Well, signs and wonders still happen:

Today PA released a a demo of their new Focusrite SC channelstrip and guess what ? Both meters can be calibrated! This is what the manual has to say about it:




I do hope this will finally keep all the deniers and armchair audio engineers around here quiet once and for all.

So let's hope PA will adapt this feature to their other channel strips as soon as possible!


But there's one more thing: The input gain knob still sits behind the input meter. Please PA, fix this as well.

Funny thing... They seem to have fixed this issue in the new Focusrite Channel Strip

They have added optional calibration settings... and most important: The two meters CAN BE calibrated properly against each other... IF you know what you're doing that is (aka set the meters to the standard of 0VU = + 4dBu against your preferred dBFS setting of -18dBFS or -20dBFS... or whatever you like).

Disclaimer: I have NOT demoed yet, so it is all from what I could get from the video below
And maybe this will port over to the other channelstrips (maybe there's a silver lining )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSRPBMgP88M

You beat me to it

I agree it's odd that they dont use the standard reference values, and I agree that the input meter would be more typical and useful if it reflected the input gain, but work around it. And at the point you’re setting your gain you may well have not used the other parts of the strip yet so you can use the output meter without fear of confusion.

All the SSL strips I could find apart from bx and the SSL native strip only have one type of meter. Not very long ago, and for a very long time, before they updated the duende strip it had one type of meter. And the UAD E channel (which IMO is the best of the lot) only has an output meter.

So yeah, I think this is all unendingly lame. I won’t continue now because I don’t need to and I don’t think that you are able to see two sides of an argument at once. You just keep repeating yourself.

But as I said before, I hope they change it for you and that your life continues in a state of blissful zen and that all your meters bring you joy.

Ouch

I remember Dirk saying this type of calibration is what they plan to implement in the SSL consoles. Seems they were too busy first making the Focusrite.

“Get paid” to implement it on the Focusrite, then it’s in the framework and it can be rolled back to the other consoles at little expense. Let’s see when/if it happens.

Has anyone compared the old BX console_G to the new SSL branded one? The E was clearly different (and improved!) but I haven't seen much talk about sonic changes with the G.

I'm surprised it hasn't come up here yet, but there's a random PA reply to a question about SSL calibration on the demo video for the new console, and supposedly it's been instituted on v1.2 of the SSL consoles. ?

yup, it has been.

yep, calibration added to consoles E, G, and N.

Look at that, it's real and the update is out. I'll miss these friendly discussions about metering.

Great, took only what felt like 4000 thread-pages.

Finally the metering is fixed. PA thank you for that! Helps a lot.

But there's one more thing: The input gain knob still sits behind the input meter. Please PA, fix this as well.

PA is planning its own version of Slate's Everything Bundle. Today they discontinued the Pick Pack bundles and, by doing so, they've chosen to give away full licenses to all its current subscribed users of their chosen plugins, regardless of how many months were still due in each case. That's impressive. Can't wait to see what's coming on July 15th.

Just went through and checked all my PA plugins against current downloads and there were several that have updated versions. Might just be minor bug fixes but my installs are all fairly recent within the last couple months and noticed that my installed versions were not the most current! So it's worth going through and checking as PA seems to be doing a bit of a housecleaning/maintenance across the board.

Coudn't agree more with the input reading the actual input of the plugin. I can live as it is but for me it doesn't make any sense.

I'm also happy that they've fixed the meters! I'm ok with the input meters as they are because I trim the levels before the plugin but can totally understand others' frustration about it. Different workflows require different options so I think it would be best to make it switchable as well, pre or post input gain.

Anyone?

The war is over!!! The last update fixes the meter problem!!!

yes all, even the older e&g consoles have been updated with configurable metering offsets. (not the bx_console though)
also VST3 now has the same mouse knob behavior as VST2. (not circular)

The only tiny niggle still is that the INPUT GAIN knob comes after the input metering.. which makes absolutely no sense at all. Sometimes I wonder if there are actual audio engineers working at Plugin Alliance. I mean, Dirk is posing with that console but really..

Having said that, it's possible to live without this. It's just annoying as heck and a constant reminder to question the quality of PA plugins in general (Brainworx that is! ..most 3rd party providers seem truly solid!).

Brainworx really is just a company having some in house and contract developers.
Like Raymund Dratwa, Nemberini, Fiedler.

Btw. did you click on the IN/OUT button below metering? That changes the meter tap before/after the gain knob.

Do this test yourself.

1) Click the in/out button so that it reads INPUT metering.
2) Then play with the INPUT GAIN KNOB
3) .. profit?

One would think that the knob labelled INPUT GAIN would be before everything else in the plugin, even the input metering. That way it'd make sense.

There's one other scenario where it could make sense having it after the input metering. This is IF the input gain knob comes after all the EQ, Filter and Dynamics processing but before the THD and "analogue channel" things. Unfortunately this is not stated in the manual (the knobs function isn't described at all!) and if this is the case then the knob should be labelled DRIVE or something to that effect.

No, I think it's a simple input gain before everything else but Plugin Alliance managed to still screw it up. Anybody checked the Focusrite if that one is screwed up as well?

You're right. I misread the second meter this morning, thought this was the output metering (actually it's just the RMS level), but this makes no sense.
As you say, it will obviously always display the input before gain, which is not very useful, because it's no help in proper gain staging.

I'm glad they added the calibration but is it kinda odd that they keep tripping over super fundamental, basic signal flow/functionality?

when comparing it with the waves channel, I find that adding ~10db gain on bx_console SSL makes it work similar to waves. (this is what I found comparing both in plugin doctor)

He tried every kind of gain staging possible but it never even got close.

I've just re-demoed it and I think I found why: it's the release time / curve. The fastest release on the bx is actually way too fast at 30ms. From experience of most other SSL emulations it should be in the 80ms range. 30ms is almost clipper territory and so that's why it didn't give the same dynamic "movement" as either the Waves or the HW in that test. If you set the release knob closer to 0.2s on the GUI it will actually match up better with the fastest setting on other SSL's.

The release curve itself also seems a bit weird to me and doesn't match up that well with the full-on logarithmic curves of other emulations including SSL's itself.

Really curious how SSL signed off on this comp, when it's that different to SSL's own strip, as well as other endorsed strips like the Waves, as well as the HW evidently if that vid is anything to go by.