Sleepy-Time Records

Since dBVU introduced its calibration setting, I’ve been getting a lot of questions regarding this sentence in the manual:

For maximum recording quality and headroom, adjust the calibration setting in dBVU to match your audio interface or AD/DA converter’s 0VU/nominal reference level.

So what if the manual for my interface describes nominal levels in dBu or dBV?

Normally, audio converters are set at one of two standards. -10dBV (or ‘consumer’) and +4dBu (or ‘pro’). This should be listed in the specifications section of your device’s manual. Your manual should also list its ‘maximum input level’ or 0dBFS level in corresponding dBV or dBu.

Here is how to calculate the amount of headroom for your device:

Nominal Level - Maximum Input Level = Headroom

For example:

dBV: -10dBV - +2dBV = -12
dBu: +4dBu - +22dBu = -18

The outcome of this simple calculation will give you the calibration setting for use in dBVU.

By entering the calculated headroom, 0VU in dBVU will now correctly reflect the nominal level of your device and give you the amount of headroom under 0dBFS intended by your device’s manufacturer.

What if my interface’s manual doesn’t list any of this information?

In this case, it’s recommended that you leave dBVU at it’s default -20 setting. This will give you 20dB of headroom for peaks before clipping in your DAW.

I hope this explanation helps. If you have any questions regarding this or any of dBVU’s features, please use the “Ask Me Anything” button at the bottom of this page. You can also find me on the following forums: Cockos REAPER, KVR Audio, HomeRecording.com. My user name is d.bop.

Have a great day and happy recording!
-Dustin Ralston

It has been brought to my attention that dBVU has recently thrown a false positive in an antivirus scan.

I can assure you all that dBVU does not contain any viruses or malware! The same goes for all of my other plugins.

Here are the results of some online scans I did earlier today:

dBVU:
http://virusscan.jotti.org/en/scanresult/328d701e2ec1af2e5db09fadcc743d5e5a8c27c0

http://www.virustotal.com/file-scan/report.html?id=6b58e2dcbe21aef3275b4bb3511089cab2a65a4f402216d52946a4d3d23a4ff6-1326330570

dBVU x64:
http://virusscan.jotti.org/en/scanresult/2d9cccfb73557b4a46688b72d3aa59f1b5b204d3

http://www.virustotal.com/file-scan/report.html?id=b4762e369e416d822266aaacdf3b1de22f2b789cab15f14bbab5725efaa00106-1326331095

Thanks everyone,
-Dustin

Some minor updates to dBVU have been published!

• Sample-accurate peak LED’s
• Improved mouse behavior for editing values
• Graphics tweaks

dBVU is free!
Download it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4088115/donotdelete/VST/dBVU.zip

Thanks everyone!,
-Dustin

I couldn’t sleep tonight so I did some behind-the-scenes maintenance on dBVU. Nothing very noteworthy.. Just some code organization and some better handling of denormals in the meter code. I also moved some less important processes out of the sample loop and into the block.

What does this mean?
A minor decrease in CPU usage for you (and cleaner/easier-to-read code on my end) :)!

Definitely not a critical update but if you like to be on the cutting edge, here’s the link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4088115/donotdelete/VST/dBVU.zip

Enjoy!

Time to get some shut-eye!

Goodnight world,
-Dustin Ralston