The Audacity Reference manual states that the volume slider on the Playback Meter does not affect the Playback Meter display - except when I move the volume up or down using the slider, the Playback Meter display does change. At playback level 30% (on the slider) the display barely hits -48 db, and at playback level 100% it hits around -6 db.
I’m concerned because I will be exporting the file and I want to know what the real level will come out to, and I’d always thought the playback level didn’t affect the exported final file.
It says that? It should show the playback volume so the meters should go down when you turn down the volume (or, of course, when the volume in the recording goes down).
That’s correct. The volume and balance sliders to the left of the waveform do affect the exported volume (without changing the waveform display).
Hmm, so if playback meters only reflect the playback level, and playback level doesn’t affect exported volume, does that mean the playback meters are of no use when assessing the volume levels of a project that’s being exported?
You can “force” a chosen peak level with the Amplify or Normalize effects. Loudness Normalization can set/force an LUFS loudness, but you have to “manually” check for clipping (peaks going over 0dB).
Or you can check the peaks by running Amplify, noting the default change, and then optionally canceling the effect. i.e. If Amplify defaults to +1dB, your current peaks are -1dB.
The ACX Check plug-in can check the peak and RMS levels. (The pass-fail information only applies to audiobooks.)
YouLean has an online LUFS loudness checker (for digital files, so before you open in Audacity or after you export). He also has a plug-in with more features but it might be flakey in Audacity.