VU Meter Test Tones

by **chris p** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 11:58 am

Following on from Rob's helpful post in the pad thread, I thought I'd share some MP3 files

Calibration 0db VU to -14db FS
Left - http://www.legalfinesse.com/testtones/1kHzL-14dbFS.mp3
Right - http://www.legalfinesse.com/testtones/1kHzR-14dbFS.mp3
Stereo - http://www.legalfinesse.com/testtones/1kHzST-14dbFS.mp3

Rob's VU Ballistics Test
http://www.legalfinesse.com/testtones/VUTest.mp3

by **astrovic** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:08 pm

Cheers Chris - thanks a million for saving the rest of us the trouble!

by **rob** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:53 pm

i knew i was only a matter of moments 'till someone organised this ! big up to chrisp

now if you really want to get fancy, following the 10 second calibration tone, you should have a series of 100mS bursts, then say 150mS, then 200mS etc etc
this lets you see if your meter responds too quickly, which is usually the case with cheaper meters

oh...and you need a voice announcement at the head of each set of bursts, one of those impecable american voices that we love from the days of test tapes ....

Rob

by **astrovic** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 2:16 pm

such as the woman that seems to do all of the vocals on fisher price toys? Her voice is burned into my brain from my 16 month old daughter's love of anything cheesy.

by **Martin** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 2:47 pm

i shall organise that as thankyou for helping me make the cables...

by **chris p** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 10:34 am

A salutory lesson here ....

I've moved my meters into their permanent home, but during recalibration I found something odd with the test tones I've posted here. I had imported them into iTunes, and when I play the files back through iTunes, there's about 10db crosstalk (the Right VU meter shows 10db when the LEFT channel only file is playing, and vice versa).

After a frustratingly long time (I fear I'm not always the brightest LED on the panel), I worked out that the problem was not in the wiring or the PCB's or the meters, it was iTunes itself! It turns out that when I play the files through my DAW (Logic), or even from the Macintosh Finder preview, they work just fine.

So just watch out for iTunes playback. I was very surprised by this - has anyone else found a similar problem?

by **Martin** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 11:15 am

i would guess that sound enhancer is on?? it does some wacky quasi-mastering image spreading and top end boosting that is just nasty

if its not that, then that IS a worry!

you can turn it off in preferences --> playback

by **chris p** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 7:53 pm

Nice call Martin - that was indeed the problem. Sound enhancer now off, tones work good.

VU Meter Test Tones

VU Meter Test Tones

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