Any way to A-B audio tracks with a single pushbutton?

riredale wrote on 10/3/2004, 11:09 PM
I may be overlooking something obvious, but the other day I was demonstrating two simultaneous stereo recordings to my friend, made with my svelte AT-822 stereo mic and his built-like-a-tank Rode NT4.

He was not familiar with Vegas (or any PC app, for that matter) but kept looking for a way to just push a button and be able to switch from the AT-822 tracks to the NT4 tracks.

One can do this by having just the two sets of tracks on the timeline and alternating between the solo and mute buttons for one of the tracks, but that involves carefully moving and clicking the mouse. What he was looking for was a single button he could click repeatedly to do the switching.

Comments

Liam_Vegas wrote on 10/4/2004, 1:31 AM
Load the audio as takes on the same track? Then you can use the "switch take" key to alternate (sorry... forgot which key that is.. I'm sure you can find it)
Hunter wrote on 10/4/2004, 6:53 PM
" T " for take
Spot|DSE wrote on 10/4/2004, 9:21 PM
Create a group. Send all the AT tracks to the group.
Create a new group. Send all the Rode tracks to the new group.
Solo one group, unsolo it. Solo the other group, unsolo it. Or use mutes.
No way to kill one group and single hit the other group though, with a single button push where you'd be switching back and forth.
You COULD create volume points to allow them to all A/B back and forth. but there is nothing that would be like toggling an input.
ibliss wrote on 10/5/2004, 7:46 AM
Use Ctrl+left click to force solo of a single track.

Ctrl+left click track 1 (or bus 1 in Spot's example)

Then Ctrl+left click track/bus 2 to

and so on....
LarryP wrote on 10/6/2004, 1:38 PM
Funny you should mention this...

I wrote a script a couple of weeks ago to A-B comparisons along the lines of what SPOT suggested. The script works fine but running a script stops playback which makes it rather useless (even pause would be better). Someone suggested a work around which I won’t have time to try for a couple of weeks.

If the work around doesn't work I’m going to put in a new feature request so maybe someday.

Larry
farss wrote on 10/6/2004, 3:02 PM
Why not take SPOTS suggestion one step further?
Feed one bus to one set of soundcard outputs and the other to another pair. Feed outputs via simple double pole double throw switch into amplifier. Used to be a time when a 'switch' was a thing you flicked not clicked :)
Anyway SPOTs got a big knob, I'm certain it has a facility for doing just what I'm suggesting.
Bob.
MJhig wrote on 10/6/2004, 4:11 PM
I must be missing something.

What doesn't work by sending all the tracks you want to solo (A) to Bus A and all the tracks you want to solo (B) to Bus B and as mentioned above Ctl + Click the Solo button on each Bus?

Ctl + Clicking solos one bus and mutes the other. Same for individual tracks.

Or using Keyboard shortcuts for tracks;

Mute selected track and remove other tracks from mute group = Shift+Z

Solo selected track and remove other tracks from solo group = Shift+X



MJ

Rednroll wrote on 10/6/2004, 4:48 PM
I think the real answer is to use Vegas v4.0. I use to do this in v4.0 very easily, but now that I try it out in v5.0 it works differently. In v4.0 you could have 2 tracks. On one track if you altered back and forth between the solo and the mute button, it would give you an A/B realtime playback of the 2 tracks. It seems they changed the way the mute and solo buttons work in v5.0. I think this is a mistake, but must have been changed for some reason.

Here's a way to accomplish this very easily another way in v5.0, without having to set up any seperate buses or anything other nonsense like that. Put your A/B tracks on two seperate tracks on top of each other. I'm going to call them Track 1 and Track 2. Apply the mute button on Track 1 and click on Track 1event to select it. Now hit the play button. Make sure your NUM LOCK is enabled on your numeric keypad. Use the numeric "2" button to drop Track 1 onto Track 2. You will now be listening to Track 1. Use the numeric keypad button "8", this will move the Track 1 audio back to the muted Track 1 and you will be listening to Track 2. You can therefore do a realtime easy A/B by pressing the "2" and "8" keys.

Red
MJhig wrote on 10/6/2004, 5:13 PM
The Bus setup was for groups of tracks to be A/B'ed.

I still use V4, so are you telling me that for a simple 2 track A/B you can't Ctl + click the solo buttons and it won't mute one track and solo the other anymore in V5?

MJ
MJhig wrote on 10/6/2004, 10:02 PM
Can someone with V5 confirm this?

Simply set up 2 audio tracks, drag an audio file to each, Ctl + click the solo button.

Does V5 toggle mute/solo as V4 does?

If not this is huge to audio users.

MJ
PeterWright wrote on 10/6/2004, 10:53 PM
Yes, V5 toggles between the two with Ctrl / Solo.

Didn't know that one .....
MJhig wrote on 10/6/2004, 11:37 PM
Thanks Peter for testing and thank goodness V5 didn't regress in this area.

MJ
Rednroll wrote on 10/7/2004, 6:02 AM
I'm talking about having audio on two seperate tracks. Not 2 events on top of each other. In V4 if you have audio on Track 1 and audio on Track 2, you could alternate clicking between mute and solo buttons on track 1 and this would allow an A/B playback between track 1 and track 2. It no longer works that way in V5.

V5 behavior
1. click track 1 solo....solo button gets depressed and track 1 is soloed, track 2 is muted.
2. click track 1 mute button. Now both the mute and the solo button are depressed and both track 1 and track 2 are muted.

V4 behavior
1. click track 1 solo....solo button gets depressed and track 1 is soloed, track 2 is muted.
2. click track 1 mute button. mute button gets depressed, solo button raises. Therefore, track 1 is now muted, and track 2 gets unmuted.


See the difference in behavior?
I haven't needed this behavior since V4 where I figured this out, because I had a project that I needed to do an A/B playback....I'm sad to see the behavior changed in V5. Right now I'm wondering how you would even use the current behavior in V5....I guess if you wanted to not hear anything.......but that's what I thought the "stop" button was for? Personally I think this is a bug in V5.