A small but nifty feature suggestion for Veg 5.

Arnar wrote on 3/8/2004, 3:48 AM

Since i can preview samples from the explorer in vegas then why not add the ability to add samples to the timeline in realtime, like using space bar to play the snare over a few bars and its added at the correct time to the timeline. Can be done with markers but , yeah i think it would be a nifty little addition to Vegas.
Add to that the ability that if you hold down the Space bar then it will retrigger repeatedly according to the grid setings.....Luvely.

i sure hope they give us higher res on the grid as well.

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stakeoutstudios wrote on 3/26/2004, 1:37 AM

indeed, for recording music the tempo and grid need serious work.

I'd like the grid to be able to show smaller regions, 64note, 128 note and their triplet variants (for linkin park style cutting and editing) Swung grids and click tracks with sub-beats would be very helpful! A drummer will often want to hear a low triplet beat running over a four four tempo so they can work out how a triplet fill will fit. Buy a Boss Dr. Beat metronome box to see what I mean. The metronome track should have it's own fader, and tempo displayed on the main page.

The tap tempo feature would be really really helpful as most bands haven't a clue, I've got good at guessing but if I could just tap the spacebar a few times it would be much much easier!

Tempo changes are near essential so that I can make my life so much easier when editing live drums for not so hot players.

Red: I understand what you mean about people using their ears, I do that all the time. But, ultimately when the clock is ticking and you're editing live drums - I have enough experience to cut and move beats to the grid, knowing where they should sound good without playing it back every two seconds. I've even moved nearly every kick and snare in tracks in the past! The editing is wonderful in this department. I can do a hell of a lot by eye and then of course I'll check it back by ear. When recording to a metronome, the grid is a very useful reference!

One other major thing that bugs me about this kind of editing (shifting around eight or so grouped tracks) is that the tail end event fades don't act with the rest of the grouping. If I pull an event fade it would save a lot of time if it happened on the rest of the items in the group, and the same goes for switching event fade types!

Is it possible to change the default event fade type?

Jason

Rednroll wrote on 3/26/2004, 11:51 AM

Weevil, not to give you false hope of any kind, but just because I seem to not indicate a certain feature is in V5, doesn't mean it isn't in there. There's a lot of the features that I just don't have a need for, so I might not even be aware that it's in there. I regularly receive emails upon new beta builds and they list a few of the programs new features to test out. I found out the hard way on this beta, that not all features are wthin that email and it was a feature I've been asking for years. I actually realized this feature was in there on that post that shouldn't have happen a liitle while back on the other Sony website.

"Is it possible to change the default event fade type?"

No, I don't think so. This is actually something that drives me crazy and I always forget to submit it as a feature request. The default event fades and crossfades are hardly ever the one I use and it is a bit of the pain in the ass to change this for every new edit you do, especially since I'm always changing it to the same one. Having a defult crossfade, event fade in and event fade out would be very useful.

roger_74 wrote on 3/26/2004, 2:15 PM

Tap tempo was tempting :-)

I made a script for it. Get it at http://www.rmtools.se

You need the Microsoft .NET framework 1.1 to run the script.

Edit: If the BPM is 60 or lower the program gives the wrong result. I'll fix it tomorrow.

Edit2: Everything is fixed now.

twinsen wrote on 8/8/2004, 1:59 PM

Well Vegas 5 is out now, and I say you did a wonderful job.

I wanted to bring up an improvement that I mentioned before, and it is only an interface improvement, as all is currently possible but requires 100 clicks or nonintuitive use of - and = keys. This is in addition to the grid spacing/timeline stuff that you mentioned, SonyPCH, which would also be useful to have tempo more dynamic. However, you can work around this by changing tempo and then moving all previous clips to align with the new grid (temporarily).

Anyway, I believe this change would be very easy to implement for the programmers, and would effectively replace tracker programs like Renoise and Impulse Tracker and etc... I happen to know several semi-high-profile electronic musicians in addition to myself (ie several albums out internationally) who use Vegas in the music creation process - not composing notes, but arranging things and chopping and composing beats. It Could be used for composing melodies also, in tracker fashion, if you were do something like this:

Instead of just - and = transposing a clip down or up a semitone, make the pitch be able to jump to any note by using the keyboard, as in trackers. Perhaps CAPSlock when on could allow this mode - then it won't interfere with shortcuts. So, when a clip is selected, and CAPS is on, you can press 'Q' and it will transpose to note 'C'. 2 is C#, W is D, 3 is D#, E is E. etc. and the lower octave can be Z S X D C V G B H N J M (C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B). You may also want to allow the pitch to vary farther than +/- 24 semitones. This is all without timestretching.

Once this is in place, it is very useful, however it would completely replace trackers only if it can "drop" clips in as it goes by. With a new Event Record button, sort of like how you can record automation parameters now, you can drop the selected clip from the Media Pool onto the timeline at cursor in the current track as it moves ahead in time, using the keyboard also. So if you press Y it drops the clip and it is transposed to note A.

If you would like to go further in usefulness, you can have an option to have those newly placed clips quantize to the current grid or not.

Then, we can allow time-stretching for the clip (in general, during editing) or in this case time-preservation (during "dropping" the clips) by going to Properties of the clip or better yet a keystroke. Also, for when you Ctrl-Stretch clips, there could be a switch (chooseable by keystroke like Ctrl-T for time) that designates if you will be stretching time and preserving pitch or changing pitch accordingly. (the CAPSlock keyboard mode of pitching will work a little differently in each case).

So, it's a lot, but it is all possible in Vegas right now, you just have to click 100 times or use a lot of - and = transposing (not musically convenient).

You may want to have the clip play at least it's beginning portion on each CAPSlock keypress (or even on -/= transpositions) so we can hear what we are doing, otherwise the note thing isn't as useful again :)

And finally 'velocity envelopes' for audio would still be very awesome. They can either time-remap the audio using time-stretching and compression, or pitch-bend, depending on the mode of the clip (or one envelope for each, hehe). but i know this isn't as easy. Pitch-envelopes (pitch-bending only) is quite easy though, trackers have had it for a long time.

These would make Vegas much more powerful in composition rather than just arrangement. What do you think?

Thanks!

jardeano wrote on 8/8/2004, 2:54 PM

What if Sony’s coders, software engineers, software designers, etc, sit down with two accomplished musicians, and songsters that have some knowledge of computerized music composition and discuss the design and functions of a new app,, IMHO, you really get to appreciate a piece of software when you decipher and finally click into the “workflow” which was intended by the designer for the users. Then you have to deal with compatibility issues, with other apps vst, vsti, dxi’s and so forth. In my experiences with Sony’s tech support, the tech person didn’t have my hardware etc, how can software be tested in this manner? It’s a large task to endure. For me, Vegas is not very intuitive for music composition. I prefer Acid, which I use as a sketch pad for my musical productions A lot of users are reaching out, some negative and others positive hoping for Sony to “get with it” and offer a more sophisticated piece of software. It’s” human nature” when your good you’ll always be " expected" to be better, unfortunately Sony is faced with this predicament.