I second that! You are hired my friend...
Here are my suggestion for Vegas 5...
Some of these suggestions are pretty standard but some of them are not.
Mostly what i do is music recording/mixing as well as sound design and im always striving for creative ways of manipulating audio and personally i think that the DAW of the future is the CREATIVE daw and not just a workhorse so my suggestions will be in that direction.
I will be disregarding the tecnical implications and simply write down the "ideas i have in my head" while working .
In no particular order.....
Buss to Buss routing...
Buss to FX routing...!
Inverse Buss Volume Linking....Well , maybe very specific to my needs but i would like to be able to link two or more busses where one is the master and when i raise the master the other busses in the group will lower their volume respectivly.
Excellent for dynamic manipulation and very useful when it comes to working on choruses and such.
Change order of busses...often the busses get created on the run so being able to tidy up a bit would be nice, especially important for the automation/volume envelope window.
minimize all tracks in the automation window..
Ability to group busses, i know you can for as long as you have them selected but i mean groups that stick, or even somthing similar to VCA groups where the Group is represented by one slider that will move all the other ones !?!?I.e Folder Busses where you could zoom out so to speak and have one visible slider that controls the Busses.
Ability to group tracks and make it stick and maybe a small window where you can select the groups and their attributes.
Sidechaining for the purpose of ducking/compressing a section when another section reaches a certain threshold, can be done with volume envelopes to acertain extent but there´s an obvious sound difference when you could use a compressor.
Internal routing where you could assign the output of any audio application you are using into Vegas a la "Virtual audio cable"
Ability to record/route "what you hear" into tracks in Vegas, as i often solo a few tracks,send them to a buss, set up a filter on the buss and play with it and record the output.
Often when im on a science session and creating stuff i like to set up a few bussess loaded with fx and switch between them and record the output
Could be done via automation and render to new track but it is different (try it!)
Control surface...Long overdue.
Play meters...Contrary to some statements made on this board you will not hear minor clipping and i like to know that my audio is safe.
Freeze FX...nice EH?
Tempo track....Where you could change tempo in the middlesection or whatever.
tempo Sync on Fx would be nice but its workable as it is.
Mono Button on master...loads of TV work done in vegas and therefore an essential function.
Rewire...for sure..
Reverse Event.
Remove Silence from project.
Better/quicker access to the tempo as well as an tempo indicator.
Ability to select between several programs when "open in editor"
A solo function where muted track will mute their input to FX.
Being able to view more then one plug-in at a time.
Higher resolution on the grid spacing 32nd note triplets isnt enough ...
Import projects from ACID, not being able to do that is just plain silly .
Ability to export track by track where you have the ability to include Envelopes or not as well as being able to export FX as seperate track and being able to render per buss etc...
Working with a long selection of volume curves is cumbersome at best as the envelope edit tool depends on you making a selection which will mess up your current time selection that you might be playing, maybe i dont get this tool but this is how it looks to me.
Ability to use sine /cosine/saw envelopes which would snap to grid i.e they would be in tempo and you could select the snap value or "speed" of the envelope.Could simply work as an LFO to pan LFO to Volume Etc.
Better access to the timestretching and pitch change dialogs , its annoying to always having to open this dialog, close , listen, open again etc.
Just give us a + for pich up and a - for pitch down.
Folder tracks ...Where you could fold down a number of tracks to free up work space.Add the ability to "freeze" the folder tracks so a user would be able to edit a folder track like one track even though it would contain a number of tracks.
A bitch to program im sure but lovely to work with..
A playlist ...where you could try out alternative methods of arrangement at a glance.And then rearrange to playlist if you decide its good.
Working on a full tune where the tune has yet to be arranged is hard to do properly in Vegas and this would help, as moving big sections is not too good.
Being able to insert a blank section in the middle of a project for the purpose of pasting a new section would be nice ...maybe it can be done but i havent found it.?
Quantise...This could be done in the tried and tested Cubase way or even in the Vegas way which could be that the groove would actually be apparent on the GRID...now that would be lovely.(i.e you would actually space the grid lines according to the groove)..Otions /Ruler Format /Groove...yep ..nice!
