A two-needle level meter in the tradition of a tape machine's meter bridge. It only listens: it has no outlets, so cord a second cord into it from whatever you want to read, and taking it away never cuts the sound.
| Inlets | |
|---|---|
| Audio | 2 |
The needles swing slowly with a small overshoot, but the scale is decibels below the digital ceiling: 0 at the top of the arc, the red zone from -6. Programme riding the upper third and breathing toward the red is healthy; a needle living against the top means back off. A lamp beside each dial lights when a single sample reaches -1 dBFS and holds for a moment, so a lone transient cannot hide between two swings of the needle. A cord into inlet 1 alone meters on both dials.
Recipe
| Gain staging | Cord whatever feeds the SoundOut into it as well. Set each Gain and Mixer channel so the needles ride the upper third on the loudest passage and the lamps flick only on the biggest hits. If a lamp stays lit, bring the Mixer master down rather than the SoundOut. |