When and why peak meters over VU?

I'm 51 and during my early years of listening to music, using my dad's reel to reel and my own cassette deck and even into the early years of my on the air radio career before digital, everything had a VU meter on it. The Otari MX-5050B's in the production rooms had VU's with a little red light if you hit the peak too high. And while the boards all continue to have mostly continued with analog vu meters, I noticed from cassette decks to mini-disc to computer based software, etc. the trend seem to all turn to peak meters.
Why did that happen? And when did the trend actually start? And is it better to have peak meters since digital can't go past O like analog? Or am completely wrong and it's all in my own mind.

 

You have mostly answered your own question. The peak meter is necessary to avoid "overs" in digital recording. The VU meter is averaged to a degree, so that its response correlates more to the way we hear, and to the way magnetic tape responds to a musical signal. For instance, a peak meter will respond to an instantaneous transient at +5 dB. The VU meter will not bounce to +5 to an instantaneous transient. If the peak duration should lengthen to maybe 500 ms, or more, then the VU meter will approach +5 dB.

Just as a matter of personal preference when recording to magnetic medium, I prefer the action of the VU meter. The transient peaks will be lightly compressed to tape anyway when excessive.. (above +5 dB) It's very forgiving like that. As the peak meters just barely blink, the VU meters can be quite low at -6 dB to -3 dB on the average. I always like to keep the s/n as high as possible, so I'll just "ignore" the peak LED's (let them flicker on but not more than 50%) and have my VU's bouncing to +3 dB, thereabout. I have never made a bad recording adhering to that.

 

Far and away the Dorrough meter is a better solution than vU or PPM mechanical movements:

"It's basic human nature to use the established method of doing something rather than taking a philosophical approach and rethinking the basic concept of what it is one is about to do. In the world of audio engineering, this is no exception. The decades-old traditional approach of setting program levels based on analog meter movements has been deeply ingrained in our brains since childhood. So much, in fact, that the VU meter has become an icon for audio monitoring.
The reality of physics, however, is at odds with this simplistic notion that the sum total of a complex audio waveform, comprised of up to dozens of spectrally unique signals, can neatly be displayed on an electro-mechanical device closely related to the Boys Scout compass (a magetised needle floating on a leaf in a pool of water).


Fortunately, today's audio engineer is more enlightened. Engineering vocabularies now include staple terms like transient response, risetime, compression, spectral energy content, etc. Much of this increased awareness is due to the fact that today's audio and video transmission mediums are far more "technologically litigated" than ever. In short, our "father's VU meter" isn't relevant any more."

http://www.dorrough.com/vision.html

They have a good video but it's not on YouTube, I don't see how to embed it.

 

VUs gave volume
PPMs gave peak value
The Nagra Modulometer did both
Now its digital and all facets can be monitored in one bar display but I still love the Nagra stereo Modulometer

ttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NAGRA_Modulometer.jpg

 

I am drawing two assumptions with my amended response. The first is that many consumers had tended to slam the tape too hard, and pin the VU meters too far into the red. This was also perceived as a good thing, since in the industry pretty much, some engineers preferred to hit the tape hard, and still do when working with analog. This was done also by necessity in the laying down of multiple tracks to minimized background tape hiss during the mix stage. In the world of professional recording, the track width, and tape speed responded favorably to full saturation with a desired result. However, in the world of analog cassette, the tape speed, and track width, as well as Dolby encoding did NOT respond well to full tape saturation. More often, distortion of sound and Dolby encode/ decode problems were the result. As tape formulations advanced to high density type II and Metal, some of these problems were alleviated to a point.

My second assumption is that the manufacturers had been well aware of the tendency to over-record, and it had become common practice among home recording enthusiasts. So the peak LED's were introduced simply because it was newer technology, and America (the world) loved anything new. Since Peak level meters typically read higher than VU for the typical music program, the peak level meters could be pinned over to the red with less dire effects, lower distortion, and better Dolby alignment. (actual tape over-saturation would be less likely) And it LOOKED cool, so it was a hit with the consumer. Many cassette manufacturers such as Nakamichi converted to LED peak meters, as well as Pioneer on their high end CT series cassette decks, and RT series open reel decks. (Sony also and many others) Some decks included a peak hold feature for easier read of the actual peaks. With the peak level LED meter, you can hit +7dB peak with high quality type II or metal and it's perfectly ok, and the meters look cool slamming all the way over like that!

I must add here that I do prefer the peak level meter for its usefulness in detecting any low level background noise. (and only that, otherwise I am old fashioned with the VU meter) It's not that I can't hear it, because I do. But I also like to see it , especially for doing the needle drops. Some high end analog reel and cassette recorders feature a very wide range LED meter from -50dB to +7dB, most CD recorders from -60 dB or-50 dB, to 0dB with one "over" LED.

 

be careful here using the peak LED's on the Otari decks, as they are adjustable on those decks. You can adjust the LED's intesity and duration and when they come on, on the Otari decks so if you have not done it yourself they may adjusted to someone else's liking!!!

 

Simple, most every consumer machine did not have true VU meters either. Only ReVox had true VU meters in a consumer machine. If the meter does not meet specific standards for VU ballistics, it is not a true VU meter. Which reflects average recording levels. Most so called VU meters found in consumer machines are peak reading more so than average weighted.

 

But it's not as good as a peak-reading digital meter. The Dorrough was obsolete the moment the LUFS standard came out from the EBU (subsequently adopted by the ATSC):



http://productionadvice.co.uk/the-best-loudness-metering-plugins-money-can-buy/

If you want something super-cheap, the Orban meter is free and actually works pretty well:

http://www.orban.com/meter/

 

Thank you!! This has been quite educational!