Some sort of beat detective where you could open a audio clip and set markers to transients (a la Recycle) the split according to markers and then being able to groove quantise from the created markers as well as being able to extract the groove of a clip and apply it to the project.
Then i would like to propose a new way ( i think ) of timestretching where you could after splitting a audio clip with the beat detective, timestretch individual chunks.(Manually or used to force the beat into the new groove.)
This you would do by moving the markers within the audio clip and stretch accordingly.
Its hard to explain but it would look like this (where the * represents a marker)
(Before)*boom*tsss*boom*tsss* and then you could open in the trimmer and drag the markers like this
(After) *bom*ts*booooooom*tsssssss*...get it!?
This feature could be used in conjunction with the beat detective and groove quantise where you could choose between this method of groove quantising and the method where the chunks are split and moved to fit the groove.
In addition to this i would like to see a function that allows you to select a portion of a sound file and "Split to grid" especially if the grid is now set to a groove, this would be useful for non tempo related material where the beats slicer would be of no help.
Also the groove quantise would have to be able to work on "Start of audio event" or "Snap Offset" as well as the "embedded groove markers"
Maybe a "rearrange" function/toy where you could randomly rearrange the events you select.
Drum Replacer...Now this would be killer stuff if implemented as im sure Sofo could come up with a great way of doing this.Should be easy to implement as soon as the transient detector is working for the groove functions,.
OR....
Open up some drums in the trimmer and there you would find an "volume envelope" similar to the one inherent to all audio events except that this envelope would be a threshold.... dragged from the top down until the transients exceed the "threshold" and voila you have a trigger for drum
replacement.
I would like to see a function where you could math timing between two seperate channels (similar to Vocalign) for the purpose of fixing timing between two vocalists or for having fun!?
"Create takes from markers"
Dragging several file from the explorer and adding as one take is an brilliant function but it could need some improvement.
I would like to be able to drag a 2 min recording that was recorded as a loop and therefore was several takes in to the project as several takes again, should be easy to do as the markers are there.
Ability to select a number of audio chunks (lets say snare hits) and open up the media pool and replace these *selected" events with new sounds.
This can be done at the moment but it replaces every sound in the same event.Take this a bit further and allow a user to replace a sound with multiple sounds that would now act as takes.
Or even further where you could select a number of events , media pool replace and select a number of new audio bits and they would randomly or according to some rules replace the old ones.
Logical editor of some sorts..Where you could say select all of your replaced snare hits and vary the velocities randomly within set boundaries, this would be a huge timesaver and essential to successfull drum replacement.
The logical editor should be able to do simple tasks like "remove all events shorter then X"that would help with all the tiny events left all over the place when cutting and moving big sections around.
I have literally spent hours getting rid of these click inducing bastards:)
It could be a fun toy as well..."reverse all events" according to a set criteria.
Maybe this logical editor could extract info from the Drum replacer ??
i.e it could use the triggers made by the drum replacer to do something else ??Like....Convert trigger to volume envelope ?? where you could make the bass duck a bit on every kik drum.
All i have time to write down at the moment but i will be writing another lengthy post like this when i get the time.
I´ll be adding to this post below when new suggestions come to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Half time recording.
Also...
I have managed to find interesting variations on a tune by messing with the speed, please allow "render all tracks at new speed" as there is no practical way to go " yep thats it will do it in this tempo"
A Semitone/cent indicator on the "Speed" indicator.
I would also like to elaborate on the folder tracks.
A lot of the time when mixing i like to just bounce the drums down and work from there.
At that point in time i would like to be able to put my original drums into a folder and mute.....but i can still get to them and change something if i feel like it.Using busses on the originals could be a problem unless they pack away into the folder track as well when you actually mute the folder track.
Very often when bouncing i i need the work space and im tempted to throw the originals away or make a new save and decide i can always get them from the old save if i need to change anything but thats not too good.
So folder tracks could be tracks that are active as well as folder tracks that dont even have to be in the arrange window and are just kept on the side.
mute/bounce folders where you are just keeping them around for safekeeping!
Active folders wher you just want to take them out of sight for a moment.
