Tonecraft Tokyo ZEROLINE
ZEROLINE is a free gain staging plugin that evens out the level of each track before you mix.
Line up loops from sample packs or your own recordings and the peaks may match, yet they sound nothing alike in loudness. Put a compressor or saturator on them as they are, and each track reacts differently.
Play the song and press LEARN, then press it again or stop playback. ZEROLINE measures the average level of the track and locks a trim value that hits 0 VU (= -18 dBFS). Once locked, it does not follow the level, so it never changes the dynamics the way a compressor would.
It sets the level going into your effects. The balance between tracks is still yours to set with the faders.
Insert it at the top of each track and press LEARN. Loops that are too loud come down and quiet ones come up. The IN and OUT VU meters sit side by side, so you can see how far the level moved.
With punchy material such as a snare, PEAK WARNING tells you when the peaks may come close to 0 dBFS. If the CLIP lamp on the OUT side lights up, lower TRIM until it stays off. It adds no delay, so you can leave it on a track while recording.
ZEROLINE Pro (¥500) adds LEARN ALL (measure every track at once), MATCH (compare an effect without the level difference) and TARGET (switch the target to VU, LUFS or PEAK and set your own level): ZEROLINE Pro on BOOTH
The panel is in English. The help line, README and manual are in Japanese.
Mac users: the plugin is not notarized. After copying it, run the xattr command described in the README, or macOS will say the plugin “is damaged”.
Read more here: Source link