05-08-2015, 08:55 PM
RMS is perfectly fine for metering during mixing. However, an EBU compliant metering plugin will give you additional data that your native metering won't, such as loudness range, true peak and loudness average. In my opinion, you don't need to worry too much about loudness average in the mix phase, but loudness range is more important. DR values are significantly less accurate in many cases, and never more accurate. True peak is also important, because it picks up on intersample peaks that your DAW probably won't. Keep the true peak to -1 LU and you shouldn't have any unexpected clippings when converting to mp3.
Not sure if you have the Melda Productions free plugin bundle. If not, you should, because they're all outstanding. A few of those plugins wind up on every single mix I do. In any case, that bundle comes with a free EBU R128 compliant meter if you're interested in the latest standards, but it's mostly mastering engineers who have to really think about this stuff in any detail. And a mastering engineer I am not.
Cheers,
BB
Not sure if you have the Melda Productions free plugin bundle. If not, you should, because they're all outstanding. A few of those plugins wind up on every single mix I do. In any case, that bundle comes with a free EBU R128 compliant meter if you're interested in the latest standards, but it's mostly mastering engineers who have to really think about this stuff in any detail. And a mastering engineer I am not.
Cheers,
BB