Here are my suggestion for Vegas 5...
Some of these suggestions are pretty standard but some of them are not.
Mostly what i do is music recording/mixing as well as sound design and im always striving for creative ways of manipulating audio and personally i think that the DAW of the future is the CREATIVE daw and not just a workhorse so my suggestions will be in that direction.
I will be disregarding the tecnical implications and simply write down the "ideas i have in my head" while working .
In no particular order.....
Buss to Buss routing...
Buss to FX routing...!
Inverse Buss Volume Linking....Well , maybe very specific to my needs but i would like to be able to link two or more busses where one is the master and when i raise the master the other busses in the group will lower their volume respectivly.
Excellent for dynamic manipulation and very useful when it comes to working on choruses and such.
Change order of busses...often the busses get created on the run so being able to tidy up a bit would be nice, especially important for the automation/volume envelope window.
minimize all tracks in the automation window..
Ability to group busses, i know you can for as long as you have them selected but i mean groups that stick, or even somthing similar to VCA groups where the Group is represented by one slider that will move all the other ones !?!?I.e Folder Busses where you could zoom out so to speak and have one visible slider that controls the Busses.
Ability to group tracks and make it stick and maybe a small window where you can select the groups and their attributes.
Sidechaining for the purpose of ducking/compressing a section when another section reaches a certain threshold, can be done with volume envelopes to acertain extent but there´s an obvious sound difference when you could use a compressor.
Internal routing where you could assign the output of any audio application you are using into Vegas a la "Virtual audio cable"
Ability to record/route "what you hear" into tracks in Vegas, as i often solo a few tracks,send them to a buss, set up a filter on the buss and play with it and record the output.
Often when im on a science session and creating stuff i like to set up a few bussess loaded with fx and switch between them and record the output
Could be done via automation and render to new track but it is different (try it!)
Control surface...Long overdue.
Play meters...Contrary to some statements made on this board you will not hear minor clipping and i like to know that my audio is safe.
Freeze FX...nice EH?
Tempo track....Where you could change tempo in the middlesection or whatever.
tempo Sync on Fx would be nice but its workable as it is.
Mono Button on master...loads of TV work done in vegas and therefore an essential function.
Rewire...for sure..
Reverse Event.
Remove Silence from project.
Better/quicker access to the tempo as well as an tempo indicator.
Ability to select between several programs when "open in editor"
A solo function where muted track will mute their input to FX.
Being able to view more then one plug-in at a time.
Higher resolution on the grid spacing 32nd note triplets isnt enough ...
Import projects from ACID, not being able to do that is just plain silly .
Ability to export track by track where you have the ability to include Envelopes or not as well as being able to export FX as seperate track and being able to render per buss etc...
Working with a long selection of volume curves is cumbersome at best as the envelope edit tool depends on you making a selection which will mess up your current time selection that you might be playing, maybe i dont get this tool but this is how it looks to me.
Ability to use sine /cosine/saw envelopes which would snap to grid i.e they would be in tempo and you could select the snap value or "speed" of the envelope.Could simply work as an LFO to pan LFO to Volume Etc.
Better access to the timestretching and pitch change dialogs , its annoying to always having to open this dialog, close , listen, open again etc.
Just give us a + for pich up and a - for pitch down.
Folder tracks ...Where you could fold down a number of tracks to free up work space.Add the ability to "freeze" the folder tracks so a user would be able to edit a folder track like one track even though it would contain a number of tracks.
A bitch to program im sure but lovely to work with..
A playlist ...where you could try out alternative methods of arrangement at a glance.And then rearrange to playlist if you decide its good.
Working on a full tune where the tune has yet to be arranged is hard to do properly in Vegas and this would help, as moving big sections is not too good.
Being able to insert a blank section in the middle of a project for the purpose of pasting a new section would be nice ...maybe it can be done but i havent found it.?
Quantise...This could be done in the tried and tested Cubase way or even in the Vegas way which could be that the groove would actually be apparent on the GRID...now that would be lovely.(i.e you would actually space the grid lines according to the groove)..Otions /Ruler Format /Groove...yep ..nice!
