Feature Request: "Effect envelopes"

jdupre wrote on 6/11/2001, 6:54 PM

I would like to be able to apply an effects chain to portions of a track, rather that the whole track. I think that a really nice way to achieve this would be to have an "audio envelope" that would apply an effects chain. What do other think about this?

What I have been doing is making a two copies of a track, one with and one without the desired effects. I then use the volume envelopes to crossfade between the two tracks. Obviously this is a pain in the ass to match the inverted audio envelopes.

How do others achieve selective effects processing???

- Joe

Comments

RobSoul wrote on 6/11/2001, 10:26 PM

Good news! You can do what you want pretty easily by adding an effects send...

1. Add a new stereo bus to your project (PROJECT AUDIO PROPERTIES > NUMBER OF STEREO BUSSES)

2. Add the desired effect to that bus by clicking on the "BUS FX" button in the Mixer view.

3. Highlight the track you want the effect to be on and select INSERT > AUDIO ENVELOPES > AUX (The Aux should be the same letter as the the new Bus you created.)

4. Now you can automate the amount of effect you add to the track by using the new envelope you just inserted.

Cool?

Rob

stumacQ wrote on 6/12/2001, 3:53 AM

Hey,

I thought I'd point out that you can currently only automate the Sends, not the Returns. What this means, effectively, is that when you pull down the FX envelope to -Inf, all time-based effects (delay/reverb usually) continue to the end of their tail/feedback settings from the last audible signal that was sent from the track.

If you don't understand that, you can do a little test. Drop any wave file onto a track, and insert an effects bus with a long delay or reverb. Draw an FX envelope onto the track, and pull the envelope down to zero 1 second before the end of the event. Do you still hear the effects after the event? I thought so.

I REALLY hope that the next version of Vegas has automation on the FX returns/busses. This would allow SO much more flexibility and things like precise 'reverb-washes' which are very common things - impossible to do in Vegas, however.

I wait with great anticpation ...

-=(stu.macQ)=-

pauly wrote on 6/12/2001, 7:57 AM

All you need to do is solo the return......and save as a .wav.........put it on its own track, and there you go, automate at will.

Pauly

jdupre wrote on 6/13/2001, 2:18 AM

Using an aux. bus or FX bus with an envelope almost does what I want, except that the dry track signal still comes through.

What I really want is a complete crossfade between the "dry" track and the "wet" effect. (Is this what is called ducking???) Using the aux. bus method I still have to use two inverted envelopes: an aux. bus envelope to fade in the FX, and a volume envelope to fade out the track. (With the aux. bus set to pre-volume of course.)

- Joe

RobSoul wrote on 6/14/2001, 3:41 PM

I think what we all want...and what I really think SF will have to deliver to stay competitive...is automatable effects. Not the sends or the returns but the effects themselves. A host of other audio apps do this (Pro Tools, Sonar, etc.). I have a feeling Vegas 3.0 will be there, too. (Please?)

Rob

edna6284 wrote on 6/19/2001, 2:55 PM

"Ducking" is reducing the volume of background material to allow foreground material to dominate (usually vocals).

You can send your output to another buss, then add the effect to your buss, not the track, to get a 100% wet effect.

pelvis wrote on 6/19/2001, 8:49 PM

a concept to chew on: what if you could auto-create envelopes (2 nodes at a user-specified distance from each event edge, for all events on a track) and then copy those points to other tracks - wouldn't this take away most of the tedium and allow for much easier duck/mixing? The biggest mixing hassle (for me) is creating the envelope points- mixing is the fun part (for me).