Can someone please help me with vegas compressor?

ericC wrote on 6/6/2001, 8:58 AM
I'm having issues with the compressor in vegas pro. Here is my goal: I wanted to take a voice recording of a person which didn't peak, but it's levels were incosistant. I wanted to use the compressor to compress the wave down so I'd get more leeway to normalize the event and even everything off. (get more bang for my buck).
I was told that on vegas, the compressor only works in play back, not while I'm recording voices. NOw I haven't made any changes to my computer but I did install the Vegas Pro 1.0b update which stopped the program from crashing frequently. the video and audio drivers are very recent. HOWEVER, when I opened up the compressor effects box (yes it was turned on), the input and output volume meters were refreshing very slowly and they weren't keeping up with the preview vol. meter which was fine. I couldn't use the meters in the compressor sfx box to judge at all. When I brought the threshold bar down to -5db for testing purposes, I noticed no change at all to the volume anywhere or to what I was hearing either. The reduction meter would only light up if the n:1 was maxed and the threshold was broughtr down to -30db. It looked like nothing was working at all.
What is wrong? Why is it doing this? moving the threshold down in no way affected my ability to normalize any more, the only time I notice is when I lowever the normalize peak which gives me more leaway to normalize but then I have to raise everything up. I can't stand how there are 50 ways to do the same thing. Lastly what's the point of the threshold if I can alter the output of the track in the track sfx menu? If someone could help me in detail I'd appreciate it.
There is one last thing. I have an external compressor available for me to use but there are two buttons on it I don't know how to use. What to the "key listen"and "key ext." buttons do on the behringer mdx2100? Thank for your help, Eric

Comments

darr wrote on 6/6/2001, 11:56 PM
The sluggish meters is due to directx plugs latency and sample rates.
The better the latency the quicker the more realtime the meters.
I was hoping they would fix this someday.Hmmm....
Pay no attention at this time to the meters and go with their preset of 6db.This should keep it pretty across the board,or use the last one which I think is limiting.Move the thresh hold till a even response is achieved.
I hope this kinda helps.;-)
DR
ericC wrote on 6/7/2001, 12:36 PM
I double checked to make sure that I had the newest drivers and in the process, I realized that this computer didn't have directx. Hoever, although more resources were freed by installing dx8, I didn't notice a change. I tried watching the volume meters at different sampling rates to see if it would improve but no respose.
I've written support and I'll see if they can tell me anything useful but I'm surprised that they didn't make a correction here.
Two things I did want to know though, First, I don't see any pre-sets in the sfx box or anywhere else for 6db, rather it's 0db. I also didn't notice a change to the wave file at all when I compressed it. It didn't sound different and no peaks changed shpae in the track rows. Am I suppose to see either or both of these differences? Ill let eyhou know when I get a response because after searching for more information on this subject, I noticed that you first post about this issue happened years ago. Thanks for your reply though, It allowed me to get rid of several factors. Eric
kilroy wrote on 6/8/2001, 12:18 AM

I am not familiar with that particular hardware comp you are refering to but I would guess that the key ext. button enables an external sidechain path (insert signal) for triggering or "keying" the compressor with an out side signal source. This is useful for ducking effects. A typical application would be ducking a music bed with a voice over track. The key listen button would simply be a sidechain monitor listen, useful in de-essing when you want to use a sidechained equalizer to boost the ess frequencies into the comp but you want to monitor the sidechain while you find the frequency to be reduced. In this particular comp it would be likely that pushing these buttons with no sidechain inserted would result in precisely nothing, thus the curiosity about their purpose. Hope this helps.

Kilroy
kilroy wrote on 6/8/2001, 12:18 AM

I am not familiar with that particular hardware comp you are refering to but I would guess that the key ext. button enables an external sidechain path (insert signal) for triggering or "keying" the compressor with an out side signal source. This is useful for ducking effects. A typical application would be ducking a music bed with a voice over track. The key listen button would simply be a sidechain monitor listen, useful in de-essing when you want to use a sidechained equalizer to boost the ess frequencies into the comp but you want to monitor the sidechain while you find the frequency to be reduced. In this particular comp it would be likely that pushing these buttons with no sidechain inserted would result in precisely nothing, thus the curiosity about their purpose. Hope this helps.

Kilroy