Recording - September 2017 - 57

RTW
MM3

MusicMeter

Seeing what your
music's doing in a mix
has never been prettier
REVIEW BY MIKE METLAY

P

retty much every DAW out there has some kind of
metering built in, and a number of companies make
highly-respected metering software packages. That
said, many engineers like having meters close at hand all
the time, with consistent displays regardless of whether
they're working with software or hardware-only setups.
Up until now, good-quality metering systems could be
complicated and costly; that's what makes the MM3 MusicMeter from German audio-measurement experts RTW such
a pleasant discovery. It's compact, easy to use, accurate,
and quite affordable.

Out of the box

The MM3 is built around a 4.3" color touchscreen display,
in a metal frame that's angled and shaped for easy vertical
or horizontal placement. The rear panel has RCA jacks for
L/R analog inputs, S/PDIF In and Out, and a USB Micro-B
connector. The S/PDIF output is provided as a passthrough,
so signals can be monitored or recorded elsewhere with the
MM3 inline.
One of the MM3's big advantages is that it goes anywhere,
weighing only a pound or so, and connects to any kind of
audio equipment, letting you use the same metering no matter
where you are. For analog and S/PDIF applications, a
supplied USB power supply plugs into the Micro-B port to
power the MM3. Naturally, when the USB cable is attached
to a computer, the MM3 is bus-powered.
Setup is quick and easy; just power up the MM3 and plug it
in. When it starts up, you can select the display you want with
a horizontal swipe, and get right to work.
USB connection is only slightly more involved. On Windows
machines, you'll have to install a driver; Macs see the MM3
as a stereo audio device right away. There are workarounds
in pretty much every DAW that let you feed audio to the MM3
while also listening on your interface. By far the easiest
solution is RTW USB Connect, a software application that
allows the MM3 to work standalone or be patched into your

DAW as a plug-in. That's really handy,
as it lets you meter individual tracks, subgroups, or your 2-bus with ease. Note
that 6-channel surround metering is also
available over USB.

In use

The MM3 offers five different view
options, selected with a horizontal swipe
and tap. The displays are: VSC (Vectorscope), Numeric Solo, Chart, RTA, and
Meter Solo.
The Vectorscope is a live display of the
phase relationship between the Left and
Right channels in a signal; explaining
how one works is beyond the scope of
this article, but basically it lets you spot stereo problems (dead
channels, mono signal content, phase mismatches) based
on the shape of the trace on the scope. The VSC view also
contains a stereo level meter, a Loudness Bar that provides a
running readout of overall loudness, and a numeric display of
various loudness figures (current, short-term, maximum) that
turn red when they go overlimit. The Numeric Solo shows just
those numbers in larger type, and the Chart is a graph of
loudness over time with Start and Stop controls.
RTA (RealTime Analyzer) shows a bar graph of levels in 31
bands, 1/3-octave each, with peak hold for each bar. This is
useful for spotting problem frequencies in a hurry. Finally, the
Meter Solo view displays Left and Right level meters in a very
large size, visible all the way across a control room.
Note that all views other than Numeric Solo can be displayed
with either PPM or MC level metering. PPM stands for Peak
Program Meter, a fancy name for the vertical LED
meters we're all used to. MC is Moving Coil, a digital
s i m u l a t i o n o f m e chanical meters (British IIa and VU
calibrations are available). The ballistics of meter needles,
which can't react to audio transients at the speed of light the
way LEDs or display pixels can, create a very natural averaging
effect, making them useful for certain types of metering and
level management.
In my working sessions, I found the MM3 handy and
instructive. Learning to read a vectorscope can be tricky, but
once you get the hang of it, you can spot all sorts of behavior
in a flash. The RTA is similarly useful for working with EQ on
complicated mixes and in judging the overall content of the
2-bus output. It's not as cheap as the meters that come with
your DAW, but as you get better at mixing, you'll appreciate
the MM3's precision and clarity more and more.

PRICE: $559
MORE FROM: RTW, www.rtw.com/
en/products/audio-monitors/mm3.html
RECORDING September 2017

57


http://www.rtw.com/en/products/audio-monitors/mm3.html http://www.rtw.com/en/products/audio-monitors/mm3.html

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - September 2017

Contents
Recording - September 2017 - Intro
Recording - September 2017 - Cover1
Recording - September 2017 - Cover2
Recording - September 2017 - 1
Recording - September 2017 - 2
Recording - September 2017 - 3
Recording - September 2017 - 4
Recording - September 2017 - 5
Recording - September 2017 - Contents
Recording - September 2017 - 7
Recording - September 2017 - 8
Recording - September 2017 - 9
Recording - September 2017 - 10
Recording - September 2017 - 11
Recording - September 2017 - 12
Recording - September 2017 - 13
Recording - September 2017 - 14
Recording - September 2017 - 15
Recording - September 2017 - 16
Recording - September 2017 - 17
Recording - September 2017 - 18
Recording - September 2017 - 19
Recording - September 2017 - 20
Recording - September 2017 - 21
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Recording - September 2017 - 23
Recording - September 2017 - 24
Recording - September 2017 - 25
Recording - September 2017 - 26
Recording - September 2017 - 27
Recording - September 2017 - 28
Recording - September 2017 - 29
Recording - September 2017 - 30
Recording - September 2017 - 31
Recording - September 2017 - 32
Recording - September 2017 - 33
Recording - September 2017 - 34
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Recording - September 2017 - 57
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Recording - September 2017 - Cover3
Recording - September 2017 - Cover4
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