Audio plug-in conflicts in real time

mudsmith wrote on 5/18/2012, 11:58 AM
I am coming up for air today after having completed successfully a BluRay trailer for the documentary I am embarking on......which is to say that I am happy with the results of using Vegas 11 and DVD Architect 5.2 for the first time seriously, but have some questions about the way the programs behave during the edit process that I now have time to investigate while I am waiting for my partner to get back from the pitch.

I should start by saying that I am extremely experienced with digital audio in all its forms, and was brought in initially to deal with lots of audio problems in the source tapes. I like Vegas in particular partially because its audio tools, while not necessarily as robust as some of the other big name DAWs, are by far the best of any NLE......but I have noticed that many video editors do not tend to use these tools as extensively as I do, so maybe there will be a gap here in our discussion. I am not assuming that to be true, however, and hope that some folks out there will have run across some of the issues that I am experiencing my first time out with a serious project in Vegas 11.

Almost everything I am finding a bit problematic with the program has to do with real time preview, for both audio and video. I can understand the video being more difficult to bring together prior to a render, but what I am doing in audio land should not make this computer even approach breaking a sweat....

And, for the most part, it doesn't. However, there are some pretty specific issues with certain audio plug-in chains that are occurring:

1)When using the Izotope RX2 stereo Denoiser on a clip that is then set to only play the left side (in the Channels menu), real time playback stutters, is delayed, and will sometimes even glitch slightly during a render at the end of the clip. On stereo clips where I just used them as stereo, this did not tend to happen.

2)Plugging any of my Waves V9 Diamond plug-in bundle anywhere causes odd distortion during real time playback from the timeline......For the render of the trailer, I had tried using some of these flagship plugs on clips, but dropped them because I could not tell what things sounded like. I did use a mastering compressor on the master buss, however. This sometimes (not consistently) tended to add distortion during playback, but rendered just fine.

......Since both Izotope and Waves are premier plugs, I am concerned about both of these instances. Some of the Izotope plugs, which I bought specifically because they were touted and advertised by Sony to work well with Vegas, seem to be designed to work not in real time, but this is not at all clear to me. For the most part, they worked fine on individual clips except where I had changed the channel output arrangement. Some of the more arcane sound removal plugs seem harder to use directly in Vegas without going outside.

If anyone out there has insight into these specific plugs or any habits I need to develop to use all audio plugs more effectively in Vegas.....or any ideas about real time previewing in general, please chime in.

Comments

dlion wrote on 5/18/2012, 3:44 PM
i use sound forge and sonar for much of my audio work with vegas.

if a clip needs extensive fixing, i'll "open a copy in sf," make my changes, save (says copy of track... ) and when i reopen vegas, the file is updated.

i use multiple busses, from the old days of vegas audio, lol.

i usually use just ozone mastering eq, verb, comp and limiter on the master bus in real time. beyond that, i fix/enhance as i go.

if it needs more work, or causes stuttering or slowdown, i'll process it in sonar, where all my plugs are available. for example, i use sound soap in sonar.

Geoff_Wood wrote on 5/18/2012, 6:37 PM
1 - RX2 is hugely resource-hungry. My workflow would be to treat tracks that need this separately (in SoundForge, but could in Vegas - rendering in place), before attempting mixing.

2 - I use Waves 9 without any inherent distortion. Are you sure something isn't going into the red somewhere, out of view ? A plug could be having it's input overloaded, and if the output is pulled down would not necessarily show on the master.

That's an idea for a product suggestion - an overload warning, which monitors everything and displays if any overloads are occurring anywhere in the project !

geoff
Grazie wrote on 5/18/2012, 11:47 PM
I don't know what is going on, but I stay well away from any Izo VSTs. I'm just using the DX versions. I don't know why this is, or how to remedy it. I get "lock-ups" and frequent unexplained/unexplainable snatches at Vegas operating fully.

Dunno . . . . .

Grazie

SuperG wrote on 5/19/2012, 9:15 AM
Pretty much everyone does audio media 'fixing' as a static operation in SF, for things like noise suppression, etc, for the very reason that those kind of operations are huge. This lets Vegas stick to its normal,audio FX's, which are quite fast.
mudsmith wrote on 5/19/2012, 12:24 PM
You suggest Sound Forge, which is logical since it is a Sony product, but do you or anyone else have experience using non-Sony audio editing programs, specifically Wavelab (since that is my audio editor of choice)......as the designated go-to from Vegas?

I am just dreading adding yet another software learning curve, especially since Wavelab is so quick, so good sounding, and I have been using it for over 10 years now.
mudsmith wrote on 5/19/2012, 2:24 PM
And, in general, the Izo plugs have worked just fine in real time......the only instance where this was not true being the specific one I describe above, where the stereo audio clip it was plugged into was being redirected by Vegas to play only the left side........so, this would seem to be a logical problem with interacting with Vegas about this mono-stereo assignment........I have not tried to use the mono version of the Izo plug instead, but since the source material is stereo......

