Add media at playhead position while playing back the timeline

captnhanky wrote on 2/28/2021, 6:18 PM

Hi!

I am new to vegas and I want to make music videos for my own music.

The fastest way to create rough edits would be to play back the timeline with the music in it and then double click on media files to add them to the actual playhead position in real time. ..BUT this does not work, because other than in stop mode, in play mode the media is added at the end of the previous added clip and not at the actual playhead position.

Question: Is there a way that let me add media from the media folder to the position of the playhead in play mode?

Thanks

Andy

Comments

Jack S wrote on 3/1/2021, 5:44 AM

@captnhanky You could just play the audio and press 'M' (which creates a marker) every time you want to add your media. You then just need to drop your media on the video track at every marker.

captnhanky wrote on 3/1/2021, 8:33 AM

thank you for responding..

The method with setting markers is not working because it is not a matter of only when cuts should appear rather than WHAT MEDIA should appear at a given time. A music video has many cuts (hundreds in many cases) so how should I know which media goes to a specific marker after setting all markers ?

Setting the media to the music has to be in REAL TIME. Finetuning to the vegas bpm ruler would be the net step starting the editing process.

jetdv wrote on 3/1/2021, 10:48 AM

Sounds like you would need a very specialized script to do this. An "Extension/Custom Command" can do things in real time on the timeline but it would need to be a very specialized custom command from the sounds of your initial description. If you want to send me more details, I can certainly tell you if it's possible. You can also see lots of scripting tutorials at www.jetdv.com and my YouTube channel. We haven't worked up to creating a custom command yet but that will happen in the future.

RogerS wrote on 3/1/2021, 9:04 PM

What about the multicam feature. It enables you to select media by pressing a number as it plays. Lay out the clips on their own tracks and then create a multicam track. You can expand the tracks back out later.

captnhanky wrote on 3/2/2021, 2:51 PM

@RogerS Hi thanks for your input ..I tried out the multicam feature of vegas, but it does not solve the problem, because it is not possible to add a certain scene at a given time with that method. The multicam feature is only useful when you have a multicam setup or long shots that are not really changing much, like waves of the sea or a car that drives on the road. With such scenes it is no problem to switch the multicam tracks because you know what you are gettin on every multicam video track. But when you have lets say 100 short sub clips ready to match the beat the multicam setup simply is not working, because you can not choose a certain sub clip at a given time in realtime.

captnhanky wrote on 3/2/2021, 3:08 PM

@jetdv yes I came to that conclusion also, I even looked at the vegas scripting API and there is a property "PlayCursorPosition" in the transport control class. But a propper working script which can do all what I want would be hard to develop for me. I am not a programmer.

..and thanks .. I definitely will contact you at your homepage for further discussion

RogerS wrote on 3/2/2021, 6:41 PM

You can line up the clips on tracks before multicam for where you want them to start. But no, you wouldn't do 100 clips that way. It's best for a roll- shots of the musicians playing. You can drop in b roll manually.

captnhanky wrote on 3/2/2021, 7:03 PM

@RogerS Thanks, the problem I face is that there is no band playing, where I can get for example 4 camera angles and then mix these with some b roll. Basically I have only b roll and the band has very little performance shots. The result should be more like a collage of old footage with the band members in it from time to time. The video has to be fast pace (2-4 sec clips). I even bought the fastcut pro software to take some ideas from the ready made cuts with my video material in it (waste of money ..because the music is not interchangeable with own music)

The idea behind all this effort is to make different versions of the music video and let the band decide which sequence of clips is best fitting for the music and THEN make a perfect edit out of it.