Good point Jim. The scribble script displayed levels really are not meant for measurement as much as activity of the channel. I never expected much from such a small visual indicator but I do like the fact that I can see activity.

Jim, have a look and see if they even make sense. Activity is one thing, but falsehood is another.

Yeah, I dont think I ever even look at the level meters on the FP, which probably explains why I'm seeing this now.

Pseudo metering, (and on audio!). That's pretty bad, IMO.

Given the tactile advantages for the price, its partly forgiven. Shame is somehow, the underlined word for its metering.

Only they'll never pry it from my hands.

I created a new song with some tracks/channels and played back a long audio loop on each one. I then adjusted the volume levels and monitored the FP's scribble strips. They are not extremely fast and so quick changes in audio is not picked up on the FP as fast as S1.
However, they do give me a good ballpark.
I don't see the issue you see Jim.
They serve a good purpose IMO.
No shame there on my side!

OK thanks for the check. I'll continue to try to understand why, when it even warrants looking. My indicators are so bad that even when something ramps down, the signal shown almost wants to show that, but produces some peaks out of the blue. It was virtually on all tracks, which was about 32 channels, so it wasn't any sort of unknown bleed.

I was working on another piece tonight, and never remembered to check. It's just so much more important for me to get songs done, so I have to make an effort to look.

Very unusual though.
TY

For what it’s worth. The mackie mcu has a fixed led segment decay of 200ms/segment. If it is switched over to logic mode then the decay is 300ms/segment. This means that they act more like peak-hold meters rather than a decent level meter.

Also note that the levels are not labeled so it is up to the daw to determine how much each segment actually indicates. Even the clip indicator is a function of the daw and not derived from the segment information.

Yeah, actually a peak hold indicator is all that could be expected out of such a thing.

As for other motorized control surfaces I found the Mackie wasn't too horrible, and with only one LED per channel, at least shows a peak reading. The QCON Pro which is very similar to the Mackie has about 8 LED's that run along the side of the fader, which has always been a novel, and smart design choice. I tried that as well at Sam Ash, and it's pretty nice, with delay about no greater than what seems to be about 50 msecs, on audio playback, per track, but very responsive when recording audio (optional). The down side was only that I saw little to no support for it. That's never a good thing, unless you're into boat anchors.

I forget how responsive the SSL Nucleus2 was, when I saw it at the AES, and played around with one at B&H here in Manhatten. Buy I would have remembered if there was some bad delay. At $5k there better not be much delay. The contrast and clarity (yellow on black background) is extremely clear).

Too bad the FP8/16 doesn't produce any true peak reading though. I agree that would produce some some greater use. Not for most.of us, but some people have purchased things like an FP8 for being at a distance from a monitor.

I have no idea on how descent metering on the XTouch is.

Oh well Presonus, a minor oversight, I reckon.

The xtouch follows the mackie mcu spec of 200ms/led decay.

What I find interesting is that there seems to be no definition as to what level each led refers to. I think that I’ll compare with s1, reaper and cubase to see if they use the same reference of not. Hmmm, I should be able to test with logic and live as well...

@Lokefly

What firmware version is your FP8 running? You did not list that.
Since I am not seeing the same issue as you, you might have a faulty unit.
Someone on this thread asked if you could post a video of your issue so we can compare to our own.
I did a quick test on my FP and the levels seemed fine.

I don't think this has anything to do with Presonus oversight as you mentioned above. Let's try to get to the real issue on your FP if possible.

Thanks.

Suggest adding an FR for Peak number on FP LCD.
As for accuracy since there is no scale, one could easily run a calibration test with the tone generator to map out a response of the FP to 0db .25, .5, .75 and FS.

After taking a look at them on my FP16 they seem to follow and scale to my S1 meter fairly closely. They even report Gain reduction well, which I did not even know they did.

Did you by chance do any manual hacks to timing on the XML file or perhaps you just don't have a clean install of the latest?

Be interested in your calibrated test results.

My #1 request is for them to drop the gigantic Pan position number <C> and replace it with a peak or RMS live number.

Good thoughts. I'll have a chance to calibrate them over the weekend.

As to the latest version, I'll check as well. When I purchased the FP8 last year, I updated it the next day.

Looks like I'll have to check again, as well as run the diagnostics. If the delay is simply still not making sense as in the rogue peaks I spoke of, I'll video capture it.

I'll let you know the version, and post it in my sig.


Also, I like your idea of the peak reading on those strips, Jpettit.
Probably worth a last mention that I don't read.the scribble strips much at all. Mostly due to the stright up angle they are positioned at. But some may be forced to read them at a distance to a monitor, and preferably know when an overload has occurred, or peak reading where it might be nearing overload.

Thanks for the responses. I'm sure it will get mended.

I got a chance to see the FP8 meters on Saturday. Calibration, and consistency to one another all looked good to 3 selected test tones. Short drum hits, and longer decayed hits all equal. In-out fades all consistent as expected.

It looks as though the rogue hits I was seeing on the activity meters earlier on were actually small background noises. Really subtle stuff, but enough to create meter movement spikes from FP8's meters. I had to use the zoom data slider and Increase heavily enough to see what the cause was and there they appeard. Meter delay is not all that bad. I didn't try to determine its time, but it's no greater than what looks to be maybe only 50 milliseconds if that. It was these almost sub sonic spikes in the waveform that had me guessing what's up, earlier on. That's a good thing. Finding the trouble always is.

The very early and late spikes at the beginning or ending audio sections were throwing me, but I was looking at mostly mic'd guitar tracks. Unfortunately with some hardly audible background "stuff".

So I'm pretty Ok with the existing meter timing. Meters in such a place are hardly anything to bank off of for almost any real use, so it doesn't impact much.

Interestingly, Sound On Sound noted some delays with the metering, in their review of the Faderport 8. But here, it's a non issue.

JPettit wrote; My #1 request is for them to drop the gigantic Pan position number <C> and replace it with a peak or RMS live number.

Nice. Besides, if there's no bars to left or right, it means pan is centered. The true peak, or RMS indication could be reported from Studio One s own accuracy, which is what I think is translating anyway with all information.

Yeah, I noticed a while back about the reduction metering. It's been working quite well all along. Nice addition as well.

I wouldn't trust a meter that small for anything other than verifying there is signal present. I really never even notice they are there. My eyes have to be somewhere so they might as well be on the main DAW screen.

Use a proper meter on your DAW screen for anything "mission critical."

A clipping indicator would be a cool feature on the FP8 though. Like flicker the channel select button red if it is clipping or something.