And I thought I understood audio busses...

earthrisers wrote on 11/21/2009, 3:58 PM

I'm using VegasPro9c. I have a project where I've mixed the multicam video to a single video track, and now I want to mix four audio tracks.
The BOARD feed was recorded 'way too hot, so I want NOT to include it, except in a few scenes where it's ok.
I routed the OTHER 3 tracks to a new, separate bus -- Bus A.
In editing I wanted to solo one or another of the tracks that are assigned to BusA, to evaluate the mix on the bus. So first I solo BusA, then I mute two of the three tracks assigned to that bus... and the muting has no effect whatsoever.
In fact, even if I mute ALL of the audio tracks assigned to BusA, they just keep on merrily playing, and BusA's meter keeps going full blast.
I'm WAY confused by this behavior...
EDIT: For comparison, I set up a simple but similar situation in Vegas8, and there the audio works exactly as I expect it to. Has Version9 messed up Vegas' audio multitracking & multibussing capabilities???

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/21/2009, 5:37 PM

I cannot recreate this behavior on Vegas Pro 9.0c. I added a music track and voice track. I added a new Bus and routed both tracks to the bus. then I soloed the bus and muted each track in turn and I got either music or voice. In other words, it work as you would have expected. So the question is, what else is going on with your project?

~jr

farss wrote on 11/21/2009, 5:37 PM

"Has Version9 messed up Vegas' audio multitracking & multibussing capabilities??? "

V9.0c here. Added three track of music and created Bus A. Assigned three tracks to Bus A. Soloed Bus A. As I mute each track it works as expected and all track muted gives me silence.
Seeing as how that got me nowehere I added another track and left it assigned to the Master. Then some funky things started to happen, briefly, and then all was good again. So I cannot say with 100% confidence exactly whta happened. I have noted V9.0c seems very tardy at obeying my commands in general and much prefer working with V8.0

I'd suggest you try assigning all tracks to busses and avoid assigning any track directly to the master. This may or may not address your problem.

I should point out also that in my tests no video was involved. This could have some bearing on my inability to 100% reliably repo your problem.

Bob.

earthrisers wrote on 11/22/2009, 2:33 PM

Thank you for the replies.
I did try the very reasonable sounding suggestion of assigning ALL tracks to buses, and none directly to the Master. That changed my situation slightly, but didn't give logical results.
Right now, I have solo'd BusA and muted both of the tracks that are assigned to that bus. Those tracks do indeed stop playing, but the two tracks that are assigned to BusB are playing through BusA.
Too late to go back to Vegas8 on this project, because I'd already saved it a few iterations back, as a Veggie file in Vegas9. So I'll have to muddle through by enveloping each individual track rather than trying to use busses.
I'll go back to Vegas8 for any future projects that are going to involve multiple audio tracks.
ALSO: Just fyi: I did a cold reboot between the time I posted my original message, and the time of this follow-up. No effect on the problem.

earthrisers wrote on 11/22/2009, 5:09 PM

Well, I re-built the project from scratch, bringing in the integrated video track and the multiple audio tracks as a new project.
This time, it seems to be working the way I expected it to work.

Still no clue as to why the original project didn't work, but I thought I'd post this update, in case anyone else encounters a similar situation.

pwppch wrote on 11/22/2009, 6:14 PM

Please fill our your system specs in your user profile.
I am unable to reproduce you problem:

My test project:

4 audio tracks
One Sub Bus A
Track 1 routed to Master
Tracks 2-4 routed to Bus A.

If I solo Bus A, I hear tracks 2-4.

if I mute Track 2 and 3, I hear track 4.

Do you have the send gains on any of your tracks at something other than - inf?

Do you have any automation on the tracks or busses?

What audio hardware are you using?
What driver model are you using in Vegas?

Peter

musicvid10 wrote on 11/22/2009, 6:25 PM

Please excuse my obvious ignorance here, by why are you assigning additional audio busses at all?

Have done these types of multicam projects, with at least as many audio tracks as yours, and render my mastering tracks (to new tracks), assign each to a 5.1 channel (with some automation or envelopes in a few cases), mute the rest, and enjoy the results.

Again, have I missed something, or have I just not made it complicated enough?

earthrisers wrote on 11/23/2009, 10:05 AM

The reason I'm using a Bus on this project is that one audio feed was from the soundboard, and the other 3 are microphones.
In some scenes, the board-feed is way too hot, and in some scenes it's fine. (The too-hotness was our own fault, in the camera audio setting we used, not the fault of the sound guy at the show.)
For the scenes where the board feed is good, I want to pull the volume on all the mic channels way down (keeping just enough for "room ambience"), and for the scenes where the board feed is too hot, I want to use the mic tracks, which I've already balanced against each other the way I want them.
I'm using a bus in order to be able to raise and lower all the mic tracks at once, rather than having to manipulate the envelopes on each one.individually.

musicvid10 wrote on 11/23/2009, 10:42 AM

I'm using a bus in order to be able to raise and lower all the mic tracks at once, rather than having to manipulate the envelopes on each one.individually.

I see. It's the difference between doing all the mixing at once (your way), or doing prior mixdowns to three discrete master tracks (vocals, orchestra, ambient) first, which is my approach. Is that close to being right?

farss wrote on 11/23/2009, 12:11 PM

There's good reasons to use busses even if you only route one track to a buss. You get metering and you get all your audio in the one pane. When you've got several A/V track pairs on the T/L finding things can be tedious, busses help me considerably.

Bob.

earthrisers wrote on 11/23/2009, 2:21 PM

Also re Buses, yes, I do have several pre-FX'd and rendered audio tracks, but I want to "gang" them against the other audio track, which is the board feed. I need to adjust the volume of the 3 combined tracks versus the board feed at various times in the show, and using a bus for the 3 tracks allows for adjusting their volume all together with a single envelope (applied to the bus).
This also gives me the flexibility of fine-tuning the balance between the three individual tracks at various points if I need to (I only need to a couple of times), since I can still use individual track envelopes in those 3 tracks even while controlling the volume of the "ganged" mix through the bus.