All of the Waves plugs I have been using are designed to work fine in real time, so I am wondering if there is some sort of install conflict with a 32bit version that was installed in another folder on this computer or somesuch..

I have multiple plug chains on many of these clips, including Sony eqs and compressors, and they are all working fine except for the two issues described in my original post.

Being able to do as much (and undo as much) as possible on the timeline in real time is the ultimate benefit of plug-ins, and the Izotope plugins in the RX2 package, or at least some of them, are delivering on this. The Denoise and Dehum work quite well, except for this mono-stereo issue.

The whole package is actually designed to work by itself as a DAW of sorts, and the Spectral removal tool can be used outside of Vegas directly on files........the problem here, however, is that it is not so easy to address an audio track from an HDV tape as an audio file unless you have that Vegas linking thing with your preferred DAW.

Which, in turn, is why I ask about alternatives to Sound Forge.....but, I am still learning Vegas and learning more about working with the files, so maybe I am missing something here. All input is appreciated.

I see from above that someone is using Sonar, so I am guessing that Wavelab will be fine. I had used Wavelab as the linking DAW in an earlier version of Vegas, but the usage was so brief that I did not learn much about the link.
mudsmith wrote on 5/19/2012, 2:34 PM
I would add that the Izotiope plugs I downloaded were only from a few weeks ago after seeing Sony promo them with YouTube videos, so seem to have been designed specifically to interact nicely with Vegas 11, and have, for the most part, done so. I frankly did not even notice if they came in as VST or not.

I have used a bunch of the other Izo plugs in my strictly audio work, and did not find them to be too hungry to deal with in that environment. Real time tweaking was fine on a computer about half as powerful as the one I am using for Vegas, but I was also not doing multitrack work with them, so......I had been intending to do all the noise reduction outside of Vegas, but found the plugs to be working just fine on the timeline while I was barreling toward my deadline, so never got there.

I will report back more when I have put Wavelab 7 on this computer and do more investigation of the setup and file structure for my latest Waves install on same.

Thanks again........I will start a new thread for that one since we seem to have gotten to everything on this one.
Geoff_Wood wrote on 5/19/2012, 8:30 PM
I admit I am remembering my negative IZO experience from Pentium 4 days, which had trouble even previewing

ou can configure any editor as the 'go-to Options|Preferences|Audio|Preferred Audio Editor'.

You can also do it internally in Vegas; Render To New Track , and then remove the source track(s) - at least off the timeline. Apply Non-Realtime Effects also does the trick.

geoff
larry-peter wrote on 5/19/2012, 11:47 PM
mudsmith, I don't know if the same option is still available today, but back in the era of Vegas versions 3/4 I was using Wavelab exclusively and it seems I was able to associate it in the Vegas preferences as my audio editor and use it in pretty much in the same way I can with Forge today. I don't think my memory's totally shot yet. Even after I got Sound Forge, for a long time I would return to Wavelab just for access to vst plugins I liked. As I collected better DX plugins over the years I switched totally to Sound Forge. Ended up liking the interface much better.
I use Nuendo for most all of my audio needs now and it's been so long since I looked at Vegas' audio preferences I can't tell you if it still allows you to assign an editor other than Sound Forge or not.
mudsmith wrote on 5/20/2012, 11:41 AM
thanks.....I am pretty sure Vegas still allows you to assign a third party editor, but was just looking to see if anyone else was using one, and if there were any associated issues.

One poster above said he/she was using Sonar, so this seems to be a non-issue. I am going to bring in Wavelab 7 today to this computer, so will report back (probably in the other thread I have started about VST plugins) when I know more. I did use Wavelab 4 briefly with Vegas 8, but the project was quick and simple.....nothing like what I am working on now.

I love Nuendo, but don't use it to the extent that other in-the-box mixers do since I use big digital consoles for most of my multitrack music work. I saw a demo of 5.5, however, that really turned my head, so may be using it more in the future.
SuperG wrote on 5/20/2012, 8:38 PM
You can use pretty much any application that take plugins.

Those of us that use SoundForge use it because it's strictly a wave editor. No sense in loading up a monster Daw when all you want to is edit/correct some wave files.
mudsmith wrote on 5/21/2012, 5:04 PM
Small update......

I am plowing through some setup and folder issues with Waves and Izotope and 32bit/64bit conflicts.....just making sure.

Waves assures me that their actual plugs live in the x86 area, but the Waveshell lives in the ProgramFiles/VSTplugins folder. They gave me some other files I could delete to ensure absolutely that Vegas would not be confused by the presence of 32 bit iterations.

I have some questions in to Izotope, but everyone should know that the RX2 package does function as a standalone DAW package, which is different from some of their other plugs. How to make Vegas actually designate this as a go-to, however, is not clear at the moment, but this may have to do with what seems to be a faulty installation of the 32bit version.....at least as my desktop Icon.

Will report back when Izotope gets back to me. My description of all issues to them was pretty thorough.....we will see if their answers are as thorough.

In the meantime, enabling Win7 compatability mode has fixed some other crashes completely. I would recommend this to all for at least a try......if you are on Win7, that is.