Fading Audio to a lower level

qsnow1 wrote on 1/30/2006, 8:44 AM
I have a video that I created. The first section is composed of a few still images with some motion tracking. the second section is a video with voice, etc. I added a new audio track to place a music piece across the entier video. What I am trying to do is fade the new music track to a lower level so it doesn't overpower the voice track.

What I did which kind of worked, but isn't very smooth... I selected the music track and 'S' split it at the point where my voice track would start. On the first section of the music track I faded the volume (1 second or so from the end) and then on the second section of that split I moved the volume Db level down to where I wanted it.

The problem is that the first section fades to 0, then the second section picks back up - just not a smooth transition for a continuous audio piece. Is there a way I can actually fade the Db volume level to a different level instead of zero?

Create multiple volume points or something on the audio tracks?

Comments

dibbkd wrote on 1/30/2006, 8:57 AM
You're going to love this solution, worked great for me doing the same thing you described.

Create an audio envelope on the track you want to fade the volume on. ( I don't have Vegas with me at the moment, but it's on the menu options)

You'll then see a new line on your audio track, right click and do an "add point" in a few locations. Then you can drag the points up and down to increase or decrease volume smoothly.

This should do the trick for you.

Edit: and I should have added that using this method you don't need to Split your audio track at all.
qsnow1 wrote on 1/30/2006, 9:57 AM
Ah. that worked fantastic... I've never used the envelope tool :-)

What other functions (or places would that be used) or is the envelope tool mainly only used for audio tracks?
Tim L wrote on 1/30/2006, 4:20 PM
On audio channels, you can also enable a "pan" envelope, which is basically the balance between left and right speakers.

As I understand it, most "real" movies are recorded in mono (often with a boom mic), then the left/right separation is done in post. If you use an external shotgun mic with your camcorder, which typically is mono, and have two people speaking, you would adjust the left/right balance with the pan envelope: mostly left when the person on the left is talking, then mostly right when the other person is talking.

You could also use the pan envelope to have a sound effect pan from left to right: a car driving by, for example, or somebody walking or running from one side to the other (or, I suppose, rockets or bullets whizzing past from left to right).

On the "full" version of Vegas, they have a "velocity envelope" for video tracks. The middle of the setting is normal playback, and you can add points and adjust the envelope to play back in fast motion or slow motion, etc. This makes it easy (or so I hear) to smoothly ramp up or down on playback speed -- like the effects you sometimes see on the Amazing Race or Survivor, where they speed up real fast for a few seconds and then taper back down to normal speed.

Tim L