Quote Originally Posted by Basil Rush
VU measuring average volume you'd have thought it would be similar?
If the VU meter treated dynamics in EXACTLY the same way as your ears, yes. In reality, I've had *big* problems with unmastered stuff.

VU is a fudge... To give an impression of the technical details of the signal you're working on. It seems to have been optimised for analogue work, where peaks dipping into your headroom are dealt with in a warm, sweet way by amps and recording media... And a small amount of overdriving can sound lovely. To work out how things sound in a mix, engineers are expected to use... Well, their ears!

Experiment with unlimited and heavily limited signals at the same average dBVU.

T*