SpectraView Meter

1. Overview

SpectraView Meter is a real-time analysis plug-in for macOS. You insert it on any track, bus or the master output and it shows you, at a glance, how loud the signal is, how its level and dynamics behave, and where in the spectrum the energy sits. It brings the loudness and spectrum engine of SpectraView Studio (the iPad app) into your DAW as a live monitoring insert.

It is a metering plug-in: it analyses the audio passing through it and changes nothing about the sound. There is no file loading, transport or recording. Those belong to the Studio app. What you get here is a continuous, real-time picture of the audio currently playing in your session.

SpectraView Meter is free. It ships as a signed and notarized installer, so it opens without security warnings on any Mac.

2. Installation

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• Apple Silicon or Intel Mac: the plug-in is a Universal binary
• Any Audio Unit (AU) or VST3 host

Running the Installer

1. Download SpectraView Meter 1.0.1.pkg, or from the plug-in page.
2. Double-click the .pkg to launch the installer.
3. Read and agree to the licence when prompted, then continue through to Install. You will be asked for your admin password, the plug-ins install into the system plug-in folders so every host can find them.

The installer places two components:

3. Inserting the Plug-in

SpectraView Meter works as an insert effect. Add it to the insert chain of whatever you want to monitor:

• Master / stereo output: to check the loudness and tonal balance of the whole mix against a delivery target.
• A bus or group: to keep an eye on drums, vocals, or any submix in isolation.
• A single track: to gain-stage one source.

Because it only measures, its position in the chain matters: place it at the point in the signal flow you actually want to read. On the master, putting it last shows the final output exactly as it will be exported.

4. The Interface at a Glance

The window is laid out in three regions:

• Left column: the stereo level meter and the dynamic-range bar, on a shared dB scale.
• Right, top half: the loudness analyzer (scrolling EBU R128 timeline with a readout panel).
• Right, bottom half: the frequency analyzer, with the live waveform strip beneath it.

Two controls sit in the top-right corner: the settings button (the sliders icon, ⚙ three horizontal sliders) opens the detailed settings panel, and Reset clears the accumulated measurements. Both are described below.

5. Level & Dynamic-Range Meter

The left column carries two indicators that share one vertical dB scale (−40 dBFS at the bottom to +3 dBFS at the top, with marks every 5 dB). The scale lines up with the loudness graph's axis on the right, so a level on the left and a loudness value on the right read at the same height.

Stereo Level Bars

• Two bars show the left and right channel level. The fill runs from blue through to yellow towards the top, the colour is a quick visual cue for how hot the signal is running.
• A white peak-hold line marks the highest recent peak. It holds for about two seconds, then falls.
• When a peak reaches 0 dBFS (a digital clip), the peak-hold line flashes red. Each new clipping event flashes on its own, so rapid successive clips are all visible.

Dynamic-Range Bar

Next to the level bars, a separate floating bar shows the live dynamic range: it spans from the short-term RMS level (bottom) up to the peak-hold (top). The taller the lit span, the more dynamic (transient-rich) the signal; a short span means the signal is heavily compressed or limited. Its colour is a traffic light keyed to the crest factor:

6. Loudness Analyzer

The top-right panel is a scrolling EBU R128 / ITU-R BS.1770-4 loudness meter. The horizontal axis is time (the most recent stretch of playback scrolls past), the vertical axis is loudness in LUFS.

The Curves

Several loudness curves can be drawn over the timeline. Each can be turned on or off independently in Settings → Curves:

Target Reference Lines

Horizontal reference lines mark common delivery targets, for example −14 LUFS (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube), −16 LUFS (Tidal, Amazon, podcasts) and −23 LUFS (EBU R128 broadcast). Enable the ones you need in Settings → Targets, or define your own custom target at any level.

The Readout Panel

A readout box overlays the left of the timeline with the key numbers, updated live:

7. Frequency Analyzer

The lower-right panel is a real-time FFT spectrum, a bar graph of the frequency content of the signal right now. The horizontal axis is frequency (logarithmic), the vertical axis is level in dBFS.

