Description

Accessible Meters

The following plugins are provided as they are. All plugins free and base on the work of Queen Mary University of London. TBProAudio extended this work and recompiled them to function in more DAWs.

AccessiblePeakMeter3

AccessiblePeakMeter3 is an development of AccessiblePeakMeter. It adds more meter modes (RMS, EBU, VU/PPM, Truepeak, Dialnorm and Dynamic Range).

It uses real-time sonification to deliver information to the user about audio levels and peaks in audio signals, and so supports core activities in audio production.

AccessiblePeakMeter was developed in 2014/2015 at Queen Mary University of London as part of the Design Patterns for Inclusive Collaboration research project ( http://depic.eecs.qmul.ac.uk ).

More information about AccessiblePeakMeter can be found at http://depic.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/apm

USAGE
The plug-in comes with the following tweakable parameters:

1. Sonification Type: to switch between continuous mode , clipping mode and clip tone mode. “Clip tone” sonficates as soon level is above threshold .
2. Dry: controls the level of the input audio, namely the audio content you want to analyze;
3. Wet: controls the level of the sonification;
4. Tone: controls height of the sonification tone in clip tone mode;
5. Threshold: sets the threshold for the clipping mode, it has no effect on the continous mode
6. Decay: this only affects the continuous mode sonification. The value ranges from 1 second down to 0.05 seconds. This is the time the meter would take to decay from 0 db to -inf after an impulse. These numbers don't give a real feeling of how the sonification will sound - it is easier to think that when set to 0.05 the sonification will stop pretty immediately when you stop the audio; whereas if the value is set to 1, it will take longer to decay. In general, though, the latter sounds cleaner and normally the audio level doesn't go all the way down to silence, as during the decay it encounters other peaks that bring it back up. So it's up to you to find the right trade off.
7. DAW sync: if set to “on”, meter reset is synced with DAW start playing. Only applicable for program loudness modes like RMS/EBU/DialNorm IL and PLR
8. Meter Mode: sets the meter modes. Please to note that all meter modes are calibrated to 0 dBFS, 0 dBTP, 0 LUFS, 0LKFS, 0 VUFS and 0 PPMFS
1. Peak: same as AccessiblePeakMeter, dBFS
2. TruePeak: based on ITU BS1770.4, dBTP  
3. VU: peak meter, 300ms integration time, VUFS
4. PPM: peak meter, target, PPMFS
5. RMS: 600ms integration time, AES-17, dBFS 
6. EBU: EBU R128, target level -23 LUFS, LUFS
7. DialNorm: gated, target level -24 LKFS, LKFS
8. DR: PLR/PSR, dB

The AccessiblePeakMeter3 provides access to the parameters by exposing them to inspectors - such as ReaAccess plug-in or the Cakewalk Sonar inspector - in a clear and well formatted way.

Please download AccessiblePeakMeter3 here.

AccessiblePhaseMeter

AccessiblePhaseMeter is an development of AccessiblePeakMeter.

It uses real-time sonification to deliver information to the user about phase correlation of stereo audio signals, and so supports core activities in audio production.

AccessiblePeakMeter was developed in 2014/2015 at Queen Mary University of London as part of the Design Patterns for Inclusive Collaboration research project ( http://depic.eecs.qmul.ac.uk ).

More information about AccessiblePeakMeter can be found at http://depic.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/apm

USAGE
The phase correlation of the stereo signal is measured as value from -1 (out of phase) to +1 (in phase). Well mixed audio productions go from +1 to 0 (mono). A good warning or threshold value is +0.5.

The plug-in comes with the following tweakable parameters:

1. Sonification Type: to switch between continuous mode mode and clipping mode mode;
2. Dry: controls the level of the input audio, namely the audio content you want to analyze;
3. Wet: controls the level of the sonification;
4. Threshold: sets the threshold for the clipping mode, it has no effect on the continuous mode
5. Decay: this only affects the continuous mode sonification. The value ranges from 1 second down to 0.05 seconds. This is the time the meter would take to decay from 0 db to -inf after an impulse. These numbers don't give a real feeling of how the sonification will sound - it is easier to think that when set to 0.05 the sonification will stop pretty immediately when you stop the audio; whereas if the value is set to 1, it will take longer to decay. In general, though, the latter sounds cleaner and normally the audio level doesn't go all the way down to silence, as during the decay it encounters other peaks that bring it back up. So it's up to you to find the right trade off.

The AccessiblePhaseMeter provides access to the parameters by exposing them to inspectors - such as ReaAccess plug-in or the Cakewalk Sonar inspector - in a clear and well formatted way.

Please download AccessiblePhaseMeter here.

AccessibleSpectrumAnalyser

AccessibleSpectrumAnalyser is a real time spectrum analysis plug-in that allows visual impaired users to inspect spectrograms using the same sonification as the accessible peak meter. Instead of monitoring the amplitude of the audio signal though, you will be monitoring the frequency components of the signal within a customizable selection of frequencies.

The plug-in uses the "clipping" sonification of the AccessiblePeakMeter. That is, you can set a threshold in dB and, as soon as the energy of any frequency in the selection goes past the threshold, you will hear a short beep. Like in the AccessiblePeakMeter, the beep starts at 440 Hz and it's raised one semitone for each dB of difference between the frequency magnitude and the threshold. In case more than one frequency within the selection is higher than the threshold, then the highest one is taken into account for the sonification purpose.

There is only one single spectrum for both left and right channels: the two channels are mixed together before being analysed. In AccessiblePeakMeter, there is a separate sonification for peaks in the left and the right audio channel. In the AccessibleSpectrumanalyser instead, one single sonification is panned from left to right and the panning represents the position of the peaking frequency in the whole spectrum, ranging from 20 Hz on the very left, to 20050 Hz on the very right. For example, if the selected spectrum peaks at 50 Hz then you'll hear the beep towards the left, whereas if the peak is at 20 kHz the beep will occur towards the right.

http://depic.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/apm/spectrum.html

USAGE
The plug-in comes with five tweak able parameters:

1. Threshold: sets the threshold in dB for the clipping sonification. If any frequency within the selection is higher than the threshold, then the plug-in will emit a beep;
2. Selection Start: sets the starting point, in Hertz, of the selection. Frequencies within the selection will be monitored for peaks;
3. Selection Size: sets the size of the selection, from the starting point. For example, if the selection starts at 1000 Hz and the selection size is 500 hz then all the frequencies between 1000 and 1500 Hz will be monitored for peaks;
4. Dry: controls the level of the input audio, namely the audio content you want to analyze;
5. Wet: controls the level of the sonification;

The AccessibleSpectrumAnalyser provides access to the parameters by exposing them to inspectors - such as ReaAccess plug-in or the Cakewalk Sonar inspector - in a clear and well formatted way.

Please download AccessibleSpectrumAnalyser here.