User manual
Loudness, true peak, correlation and spectrum, with streaming and broadcast targets plus MixLess club and festival presets.
Less Meter reads loudness, true peak, correlation and spectrum in one window. Targets cover the streaming and broadcast standards, plus two MixLess presets for playback that is not normalised, club at -8 and festival at -6: starting points, not standards. A normalization preview shows what each platform will do to your level.
Run the installer for your platform. On macOS the AU and VST3 versions install for all users; on Windows the VST3 installs under Common Files. Factory presets install into your user preset folder and are never overwritten: presets you save land in the same folder and stay yours.
| macOS presets | ~/Library/Application Support/MixLess/Presets/Less Meter |
| Windows presets | %APPDATA%\MixLess\Presets\Less Meter |
The screenshot is the shipping interface, rendered by the shipping code. Press I in the plugin to toggle the same control descriptions as cursor tooltips.
Two moments from the same display: at rest, and with material running through it. Print cannot move, so these are frames of the animation rather than a drawing of it.
| TARGET | Loudness target: streaming and broadcast standards, the MixLess Club -8 and Festival -6 presets (starting points, not standards), or Custom |
| CUSTOM TARGET | Custom target level, used when the Target box says Custom |
| RESET | Restart integrated / LRA / true-peak measurement and clear the history |
| EXPORT | Save all readings as a JSON loudness report |
| HISTORY | Loudness history: short-term (amber), momentary (dim), target band shaded; distribution on the right |
| GONIOMETER | Goniometer: vertical = mono energy, horizontal = stereo width; watch for heavy side lean |
| SPECTRUM | Live spectrum. Drop an audio file on the window to overlay a reference (dashed) |
Pick the platform's target from the preset menu. Mix until integrated loudness sits at the target, and check the normalization preview: it tells you how much the platform will turn the track down and the true peak after it does.
Club systems do not normalise. Select the club -8 or festival -6 target and let the integrated readout guide you; the TP HIGH badge warns when true peak crosses the safe ceiling.
Drop a reference file onto the window. Its spectrum overlays yours as a dashed curve, so tonal balance and level decisions happen on one screen.
| Formats | AU, VST3 |
| Latency | 0 samples |
| Standards | EBU R128, BS.1770-4 |
| Targets | streaming, broadcast, MixLess presets club -8 and festival -6 |
| Signal path | sample-exact passthrough |
Questions and problems: [email protected]. Legal notices, the privacy notice and third-party licences: mixlessaudio.com.