Resolution

The selector at the top-left of the analyzer sets how the spectrum is grouped:

• 1/1, 1/3, 1/6, 1/12, 1/24 octave: fractional-octave bands. Wider bands (1/1) give a broad tonal overview; narrower bands (1/24) approach a fine, detailed curve. 1/3-octave is the classic analyzer resolution.
• Linear: every raw FFT bin, for the finest possible frequency detail.

INST / RMS

The toggle at the top-right of the analyzer switches the bar values between INST (instantaneous, follows the signal moment to moment) and RMS (a power-averaged reading that sits more steadily). Use INST to catch transients, RMS to judge sustained tonal balance.

Smoothing, Peak Hold, Tilt and Floor

The analyzer's display is further shaped by four settings (see Settings):

• Tilt: a rising slope (in dB/octave) applied to the display. Natural programme material has more energy low than high, so a tilt (try around 3 dB/oct, matching pink noise) makes a well-balanced mix look roughly flat. Set to 0 for a flat (white-noise) reference.
• dB floor: the lowest level shown on the vertical axis.
• Smoothing: temporal smoothing of the bars. Higher = steadier and easier to read; lower = faster, showing transient detail.
• Peak hold: how long the per-band peak markers are held.

8. Live Waveform

Beneath the frequency analyzer, a slim oscilloscope-style strip draws the recent waveform, sweeping left to right and wrapping around. The left channel is drawn in green (top lane), the right channel in amber (bottom lane). It is a quick visual check of transients, level and whether both channels are behaving, not a measurement axis.

9. Settings

Click the sliders icon in the top-right corner to open the settings panel. It expands in place, all controls are inline (no pop-up menus), which keeps them reliable inside every plug-in host. Click the icon again to collapse it. Settings are saved with the session and also persist as your defaults.

UI Scale

A segmented control with fixed steps: 75%, 100%, 125%, 150%, 175%, 200%. Click a step and the plug-in window resizes immediately. Fixed steps are used deliberately, free edge-dragging is unreliable in some hosts (notably Logic's AU window), whereas the discrete steps resize cleanly and predictably, the way UAD and SSL plug-ins do.

Curves

Show or hide each loudness curve on the timeline: Short-term, Momentary, Long-term, RMS and the Peak markers.

Targets

Toggle the loudness reference lines for each platform, and enable a custom target with its own slider when you need to match a level the presets don't cover.

Peak Mode

Choose True (True Peak, dBTP, with oversampling, the broadcast and streaming standard, recommended) or Sample (the raw sample maximum, dBFS). This drives the peak-hold readouts and markers.

FFT Parameters

Four sliders shape the frequency analyzer: Tilt (0–6 dB/oct), dB floor (−100 to −40 dB), Smoothing (0 to 0.98) and Peak hold (1–120 frames). See the Frequency Analyzer section for what each does.

10. Resizing the Window

Resize the plug-in using the UI Scale steps in the settings panel (above). The whole interface scales as one, so every control stays present and in proportion at any size, the layout never clips or rearranges. Your chosen scale is remembered, so the window reopens at the size you left it.

11. Reset

The Reset button (top-right, with the circular-arrow icon) clears the accumulated measurements (Integrated loudness, LRA and the maximum peak values) and clears the live waveform. Use it before measuring a fresh section so old peaks and history don't skew the readout. It does not change any of your settings.

12. Supported Hosts

SpectraView Meter installs as both an Audio Unit and a VST3, so it loads in effectively any modern macOS DAW, including:

• Logic Pro: Audio Unit
• Studio One: Audio Unit or VST3
• UNIVERSAL AUDIO LUNA
• Any other AU or VST3 host (Ableton Live, Cubase, Reaper, Bitwig, …)

Pro Tools uses the AAX format, which is not included in this release.

Questions? support@spectraview.de