We love our VU meters, as do all of our clients. But it’s not just looks, the humble VU meter really is the perfect audio meter. Here’s 10 reasons why:
VU meters have heritage
The VU meter was invented over 80 years ago. Everybody knows what they look like, and everybody associates them with quality. It’s the ultimate bit of heritage gear.
The VU is a physical Meter
A true VU is a piece of precision mechanical engineering. It’s physicality, and the fact that it’s always in the same place in your worktop, makes it easy to use.
A VU meter tells you all you need to know
There are loads of meters telling you about hidden facets of your work, but the VU tells you all you need to know about your levels as you work
VU meters lets you concentrate on the music
Because it’s not smack in the centre of your eyes, flashing away like a Christmas tree, you can let your brain focus on your ears and the music, not the lightshow dominating your eyes from modern DAW meters
Just glance at a VU meter to read it
Like a wristwatch, you just need to glance at a VU to see what’s you need to know. Digital meters have their place, but reading them takes brain power, better used on listening
A VU meter is perfectly analogue
Being a mechanical meter, it’s response time and feel are strangely human and analogue. You can almost feel the music as you look at them.
Our VU meters are great for digital too
Old VUs couldn’t work with high level digital signals. Thankfully with our attenuator VUs, you can set them up to work perfectly at any studio level
Our VU meters can even for semi-pro
Our VUs have a wide calibration range, so you can adjust them to work with unbalanced semi pro kit, like vinyl or DJ rigs too
VU meters are great for lining up gear
When the time comes to check levels, VUs are great too. It’s really tricky to calibrate to a digital readout, because the levels wobble up and down, the nearer you get to a calibration point. With a VU, the lovely needle, makes lining up gear trivial, and more than accurate enough for your work.
VU meters look really cool
There’s just something about a large set of VU meters, with their gentle yellow glow, that looks so so cool!