Full scale meters are also extremely precise, catching moment-to-moment peaks and drops in volume. We know that 0 dBFS is the limit for digital audio anything above that is considered clipping. Most default DAW meters measure volume in decibels full scale. It’s easiest to describe these classic meters in relation to today’s digital meters inside a DAW. What a VU meter does is track and display the average level of any given signal. VU is an abbreviation of ‘volume unit.’ Bell Telephone invented the technology in 1939 and it hasn’t changed much since. The default digital meter is what most of us go by these days, but VU meters are still useful! These are the best free VU meter plugins in 2023. You’d see them on consoles and outboard gear for measuring input or output level as well as gain reduction on compressors. Before people started working in-the-box, VU meters measured the average level of a signal.
