ok.... i think i got that....many thanks!
so what if I want to bring in the 'audio-only' of an incoming 'clip/interview/sot' under the outgoing natsound picture then make a hard cut to he 'clip/sot'.... whenever i try pulling the video from the leading event over the video of the 'clip/sot' it discombobulates the voice and video of the clip... again...i know its easy---but can't find it in any manual..

I believe you are talking about either a "L cut" or "J cut". There is a free script to do this on the VASST site. Very handy.

Hard to follow what you want to do. You can easily separate audio from video in Vegas, and have as many audio tracks as you like... Which version of Vegas are you using? Vegas Pro 8 or 9 or what?

my apologies for not being clearer... i'm on vegas 9d..

essentially i want to be able to do two things...as the clip/interview is ending I want to bleed in a bit of low audio associated with the video of the next shot/nat sound...and of course then bring that sound up full with the video..

i also want to be able to do the same thing coming out of some nat-sound/vid... i want to bring a word ..or a line of voice from the 'incoming' interview over the audio of the outgoing nat-sound..then of course make a hard cut----or possibly a dissolve--to the interview...
In AVID this is done with the 'extend' key----but If i try to extend video from the outgoing nat-sound/video event over the incoming clip/interview it unsyncs the audio from the video clip and everything goes out of whack... I know this is a very simple procedure..i've managed to figure out just about everything else I need on Vegas but can't get this one... thanks for any advice..

I've never done this ... "but I've seen it on TV" :-)

I would try this ... For the incoming clip voice starting before the incoming video ... I would Ungroup the incoming video, then I would cut off the begining of the video (leaving the audo uncut) .. then re-group them and you should be able to slide it to the last clip to make a cut or disolve as you wish with the audio of the new clip starting before the video does.

I *should* be easy as hell, but it's not. The J-Cut or L-Cut is one of the most basic in all of editing.

There is a more "Avid" way to do this.

1. Right click on either the two adjacent audio or video events. Whichever you want to leave in place, and select Switches > Lock. That accomplishes the same thing a track lock would in Avid. Then you can single or double roller the audio or video accordingly. Or slip/slide it. You can do a fade up on the audio by doing the same thing you would in Avid except in Vegas you don't need to go grab an effect. You just grab the upper edge of an audio or video event and drag your envelope.

but If i try to extend video from the outgoing nat-sound/video event over the incoming clip/interview it unsyncs the audio from the video clip

Do you mean at the end of an event that is sync sound, you ungroup from the audio, then do CTRL+Drag to stretch the video to make it slightly longer (which changes it's playback rate) so that it throws the whole event out of sync. Yes. It would do that.

What I do is split the event near the end. SO this give us a Part 1 and Part 2 of the event, Part 2 being very short. You can stretch Part 2 without fear of losing audio sync in Part 1. If there is some critical audio you want heard in Part 2, then why lead the sound from the next scene? So I assume, you don't mind losing sync on the audio of Part 2 (which would only be as long as needed) . But normally I don't do CTRL+drag but use a velocity envelope to slow down Part 2 more gradually so that sync sort of drifts out as the leading sound takes over. Then either straight cut or cross fade or what ever transition you want --- sync on the next event is no worry. Right click on the event and "syncronize" by slipping or moving. Slip syncing is about the best thing since night baseball.

Am I getting close to what you want to do?

Click the Ignore Event Grouping icon to turn it On..
DRAG the END of the audio event as needed to extend it into the next event. What you're doing wrong by what I read in your replies above is you're MOVING the audio event which will most certainly get it out of sync. You can use the event fade/gain envelopes to control the cross fade between the audio. OR! you can move one audio event down to a track below and then use track volume envelopes to get more precise control.
Click the Ignore Event Grouping icon again to turn it back Off.

To remove say the video from a vision and sound event. Click the Ignore Event Grouping icon. Select and delete video event. Turn Ignore Event Grouping Off again.


The problemo with using Ungroup is you may forget to Group it again and have issues because of this down the track.

Bob.

thanks to all for your replies...most helpful and I have pretty much solved the issues I had; so i know understand how to achieve what I want ...just need to practice more.
I've got a list of ...easy and basic questions though related to Vegas and thought I'd put them out there.

1. when you 'import' a video file to your project...is Vegas actually creating a copy of that file somewhere? I ask this because if it is I obviously need to manage hard-drive space. I.e. Avid creates these 'avid media files' so when importing to an avid project you need to make sure to direct it to an external hardrive. I guess after reading about this in the Vegas manual i'm still a little unclear.

2. Vegas and FCP. Are they more similar to each other than Vegas and Avid? Just curious..

3. When I create another Audio track it doesn't seem to be 'linked to the others. For example...in this case... the video track and audio tracks 2 and 3 all seem to move together 'as a group'...but audio 4 doesn't.. is that normal, am I missing something...is there a way to lock audio 4 in so it also moves as a group with the others?

4. Stereo/Mono: I've figured out how to setup for sending 2-channel/split...audio...fairly easy and better...from what i can see ..than avid. what if i need to send 'stereo' audio-----is it as simple as making sure the master output is on 'stereo' and all the audio sliders are panned to 'center'..?

again---thanks to all..this forum was recommened to me by someone and it has turned out to be incredibly useful----!

this forum was recommened to me by someone and it has turned out to be incredibly useful----!

I told you there was a bunch of very helpful people here :-)
Sorry for not getting back to you off-list sooner but I got tied up with stuff at home and noticed that you were getting all the help you were looking for so I didn't bother replying.

Now to answer your remaining questions.

1. All Vegas does is create a pointer to the original file location so no extra hard drive space is used.

2. I've never used either of them but I can tell you that, because of the way Vegas does some things, it's in a world of it's own.
Some folks like it and some don't. Each to his/her own.
I come from a dpsVelocity background and, with the exception of real-time playback, I don't miss it.

3. Any other audio tracks have to be be "grouped" to the rest of the events you want it/them locked to.
Shift and Ctrl+Shift all of them and then press 'G' to group them together.

4. Yes, it is that simple. Even if it's a mono channel, the default output is stereo.

Mike (from Windsor)