VU meter

English

Etymology

Abbreviation of volume unit + meter.

Noun

VU meter (plural VU meters)

1. A display in audio equipment that represents the loudness of the signal.
   • 1978, Craig Anderton, Home recording for musicians:

     VU (volume unit) meters are wonderful to look at as their pointers swing merrily back and forth across their brightly-lit faces.

   • 2006, David E Reese, Lynne S Gross, Brian Gross, Radio production worktext: studio and equipment

     The accuracy of VU meters is sometimes questioned in two areas.

2. (computing, chiefly demoscene) Any animated graphical representation of the volume of sound or music (often subdivided across channels).
   • 1991, "Kenrick J. Mock", demos on tybalt? (on Internet newsgroup comp.sys.apple2)

     The ECC Syncro Demo is a demonstration of text scrolling in the GS border area, as well as having VU meters in the border area. Similar to FTA's X-mas demo.

   • 1991, "Cybernetworx", VU meters (on Internet newsgroup comp.sys.amiga.programmer)

     Hi, I was wondering if anyone had any source code that showed how to read the values to construct a VU meter from a tracker replay routine.