Match every preset before you walk on stage.
A loudness meter built into the recorder. Plug in your modeler, play, and it tells you exactly how far each preset sits from your target — so the clean patch and the lead patch arrive at the same volume, every night.
Ears lie at low volume
You build the presets at home, on headphones. The clean one sounds fine, the lead sounds huge. Then you're on stage and the clean is buried, the lead takes someone's head off, and you're stamping on a volume pedal instead of playing. No modeler shows you what your presets are actually doing next to each other.
The meter that does
Level Lab reads the signal from your rig — before any of Dees Tape's own processing, so nothing colours the number — and shows loudness the way broadcast measures it: LUFS, short-term and momentary, alongside true peak and RMS. Pick a target, play the way the song needs, and the screen tells you the move: raise 3 dB, drop 2, or you're on target.
Six steps, once per preset
Plug in and arm
Connect the interface, tap the input line to confirm the phone sees it, and arm the track your modeler is on.
Open the meter
Tap that track's VU — the analog needle stays, and a digital screen adds the numbers.
Pick a target
−20, −18 or −14 LUFS. Which matters far less than picking one and sticking to it.
Play properly
Not a test chord — play the way the song needs. Loudness is measured over time.
Read the verdict
RAISE INPUT +3.2 dB, TOO HOT −2.1 dB, or ON TARGET. Adjust on the modeler, not the phone.
Next preset
Repeat. Same target, every patch.
What each number tells you
| Reading | What it means |
|---|---|
| LUFS short-term | Loudness over the last 3 seconds — the number you level to. |
| LUFS momentary | Loudness over 400 ms — spots a preset that only jumps on hits. |
| Peak dBFS | The loudest instantaneous sample. Keep it under −6 dBFS for headroom. |
| RMS | Raw average energy — a sanity check against the LUFS reading. |
Two things that matter
It reads the raw input
The meter measures before Dees Tape's own EQ and compression — the numbers describe your rig, not the app. An FX BYPASS button lets your ears hear what the meter sees.
Peaks matter too
A preset can sit at −18 LUFS and still clip on transients. Watch the peak — under −6 dBFS leaves room for the room.
Your rig, whatever it is
Line 6 Helix · Neural DSP Quad Cortex · Kemper Profiler · Fractal FM9 / Axe-Fx III · Valeton GP-5 — and any class-compliant audio interface. Pure interfaces hand over discrete inputs; mixer-style units (EP-133, Zoom R4) send their master mix by design.
Level every preset. Once.
Dees Tape is in final testing · free & open source · iPhone + Android.