Where is the RMS meter in 2.1?

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hello,

since Audacity 2.1 there is a new peak level monitor. But how can I read the RMS level of the live signal now? I only see the peak level here. I’m too stupid to find it by myself… :mrgreen:

Maybe that I’m just too stupid to read it properly. There are the colors green, yellow and red. What do these mean?

I know, the RMS is the lighter drawn inner “core” of the waveform in the editor itself, but without a dB-scale, it is useless… :frowning:

2

Click on the little black downward-pointing triangle in each of the meters and then choose Preferences from there you can select the former RMS style of metering.

To read more about the new meters including about the colours see this page in the Manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/meter_toolbar.html

WC

3

You can reset the waveform display to show as Waveform (dB) - see this page in the Manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/audio_track_dropdown_menu.html

WC

4

Thank you very much! The RMS setting you described was the one I missed.

I didn’t notice that little triangle there. I didn’t expect it there, so I thought, it is a toggle to select the audio devices or something like this.

The RMS one has a much better display without these confusing colors. :smiley:

I know, that there is a logarithmic waveform display. But I’m familar with the default 1>0>-1 one :smiley: . But now I found the settings to configure the meter.

I think, the meter is the better thing to check rms and dynamic level (so I call the difference between peak and rms, don’t know the correct word for that xD). The peak level is well-visible in the waveform. I don’t need the meter for that. If the peaks ram the edges or have too much “air”, the gain isn’t that good… :mrgreen:

5

I have found it handy to set the recording meters for rainbow colours, but the playback and editing meter to split-color RMS. The colours are easier to see out the corner of your eye while you’re reading your script/performance. RMS, on the other hand, is one of the critical technical requirements for ACX AudioBook post production.

Koz