EPIC audio meters are very unusual

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

Is ist just me who finds the Epic's audio meter characteristics very unusual?
The noise floor meters quite hight and the peaks are very sudden and ... ahm.... peaky.

Not like any audio meter I have (and I have lots of them).

I'm not talking about sound quality, just the visual of the meters.

Jochen

[Kevin Wild]

We've also had our meters stop working occasionally when using WC's Abox. Unplugging them and plugging them back in usually gets it going again, but thought I'd mention it in case others run into this problem.

I hope RED does put a little work into audio soon. The delay in headphone outs is annoying and the volume levels are pretty low. Hopefully these are easy fixes, but they would make a huge difference on set.

Thx.

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

Yep, sometimes audio meter have a red dot and seem mute.
Unplugging just one channel fixes this for both channels.

Jochen

[Shane Kelly]

unplugging a headphone jack works as well.

[Matt Gottshalk]

Not just the Epic. My Scarlet audio meters do not display any audio on the meters when there IS audio being recorded.

[Chris Luker]

Not just the Epic. My Scarlet audio meters do not display any audio on the meters when there IS audio being recorded.

Same here.

[Allan Black]

Is ist just me who finds the Epic's audio meter characteristics very unusual?
The noise floor meters quite hight and the peaks are very sudden and ... ahm.... peaky.

Not like any audio meter I have (and I have lots of them).

I'm not talking about sound quality, just the visual of the meters.

Jochen

Quite likely they're 'Peak Program Meters' which register peak levels versus VU levels which don't. PPMs might be installed to stop digital audio overload/distortion, which can't be repaired.

But the problem with PPM levels is, you might record a lower level audio that you intend, based on reading sudden peaks when setting levels.

The manual should explain something about this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_programme_meter

My vote would be for VU meters which also register peak LEDS.

Cheers.

[Marc Wielage]

I agree, the Red metering characteristics seem non-standard and unintuitive. There's not a lot of data on them in the manual. I also believe there's not a lot of headroom in the analog input section, and it's prone to overload very easily. For this reason, I've always advised my clients to only rely on Red audio as backup, not for primary sound.

I say the same thing about all digital cameras, so this is not just a criticism of Red.

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

My vote would be for VU meters which also register peak LEDS.

Cheers.

I agree. The standard is VU metering with a nice red clipping indicator.

Setting the correct level for a 24bit signal is normally very easy since you have so much usable room above the noise floor.
But it isn't with the current metering.

Jochen

[Dave Blackham]

Quite likely they're 'Peak Program Meters' which register peak levels versus VU levels which don't. PPMs might be installed to stop digital audio overload/distortion, which can't be repaired.



My vote would be for VU meters which also register peak LEDS.

Cheers.

Respectfully, I dont agree. PPM's are by far the best meter to use. I dont know how the Epic meters perform but a PPM gets my vote. I would go with peak hold indicator though