I FINALLY get it with Vegas

Cliff Etzel wrote on 6/12/2007, 9:44 AM

I made myself edit a self assigned Video project on a local professional singer who sings both Opera and Jazz.

Project link here

I figured if I was going to finally determine if Vegas had what it takes for me to edit a project in short time as a self contained Solo Video Journalist (I edited this piece in only a few hours).

Well, needless to say, I finally got what everyone else is saying about Vegas. I found my workflow was more efficient - I was able to literally tweak and edit this piece for my portfolio in what I term record time.

I do have a specific issue that maybe someone can help me with. I found that their was a fair amount of hiss with the audio and could not find a way to reduce it in either Vegas or Sound Forge 9 - Does anyone have a solution for reducing hiss in audio???

All I can say is Vegas proved itself to me first hand in a self imposed deadline.

I can't wait for Vegas 64 bit later this year...

Cliff Etzel
bluprojekt

Comments

RalphM wrote on 6/12/2007, 10:27 AM

I could not hear any hissing on the download - there is a fair amount of sibilance (SSSSSes) in her speech.

Sound Forge has a de-esser. Choose Effects >Dynamics> Multiband Dynamics and select the preset for Reduce Loud Sibilance.

rjkrash wrote on 6/12/2007, 11:52 AM

I too didn't hear much if any hiss but I think I heard some rumble like air conditioning or wind.

I liked the overall piece but I'd suggest a attempt at controlling the background noise more, it was distracting at times. Some of it could have been minimized with judicious use of noise reduction.

Soundforge 9 has Sony Noise Reduction FX bundled in. Pretty easy to use. And works well too.

also Check out Voxengo REDUNOISE for a more complex but very effective product.

Cliff Etzel wrote on 6/12/2007, 2:35 PM

The thumping was ironic since it was her oldest daughter coming home to make lunch - she wasn't suppose to be there and I didn't catch the thumping til after the fact. I tried using noise reduction with Sound Forge 9 but couldn't get it to work - I have to admit Adobe Audition is a better tool from what I can see for cleaning up audio - but it may be that I'm just not use to Sound Forge yet.

I would like to be able to remove those thuds in Sound Forge since I made myself do this complete project in SONY apps only as a test. If I can get a handle on how this noise reduction plug in works in Sound Forge - I have a feeling my Adobe Video Collection Professional suite will be going up for sale.. ;-)

John_Cline wrote on 6/12/2007, 2:53 PM

Of all of the noise reduction software I have used, which includes pretty much all of them, I found that the Sony Noise Reduction plug-in is the best in terms of audio quality and lack of artifacts. Just make sure to use Mode 3.

I was all excited about Waves new Z-Noise plugin, but it didn't work nearly as well as Sony's.

John

busterkeaton wrote on 6/12/2007, 3:42 PM

I think if you had come to this forum when you first started with Sony Vegas, you would have saved yourself a bunch of time

Here's a Noise Reduction demo from our local audio guru
http://postproduction.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=25455

Cliff Etzel wrote on 6/13/2007, 1:26 PM

Thanks John for the info on which mode to use.

I had some mentors/colleagues review the video and give their critiques. The consensus was I need to tighten up the project so went back into Vegas and whittled down the project by almost 2 minutes - I understand what they were talking about - it is a more refined finished project and I'm really beginning to like how Vegas performs.

To be honest - I was afraid to ever do all my post production on a full project in SONY's apps - I just felt they didn't perform near as well - until I completed this project. This is my editing suite from now on - it may not have all the bells and whistles of the other NLE apps (plugin's, etc) but it makes up for it by being ultra stable and I don't need a bunch of special effects stuff for the style of shooting I do.

As a solo Video journalist, the mantra is "Less is More" - SONY's apps provide a level of finishing that can't be found in other apps and I have tested them all. As many have pointed out - it runs on just about anything that will run Windows, so I can run this on my Dell D400 single core laptop for field editing or my beige box AMD dual core x64 XP Pro desktop workstation.

Vegas just works.

Cliff Etzel
bluprojekt

Grazie wrote on 6/13/2007, 1:49 PM

"Less is More"

Heard that before now!!

. .and your other one ..

Vegas just works.

. . yup! That one too!

Laurence wrote on 6/13/2007, 3:22 PM

I've been working with some guys lately who are using the latest generations of the Apple Powerbook Pro and full blown FCP. We're shooting in HDV, but capturing as SD widescreen using the in camera downrez because "it takes to long to render all the transitions". It blew me away because working with Vegas at 1080i resolution on my old laptop that is maybe half as powerful is actually faster than their state of the art Apple workflow! Who'd have thunk!?

Cliff Etzel wrote on 6/13/2007, 5:17 PM

I'm subscribed to a Yahoo Newsgroup that discusses Newspaper video and the latest banter is how video and audio go out of synch for no apparent reason in FCP when rendered out, and no solution has yet to be found. The irony ist, these shooters swear by FCP as the biggest thing since sliced bread - if it were me, I would be swearing at it.

And yet, I NEVER hear of this kind of issue with Vegas.

Cliff Etzel
bluprojekt

rmack350 wrote on 6/13/2007, 5:39 PM

On the thumping, it seems to me I've heard people say that the Wave Hammer tool in Sound Forge is the right tool for this job.

Noise reduction is usually better suited for constant things like hiss, rumble, that sort of thing.

Rob Mack

LSHorwitz wrote on 6/13/2007, 10:10 PM

Final Cut Studio HD on the superfast Quad Xeon MacPro 3.0 desktop is really a slug when it comes to rendering. I was totally turned off by the poor performance.

Since I sold both the MacPro and the software a couple months ago, Apple has since released a new FCP major version upgrade as well as an 8 core MacPro. I'm guessing this will be a huge improvement, but I don't expect to buy back into the Apple solution any time soon based on prior frustrations.

Larry