Old 03-06-2019, 10:33 PM   #1
Rangler
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Default Why is Reaper's Metering not consistent?

I can render a song 10 times and get 10 different peak numbers every time with a wide range.

What meter plugin should I use instead?
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Old 03-07-2019, 01:45 AM   #2
bezusheist
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Reapers meters are fine (accurate).
You must have another issue.
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Old 03-07-2019, 02:21 AM   #3
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You've perhaps got some kind of "non-deterministic" fx going on - like, I dunno, flanging, chorus or something, where they don't always start in phase (or at the same point in the cycle, rather) - you'd expect to see small differences from one render to another in that case.

If the differences are large then like bezusheist says, it's something else you're doing. Perhaps post a couple of short examples?
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Old 03-07-2019, 02:53 AM   #4
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LUFS meters are more relevant these days. How wildly inconsistent are they? As long as they're well below clipping, I would just ignore them. Here's a nice free one providing much info: https://youlean.co/youlean-loudness-meter/
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Old 03-07-2019, 12:32 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bezusheist View Post
Reapers meters are fine (accurate).
You must have another issue.
I sometimes get up to a dB or two difference. As another poster suggested it might be some non-deterministic thing that's buried in the song somewhere. I'm thinking some plugin saturation, maybe.
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Old 03-07-2019, 12:32 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by foxAsteria View Post
LUFS meters are more relevant these days. How wildly inconsistent are they? As long as they're well below clipping, I would just ignore them. Here's a nice free one providing much info: https://youlean.co/youlean-loudness-meter/
Thanks for the link.
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Old 03-07-2019, 03:47 PM   #7
ReubenAlfie
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I've heard of people having issues with this, however when I'm mixing I always put 'JS Audio Statistics' on my master buss and I never have different readings (although this is just play back and not a render).

Some time based plugins like chorus/flanger might give slightly different readings every time.
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Old 03-08-2019, 05:13 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rangler View Post
I'm thinking some plugin saturation, maybe.
I think most saturations are static. Some add low levels of noise, but that shouldn't account for enough difference to really notice.

Many algorithmic reverbs have modulation. Even when it's not obviously modulated and even if it has a modulation knob and you've turned it all the way down, there very often is some in there anyway. It's just how they work.

Another thing some people overlook is that most of the massively multisampled drum programs have some amount of humanization/randomization so that you get a different sample every time even when it's the same note number and velocity. That one has freaked me out in the past.

The one way to be completely sure is to render/freeze every track before rendering. Better yet is to either put something on your master to make sure that the variations can't cause clipping or render to a floating point file and then normalize to your desired target peak level and render again.
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Old 03-08-2019, 07:23 PM   #9
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Some of my Waves plugins add "console" noise even when it's not playing. I usually turn them off when I remember to.

There are a million things plugins do in the background that we're not fully aware of, I suppose.
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