All about the peak watcher.

What is the peak watcher?

This is a special dialogue in reaper where you may set up your essential metering to work in a more  friendly manner.

The problem especially for blind folks with the j and k and shift j and k keys is that they can not reliably track the very rapidly changing meter levels on a typical meter view using speech.

If you didn't hit the button at exactly the right time, you might miss that big peak and you might think, hey my meter says -10 db, but in reality you might have peaked over 0 db and clipped.

The solution is the peak watcher.

Get in to it by using alt w.

We are  presented with a combo box which allows us to pick the  first track we want to monitor.

In peak watcher we can monitor two tracks at once.

By default we are on the follow current track option.

If you arrow up and down you can see the other options, you can monitor the master track or any other tracks you have in your project.

You can set peak watcher to monitor a specific track all the time, for instance, track 3 if you have 3 tracks in your project.

I like to leave it on follow current track.

This means that, as I arrow around to my tracks, the peak watcher will follow me around and monitor my levels for that track.

Ok, let's tab and we are presented with a second combo box.

This is for our second track to be monitored by peak watcher if  desired.

We don't have to use it, as a matter of fact I often just use the first combo box and leave the second one set to none.

Some times I like to set the first one to follow me around, and the second one to monitor the master track.

Set these options the way which best matches how you like to work.

The next two options you will tab to are check boxes, which you can check to be automatically notified if your track goes over a certain level.

Your screen-reader will read the values to you if you exceed the set level.

 If you tab again, you will see the edit box where you can set the level at which you wish to be notified by your screen reader.

It is set at 0 db by default, you will probably want to set some negative value if you want to be told if you are approaching a too hot level.

Say you are making a broadcast for a radio station and their station compressors like you to stay under -3 db.

You could set that and be warned when you hit -3 db.

The next option you will tab to is a radio button which by default is set to

hold peaks until reset.

If you arrow down on this option, you will get,

for [ms]

and if you tab down once you will see an edit box.

This edit box isn't there when the above option is selected,

the one that says hold peaks until reset.

So, don't look for the edit box until you change it to 

for [ms]

the values in this edit box are in milliseconds.

5000 equals 5 seconds, 2000 equals 2 seconds, and so on and so forth.

This option allows the peak watcher to hold it's value so you can read it and it will not change until a higher value is reached, or the time set to hold is exceeded and it resets.

Tab again, and   we come to the reset button.

This will reset peak watcher to default values.

Finally,  we have the ok button.

This accepts any changes you have made to the peak watcher and exits out of the dialogue.

I have intentionally saved the keystrokes till the last.

If you do the f4 actions list, and type in peak watcher you will get the short list of them, if you forget what they are.

alt w.
Opens the peak watcher dialogue.

alt f11
OSARA: Report Peak Watcher value for channel 1 of first track

alt f12
OSARA: Report Peak Watcher value for channel 2 of first track

alt shift f11
OSARA: Report Peak Watcher value for channel 1 of second track

alt shift f12
OSARA: Report Peak Watcher value for channel 2 of second track

alt f10
OSARA: Reset Peak Watcher for first track

alt shift f10
OSARA: Reset Peak Watcher for second track

Note how all the keys on the alt modifier are for the first peak watcher track.
All the ones with the alt shift modifiers are for the second peak watcher track.

Hope this has helped you to demystify the peak watcher.

for one on one friendly tutoring write to 
katkaturr@gmail.com

Chris Belle.

aditionall information.
Since the writing of this document, there have been improvements to the peak watcher.
There is now an action, unbound by default to pause and resume the peak watcher.
OSARA: Pause/resume Peak Watcher