Name: VU-02
Brand: Desert Moon Audio
Price: 19.00 USD
Availability: InStock

VU-02

Analog Volume Unit Meter

See what you are actually printing

A VU meter is not a level detector with an attack and a release. It is a moving-coil movement driven by a rectifier, and everything characteristic about it — the lag, the slight overshoot, the way it ignores short peaks — falls out of that mechanism. The VU-02 models the mechanism rather than approximating its symptoms. It measures and does nothing else. The audio leaves the plug-in bit for bit as it arrived, and no latency is reported.

Works with all major DAWs

AU / VST3 / AAX for Mac · VST3 for PC

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Both VU needles dancing with programme material, peak lamp latching at the top

About VU-02

VU-02 is a standards-correct VU movement with a calibrated 0 VU reference — the slow, averaging kind of meter that shows you loudness rather than peaks. A peak meter tells you whether you are clipping. A VU tells you how loud something actually feels, which is the number you mix to.

It is metering only. Audio comes out bit for bit as it went in and the plugin reports no latency, so you can leave one on every bus without changing the sound or shifting anything in time.

The movement is bolted into the front panel of a piece of 1960s studio gear, in a choice of four finishes, and the whole unit resizes from 0.7x to 2.5x — because a meter you have to squint at is a meter you stop reading.

Key features

Calibrated headroom, 4 to 26 dB. Sets where 0 VU sits below digital full scale. At the default of 18, a −18 dBFS tone reads exactly 0 VU. Change it to match whatever your room and your masters are built around.

Display delay, 0 to 1000 ms. Holds the needle back so meters on busses of different latencies line up with each other. It delays the display only — never the audio.

Clip lamp. Lights at −0.009 dBFS and stays lit until you click it, so a single overshoot while you were out of the room is still there when you get back.

Four finishes. Black, cream, walnut and silver.

Resizable, 0.7x to 2.5x. Drag the bottom-right corner.

Bit transparent, zero latency. It measures and nothing else.

The unit cycling through its black, cream, walnut and silver finishes

The headroom calibration stepping up while the needles re-read the same tone

Quickstart tips

Set headroom before you set anything else. 18 dB is the common reference and the default. If your masters habitually land louder or quieter, move it — everything the meter tells you afterwards depends on this one number.

Mix to the needle, not the peaks. A VU averages, which is why it tracks perceived loudness. Keep it hovering around 0 and let your peak meters worry about the ceiling.

Put one on every bus. It is bit transparent and reports no latency, so there is no cost to leaving them everywhere.

Use Delay to line meters up. If one bus runs later than another, dial the difference into Delay and the needles agree again. The audio is untouched.

Make it bigger. Drag the bottom-right corner. A meter across the room needs to be readable from across the room.

More details

Yes. It's a one-off purchase, not a subscription, and there's nothing to renew. Updates to a plugin you own are free — download the current installer and run it over the top.

Every plugin is sold on its own, so you can buy just the one you want. If you'd rather have all of them, the Everything Bundle collects the whole line for 30% less than buying them separately.

Each license can be active on all machines you personally own you own — a studio desktop, a laptop and a couple of spares. Moving to a new computer? Deactivate the plugin on the old one and the seat frees up; if that machine is gone, contact us and we'll release it.

A purchase covers you, not a studio full of people. If colleagues need it, they need their own copy — that's what keeps a small company like this able to keep building plugins.

Your download link is in the order confirmation email sent at purchase, and in your account under Order history.

Your license key is in the same email. Run the installer, open the plugin, enter the key once and you're done — one key activates up to 4 of your machines.

Can't find the email? Check spam, then search for "Desert Moon Audio". If it still isn't there, get in touch with the address you ordered with and we'll resend it.

Yes — after activation. Entering your license key needs an internet connection once; from then on the plugin runs fully offline and doesn't phone home.

If a studio machine never goes online, get in touch and we'll sort out an activation for it.