Some sort of beat detective where you could open a audio clip and set markers to transients (a la Recycle) the split according to markers and then being able to groove quantise from the created markers as well as being able to extract the groove of a clip and apply it to the project.
Then i would like to propose a new way ( i think ) of timestretching where you could after splitting a audio clip with the beat detective, timestretch individual chunks.(Manually or used to force the beat into the new groove.)
This you would do by moving the markers within the audio clip and stretch accordingly.
Its hard to explain but it would look like this (where the * represents a marker)
(Before)*boom*tsss*boom*tsss* and then you could open in the trimmer and drag the markers like this
(After) *bom*ts*booooooom*tsssssss*...get it!?
This feature could be used in conjunction with the beat detective and groove quantise where you could choose between this method of groove quantising and the method where the chunks are split and moved to fit the groove.
In addition to this i would like to see a function that allows you to select a portion of a sound file and "Split to grid" especially if the grid is now set to a groove, this would be useful for non tempo related material where the beats slicer would be of no help.
Also the groove quantise would have to be able to work on "Start of audio event" or "Snap Offset" as well as the "embedded groove markers"
Maybe a "rearrange" function/toy where you could randomly rearrange the events you select.
Drum Replacer...Now this would be killer stuff if implemented as im sure Sofo could come up with a great way of doing this.Should be easy to implement as soon as the transient detector is working for the groove functions,.
OR....
Open up some drums in the trimmer and there you would find an "volume envelope" similar to the one inherent to all audio events except that this envelope would be a threshold.... dragged from the top down until the transients exceed the "threshold" and voila you have a trigger for drum
replacement.
I would like to see a function where you could math timing between two seperate channels (similar to Vocalign) for the purpose of fixing timing between two vocalists or for having fun!?
"Create takes from markers"
Dragging several file from the explorer and adding as one take is an brilliant function but it could need some improvement.
I would like to be able to drag a 2 min recording that was recorded as a loop and therefore was several takes in to the project as several takes again, should be easy to do as the markers are there.
Ability to select a number of audio chunks (lets say snare hits) and open up the media pool and replace these *selected" events with new sounds.
This can be done at the moment but it replaces every sound in the same event.Take this a bit further and allow a user to replace a sound with multiple sounds that would now act as takes.
Or even further where you could select a number of events , media pool replace and select a number of new audio bits and they would randomly or according to some rules replace the old ones.
Logical editor of some sorts..Where you could say select all of your replaced snare hits and vary the velocities randomly within set boundaries, this would be a huge timesaver and essential to successfull drum replacement.
The logical editor should be able to do simple tasks like "remove all events shorter then X"that would help with all the tiny events left all over the place when cutting and moving big sections around.
I have literally spent hours getting rid of these click inducing bastards:)
It could be a fun toy as well..."reverse all events" according to a set criteria.
Maybe this logical editor could extract info from the Drum replacer ??
i.e it could use the triggers made by the drum replacer to do something else ??Like....Convert trigger to volume envelope ?? where you could make the bass duck a bit on every kik drum.
All i have time to write down at the moment but i will be writing another lengthy post like this when i get the time.
I´ll be adding to this post below when new suggestions come to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Half time recording.
Also...
I have managed to find interesting variations on a tune by messing with the speed, please allow "render all tracks at new speed" as there is no practical way to go " yep thats it will do it in this tempo"
A Semitone/cent indicator on the "Speed" indicator.
I would also like to elaborate on the folder tracks.
A lot of the time when mixing i like to just bounce the drums down and work from there.
At that point in time i would like to be able to put my original drums into a folder and mute.....but i can still get to them and change something if i feel like it.Using busses on the originals could be a problem unless they pack away into the folder track as well when you actually mute the folder track.
Very often when bouncing i i need the work space and im tempted to throw the originals away or make a new save and decide i can always get them from the old save if i need to change anything but thats not too good.
So folder tracks could be tracks that are active as well as folder tracks that dont even have to be in the arrange window and are just kept on the side.
mute/bounce folders where you are just keeping them around for safekeeping!
Active folders wher you just want to take them out of sight for a moment.