Good primer/FAQ for Vegas audio?

Jeff9329 wrote on 5/22/2008, 10:29 AM

What is a good basic training guide for Vegas audio?

I know a little (very little) and need to improve my skills now that my audio equipment is getting better.

I primarily do interviews and training/industrial stuff.

I am having more difficulty producing interesting and accurate audio for my motorsports endeauvers, i.e.; occasional loud motors.

Thanks.

Comments

JFJ wrote on 5/23/2008, 4:05 AM

I'm not sure 'vegas" audio is going to be your hurdle...i'd say it's audio basics that could use the focus.

I find Vegas is superb when working with audio, getting a mix for mastering, I started with it since vers 1.0 when it was born as an audiocentric app only. I still prefer it over my PTools 7.3/7.4 hands down. It's the many goofball clients that desire the PTools name basically, so that's why it's there.

*I use Vegas 6 for all audio only (tracking) and 7 for video.

The basics (before vegas) you should focus on is the recording and chain. A great mic to--->great preamp - ---> a nice rec device or a/d converters (could be a nice portable recorder or home studio setup of many types/budgets).
These are the basics, a mixer is nice (monitoring/routing/flexibility), but the pres, mic(s), and usage are the meat and potatos.

So I'd focus on 1-2 applicable mics for your work (condensors are probably what you need) , a nice preamp (usually not cheap for good ones) and a good signal chain (quality cabling and A/D interface) to the recording device.

The rest is practice with the above and getting to know vegas after you put it in to mix. There's lots of usable/musical plugins to finalize a mix (waves plugin suites, BT, PSP, etc.) and quite a bit of so-so/crappy plugs. I think it's better $ spent getting a quality suite of plugins rather than several+ cheapie/so-so ones personally.

Pre's: check out DAV systems, True systems, API, audient, Crane Song, a few Trident models (many more...etc.) for some nice pres.

But maybe even some simpler/affordable pres will do the job?
Like the RNP (nice, small, effective 2ch pre - http://www.fmraudio.com/RNP8380.htm). Maybe back it up with their lil compressor too (RNC: http://www.fmraudio.com/RNC1773.HTM).

Get good/great audio and levels in...and the rest is just easier.