WAVES 984258 Playlist Rider Real-Time Automatic Volume Rider User Guide
- June 10, 2024
- WAVES
Table of Contents
WAVES 984258 Playlist Rider Real-Time Automatic Volume Rider
Introduction
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Live sound engineers, broadcast professionals, and other pro audio techs
regularly need to connect different program sources to their consoles. When
dealing with diverse sources, the audio levels being fed into your mixer can
rarely be predicted, so you need to actively ride the channel faders to ensure
that levels are consistent and don’t get out of control.
There are enough things to worry about during a live show or broadcast. Riding
faders of unfamiliar sources can be stressful and can result in a less-than-
ideal experience for the audience. To address these challenges, Waves
developed a new plugin that helps you to automatically and continuously adjust
the gains of these sources in real time, so that you will have one less thing
to deal with.
Unlike solutions that just offer compression with a long release—which can
result in an unnatural sound—the Playlist Rider plugin automatically adjusts
the level of your sources to a specified target in a nondestructive fashion,
as if an engineer were riding the fader. You can even set the input threshold
level, so that low volume audio, such as song fade-outs, will not be
processed.
Playlist Rider can also normalize the audio sources to pink tonal curves in
real time to smooth out tonal differences between sources and improve program
consistency throughout the show.
Playlist Rider is ideal for podcasters, live streamers, and content creators,
as it helps them automatically balance the
volume of multiple sources (e.g., host, guest, background music, audio clips)
to achieve natural, consistent levels throughout a show.
There are two Playlist Rider components: mono and stereo.
A Classic Playlist Rider Use Example
This is a typical way to use Playlist Rider to match different sources. The controls are explained in the next section.
- Route multiple program input channels (e.g., computers, video sources) to a single stereo group.
- Insert Playlist Rider into this group.
- Set a Target level: -18 dB is an average level, -14 dB is loud, and -24 dB is on the softer side. You can adjust the Target manually later.
- Decide if you want to use the Tonal character averaging.
- Now play your audio sources one by one and adjust the input gain on respective input channels so the Sense light is mostly green.
- Finally, if needed, adjust the Detector Threshold to avoid riding the fade-ins and fade outs.
Interface and Controls
LEGEND
❶ Sense Light
❷ Realtime Input Meter
❸ Input Peak LED
❹ Detector Threshold
❺ Short- and Long-Term Detector Meters
❻ Target (LKFS)
❼ Gain Ball
❽ Attack
❾ Tonal Character
❿ Realtime Output Meter
⓫ Output Peak LED
⓬ Output Short-Term Display
⓭ Wave System Toolbar
SENSE LIGHT
The Sense light helps to set the optimal input level for the plugin. Adjust
the Input gain of your sources according to the following guidelines:
- No light Input level is too low.
- Green This is the optimal input level for best results.
- Yellow Input level is too high. Lower input level to achieve proper results.
- Red The input level is too high to be managed by the plugin.
REALTIME INPUT METER
Input meters indicate the real-time peak level of input audio.
INPUT PEAK LED
The Input Peak LED is red when real-time input is too high to be processed.
Click on the Peak LED to reset.
DETECTOR THRESHOLD
Adjust the Detector Threshold level to avoid processing fade-ins and fade-
outs. Input levels below the threshold will be ignored by the plugin detector.
Any audio above the Threshold will change the input meter color for easy
indication of which part of the signal will be detected and leveled by the
plugin. The Detector Threshold uses a soft knee curve, so riding will
initialize gradually as the signal nears the threshold.
SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM DETECTOR METERS
To asses perceived loudness of the source, Playlist Rider uses two types of
variable measurements: short-term and long-term. The detectors use different
time constants to measure the average level. The dynamic calculation between
multiple sources within plugin’s internal chain provides perceived input
loudness, which is used to adjust the gain.
TARGET (LKFS)
Use the Target radio buttons to set the desired target level, or adjust it
manually using the variable target window above. LKFS means average
measurement over time and is used to measure perceived loudness.
GAIN BALL
The Gain Ball displays how the gain is adjusted by the plugin. The
adjustment is based on perceived input loudness and the Target setting.
ATTACK
Attack sets the speed of how fast the process reacts to input changes. Set
to Fast for quicker reaction times or to Slow for smoother transitions.
TONAL CHARACTER
When Tonal Character is On, the source audio is gently and slowly matched
to a Pink tonal curve. This can help to smooth out tonal differences between
audio sources.
REALTIME OUTPUT METER
Output meters indicate the real-time peak level of output audio
OUTPUT PEAK LED
The Output Peak LED is Red when Realtime Output exceeds an acceptable level.
Click on the LED to reset.
Note: The Playlist Rider internal limiter is not a “look ahead” limiter.
It provides zero latency operation.
OUTPUT SHORT TERM DISPLAY
Output Short Term displays the result of Playlist Rider processing and is
displayed in LKFS.
Playlist Rider Short Term Output Display value is close to, but not identical to, the Waves Loudness Meter Short Term Measurement using these settings: Method = LM1 and Short Time = 400 ms. Deviation range of +/- 1 dB is acceptable.
WAVESYSTEM TOOLBAR
Use the bar at the top of the plugin to save and load presets, compare
settings, undo and redo steps, and resize the plugin. To learn more, click the
icon at the upper-right corner of the window and open the Wave System Guide.
References
Read User Manual Online (PDF format)
Read User Manual Online (PDF format) >>