Metering
SpectraVU
A free VU meter.
Add it to your cart and the installers are emailed to you.
SpectraVU+ is this meter with sample peak, crest and peak/RMS bars beside the needle.
Covered by rekkerd.org
Overview
A free VU meter built on the same measurement core as Spectra, with an adjustable 0 VU reference, on macOS and Windows.
SpectraVU is the VU meter out of Spectra, given away on its own. It shares the paid product's measurement core and its editor, and shows one thing: a needle, per channel, on a classic scale.
The needle is a second-order movement. By default it reaches 99 % of its deflection in 276 ms, matched to a reference VU meter. Behind it is a model of a germanium-diode rectifier rather than a plain RMS average, which is what gives program material the response a real VU meter has.
Audio passes through untouched. The signal is tapped for metering and nothing else happens to it.
Features
0 VU is yours to set
The reference runs across the usual choices and defaults to −18 dBFS. A sine at the reference reads exactly 0, because the detector is calibrated to a sine's RMS.
Standard ballistics, adjustable
The default is 276 ms. 300 ms to 99 % is the IEC 60268-17 figure. You can set it in 1 ms steps, and the damping stays the same.
Right-click to change it
Reference, rise time and needle blur sit in a panel that opens beside the meter and stays live while you move them. The needle keeps running as you adjust.
It lives in REAPER's mixer
Right-click the plug-in's name and tick “Show embedded UI in MCP” to put the meter in the mixer strip itself, or TCP for the track panel. It keeps running with the plug-in window closed. Use VST3 or CLAP. REAPER has no embedded UI for Audio Unit, so the AU loads but does not appear there.
Free, with nothing attached
No license, no account, no trial clock, no expiry. This edition contains no license code.
Two dials, three settings.
Specifications
| Format | macOS | Windows |
|---|---|---|
| Standalone applicationCore Audio on macOS; ASIO or Windows Audio on Windows | Yes | Yes |
| VST3 | Yes | Yes |
| Audio Unit (AU) | Yes | — |
| CLAP | Yes | Yes |
| AAX Native | Yes | Yes |
The installer ships VST3, CLAP, AAX and the Standalone application on both macOS and Windows. Audio Unit is macOS only. ASIO is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, registered in Europe and other countries.
| Requirements | macOS | Windows |
|---|---|---|
| OS version | macOS 10.15 Catalina or later (Intel) · macOS 11.0 or later (Apple Silicon) | Windows 10 version 1607 or later, 64-bit |
| CPU | Apple Silicon or Intel (Universal binary) | 64-bit Intel or AMD |
