Meter 0.2.3
https://github.com/airwindows/Meter/releases
This update introduces a visual cue for interesting-sounding high frequency information in the middle Slew section: useful transients will show up as a larger red dot, just like sonorities show up as blue dots in the Peak section! Also, the Zero Cross section is upgraded so that larger dots mean ‘more deep bass’ and it should balance appropriately if you’re trying to highlight that. Use reference tracks to see what’s going on with all this: the patron videos and Forbidden videos will now be using this version of Meter, and ConsoleX3 is getting a version where you can switch among the three displays by a control.
Thanks to Intrets from the livestream for lastminute #ifdef issue help :)
The updates to 0.2.2 are for getting that letter score going again. It’s got an A-Z letter for Intensity (peaks), Detail (slew), and Fullness (zero cross). They are essentially ‘more goes toward A’ but have all been upgraded so they want to see a ‘cloud’, not just the highest possible number. Then there’s a final letter grade (also A-Z but expect to see A-C most often here, like a report card) and this mostly cares about how well the other three meters MATCH and go with each other. Using this as the primary letter score means the meter tracks hit records MUCH more effectively, across far more genres, from Prince to Steppenwolf to Hall and Oates to Chuck Berry to Deadmau5 to Creedence to James Taylor to Cat Stevens. They end up at wildly different ‘peak intensity’ values but it absolutely works and seems to pick out the biggest charting hits surprisingly well given that it doesn’t know what a note is and is only looking at raw sound and how that works.
It’ll be interesting tailoring music to respond to this thing. Since the idea is that the meters should balance, you can work out what to do when things aren’t clicking, and scout out what happens if a section of a song takes the wrong path and does something unhelpful. It can’t tell you what to do, but if you know you’re balancing loudness with brightness with fullness, those are good clues :)
I’ve added a plus to the rating at the last minute for when the peak and slew meters EXACTLY balance, which seems to correspond to good things… and then I invented a whole color bar for showing WHERE in the song these new ratings kick in so you can know what made the change… and things got very out of hand. I’ll have a very long video and must annotate it because there’s too much already and the video didn’t even have 0.2.3 yet and this thing has to escape. Have fun!
Is there a 32 bit version?
Thanks for all the hard work on this, Chris. I really enjoy running my music (and that of others) through Meter and am often surprised by the results / scores whichever way they go.
I also fear using it to judge the readiness of any mix lest I get carried away and obsessed with maxing out each score instead of trusting ears and instinct, which is ironic given the extensive use of Airwindows plugins across my projects in the first place (i.e. trusting ears over fancy GUI visuals)…! So it’s interesting in that regard.
Anyhow one of my recent tunes, meat waves, was graded +A-AAB which reassured me because I was referencing early 90s Afghan Whigs with that one and I just love the 90s Whigs’ sound / vibe.