Metering when A/B-ing with reference track (WLP10 / Mac)

[jagalactic]

I loaded my most recent album tracks into WL Pro 10, with the final mixes lined up with a reference track with the mastered tracks. It was mastered by somebody I greatly admire, and I was planning to study what he did.

The mastered tracks are louder, but on the meters (Loudness or level) I see no difference when I switch between the primary and the reference tracks (which are the SAME, pre and post mastering). So I suspect that the metering is only on the primary track and not the reference track?

I don’t have any plugins loaded anywhere (yet), and no gain/envelope tweaks - nothing - so it can’t be that.

Can somebody clarify the metering of primary vs. reference tracks in the montage?

Thanks!

[PG1]

By default, the reference track is sent directly to the input of the audio device driver, so that the A/B latency to switch is null, for best A/B comparison. This means, the reference track meter analysis is skipped.

However, there is an alternative: select to send the reference track to the Master Section Playback Processing.
And activate the metering from that point. See following pictures.


The draw back is that there is now a small latency when doing A/B.