Any attempts to simulate analog sound with digital code is not something we do, even if we do have a DSP expert as a part of our core team. The solutionĪt mix:analog we're all about pure analog sound, so "analog modeling software" is the kind of feature we don't want to touch with a 10-foot pole for the audio we deliver. This phenomenon causes all kinds of lively behavioral traits like lagging and overshooting, which in the end make it look like a real, live thing compared to just drawing the voltage sampled by the microcontroller. As the voltage is applied over the larger meter's coil and needle, the momentum they develop while moving is hard to get going and hard to stop once it is moving. It all boils down to the physics of moving objects. These have a life of their own and rarely show the exact voltage - that's by design. Small VU meters, especially SSL-type are fast and precise, so the method works there as well.īut the story of bigger, mechanical meters is completely different. That method certainly works, and in some cases, it works surprisingly well! Some dynamics processors, especially limiters, use a string of LEDs to indicate gain reduction that flash quickly in time with the actual compression. Job done! Or is it.? It's not quite that simple. Those voltage measurements are then sent back to your computer browser tab along with the audio, to be used for drawing the VU meters on the GUI in sync with the arriving audio stream. This is how we connect the microcontroller to the compressor gain reduction meter It samples the gain reduction control signal with it's built-in analog to digital converter (ADC). If the device it controls is a dynamics processor, it has another important job. This little guy communicates with the main control server, sends out commands to the automation, toggles switches and so on. To control the custom automation circuitry that we put into every piece of gear to be offered online, we use custom electronics together with a microcontroller. It enables you to process your audio in real-time over the internet with real analog gear from the cloud. If you don't know what mix:analog is, it's an online service for streaming analog gear rental. To understand all this fuss about a VU meter, let's first take a look at how we go about metering in general at mix:analog. Observe how the VU meter actually behaves in this slow-motion video: they look soo pretty it's hard to resist! There's a certain magic about looking at the moving needle while working with sound that's hard to put in words.Īnd we're not settling for corner-cutting simplicity when it comes to this important aspect of the user experience. We all know very well we should listen first and look at the meters second. This complexity means it's easy to get lost and keeping your eyes on the meters becomes an important aspect of work with the G24. that happens to be attached to a very complicated box, the Gyraf G24 Passive/Aggressive Compressor we wrote about before. The VU meter is a seemingly simple electro-mechanical device. So, what is it about this time? The VU meter The task at hand was a true hybrid of different fields of knowledge, at the same time seemingly trivial and yet extremely important for the user's experience. We recently did something entirely new in our online product.
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