could conveniently move my loudness meters off to my iPad then I was interested…

It works! And it’s a flexible and genuinely useful tool. A couple of tweaks got it working the way I liked. Changing the metering from Continuous to Elapsed meant that the stats reset each time I stopped playback, which is the way I like it to work, and instead of using the AudioSuite Loudness Analyser plugin which comes with Pro Limiter as my final QC check, if you drag an audio file on to the plugin window you generate a complete report. It’s really fast too!

What Is Decibel?

Decibel is a comprehensive, configurable metering app which can run as a plugin in your DAW and on any number of iOS or Android devices simultaneously.

One of Decibel’s ground-breaking features is its free companion app for iOS and Android. Open it on a smartphone or tablet, link it to the Decibel desktop application or plugin over WI-FI, and the mobile app will mirror the meter display. Link as many devices as you want. Now you can have multiple synced hardware meters running simultaneously in your studio.

What’s more, with Decibel’s ability to function as both a plugin and a desktop app, you can have the former open on your master bus and the latter displaying levels coming from any other desktop audio source. Compare levels with Spotify, YouTube, audio editors and more, making level comparisons much more accurate.

Decibel features an extensive selection of meters in a completely customizable and resizable user interface. Configure as many or as few meters as desired and resize each one within the window. You can even select a custom color scheme.

Available meters include LUFS, Digital Peak and RMS, VU, Phase Scope, Spectrum Analyzer, Histogram and Target Validators for LUFS, LRA and Integrated LUFS. Also included is the Super Meter, which combines LUFS, True Peak Max and PROCESS.AUDIO’s own dynamic range measurement TrueDyn.

Drag and drop audio files onto Decibel’s GUI, and it does a high-speed analysis of the audio in seconds. It then displays LUFS, LRA and True Peak readings. You can even export text-file reports of the meter results.

Choose from a vast selection of factory presets covering stereo, mid-side and even surround meters. Between its ability to appear on multiple screens, its customizable GUI and its vast selection of meters, Decibel is a game-changer for tracking, mixing, mastering, video soundtrack creation or any audio post-production audio task. It’s poised to become the audio metering companion for every engineer and recording musician.

Professional stereo and 5.1 audiometers for mixing, mastering, and post production…

• Unlimited displays for precision metering on all mobile devices like phones and tablets.

• Compatible on iOS (13 minimum) & Android (7 minimum).

• Low latency connectivity via WI-FI or USB connectivity for high accuracy real-time analysis.

• Compatible with all main DAWs (Pro Tools, Cubase, Logic Pro X, Ableton, Studio One, and Luna).

• All plugin formats (64 bits) AU, VST3, AAX, and standalone.

• Compatible with Premiere Pro (DaVinci and Final Cut Pro coming soon).

• Compliant with all major broadcast standards, including ATSC A/85 and EBU R128, NETFLIX & DVD BLUE-RAY.

• Fully customizable Super Meter, Phase Scope, Spectrum Analyzer, and various modules that provide all essential audio monitoring information.

• High-speed offline analysis based on PROCESS.AUDIO measurement algorithms.

• Exportable statistics and overview for all key audio monitoring measuring parameters.

• State-of-the-art Super Meter including True Peak meter, LUFS, and TrueDyn measurements.

• Tracking LUFS Histogram to check loudness level, clipping & audio dynamics across time.

• Spectrum Analyzer to check frequency content of your sound, including a mid-side stereo real-time analysis.

• Configuration VU Meter with needle overshoot algorithm integrated.

• Precision stereo/surround correlation meter with Phase Scope.

• Fully customizable skins, colors, targets and layout.