That's great to know - the guy (who works part-time at this store) must be on comission as he has told me about several other items he says I need that I've gotten along perfectly well without. thanks a million.

Or, he was thinking of Premiere. ;-)

Mario

Or this guy comes from GrannySmith Land and got the "usual" combo from this planet to make "decent things":
FCP + (ProTools or Digital Performer; you choose).
Ouch! How many bucks did you say?

And HE thinks the rest of the world's the same way... ¦ )

Either Excalibur or Tsunami will automatically fade your voice track in and out all at one time at I believe a 12db cut.

JJK

That would be Excalibur (just click on the Excalibur link on this page - there's also links for Tsunami, Neon, and the Newsletter)

Thanks - will check it out.

I say, if your new to this, don't bother with all that other stuff. You can do all this with Vegas. Just be patient and in a few weeks everything will make sense. You just need to get use to the program for a little while and suddenly your mind will just open up and it becomes easier. Don't confuse yourself with these other things that are suppose to make it simple. Vegas really is pretty simple until you really want to get complicated.

The place where I bought Vegas said I would need [other] software

Don't ever go to that place again. ;-)

Rob

Here's a simple answer. On your audio tracks, right click on one track at a time, so that it becomes darker. Then go to the 'Insert' tab and then 'Audio envelope' and click on Volume. This will add a blue line right down the center of the track. Move that line up, volume goes up, Move it down, etc. Do that with each track and then you can add 'Points' to the line and change the volume exactly where you want. It can be sudden or slow. You'll get it quick.

Hi Gr8steve - your message of encouragement means a lot - believe me, more than you know. Some days I feel like I just want to throw in the towel. Especially when I hear about people who are using a different software and they think I made a big mistake with Vegas as they have all manner of on-line tutorials and support materials.
I looked in the Vegas (online) manual for something I wanted explained yesterday and when it got to the crucial part of the explantion, it said to look it up on the online Help menu. Yuk. This forum has save my a __, several times now - at least we have that. I look forward to the day when I feel enlightened! thanks again.

Ritht on!!

The reason Vegas doesn't have a vast library of 'support' material is mostly you don't need it. Getting the job done in Vegas is an order of magnitude easier than in any other NLE.
I've watched guys work with Avid and FCP systems and it's just PAINFULL!
I'm not saying that for many things Vegas is more capable, sure we don't have nice widgets like Livetype but do you really need all that stuff cluttering up your brain and workspace?
The basic editing functionality in Vegas is total intuitive. For the more tricky stuff sample project files are a great way to see how it's done.

Bob.

I wonder if Sony realizes what a precious resource they have with this forum. I find Vegas pretty intuitive, but there are still the occasional things that throw me. This forum is full of knowledgeable people who take the time to respond quickly and thoroughly of their own free will and generousity. This is what on-line help should be!

Thanks again to everyone who contributes.

-Jayson

yes, the response time with the forum is truly amazing. i am sometimes so pressed for time that it takes a while for ME just to check responses and/or reply, but everyone's time is valuable and they always seem to magically be there to help out. without the forum, I would have lost a lot of hours just looking stuff up - and I can't say enough about all the words of encouragement that anyone completely new to editing likes to hear from experienced Vegas users now and then.
Many of the solutions I read, for other users questions are way above my head and level of technical knowledge, and that's when I start to think that Vegas must be really complex to learn, but then the answers to my pretty basic questions come pouring in and I think that I will just learn this one step at a time, and that no matter how high everyone else's level is at, there will always be something new to learn. Keep those cards and letters coming - and happy editing days to everyone in the forum.
lilia

And if you're short of time but have some dollars and a bit more space than me hook up an external control surface and mix the thing in real time. Automation will write the points into the tracks for you, take your finger off the faders and they'll move to track the envelope settings. You can even use the faders to fade video tracks up and down.
Bet the guy in the shop didn't suggest a control surface as an optional extra but I tell you that'll blow all your friends away who question the wisdom of your choice in NLEs!
Actually I'm kind of surprised it's only the audio guys who got excited about this.

Bob.

Hi Lilia,

Something I do to greatly simplify the process of mixing voice-over to music is:

1) Place the voice-over on one audio track. It should be recorded at full volume.

2) Place the music on another track.

3) Use the track volume control to turn the volume on the music track down, somewhere between 7 and 14 dB.

4) On the Master Track bus, assign the "Track Compressor" to the Plug In chain.

5) On the Track Compressor, set the "Threshold" to between -10 and -15 dB

6) Set the "Amount" control to around "8" the "Attack" to around 15 ms and the "Release" to about 250.

7) Experiment with these settings, as well as the track volume controls to find your optimum settings -- These will vary depending on source material and individual tastes.

This causes the track compressor to bring the music back up to full volume whenever the voice-over is silent. Whenever the voice-over is present, the music will be forced to "Duck" under the voice. When properly set up you will get a very professional sounding mixing job.

On my demo site, several of the samples have been processed in this manner:


Travis
Travis Voice Services www.Announcing.biz

This causes the track compressor to bring the music back up to full volume whenever the voice-over is silent. Whenever the voice-over is present, the music will be forced to "Duck" under the voice.

Woah! Is side chaining a V5 feature? I still have V4 and unless I'm missing something (myself and many other audio guys hope I am) the above procedure will simply trigger the compressor's threshold by both tracks in the Master buss and compress both tracks.

Real side chaining (ducking) allows one track to trigger the threshold while applying the effect to another track, I can't see how this happens unless I'm missing something or this is a feature in V5 I'm not aware of.

I hope I'm wrong, please post more detail.

MJ

Hi MJ,

No "Side Chaining" is required... By keeping the music at a much lower volume than the voice-over in the overall mix (before the compressor), the compressor will then turn the audio volume up during the quieter portions with just low volume music, then, when the higher volume voice-over starts, the compressor will turn the entire audio track down.

Because we humans also have a built in "compressor" in our ears, if an audio compression system is well designed (which the Vegas compressor seems to be) the listener will not notice this process occuring. Radio stations have been using this type of system since the early 50's to to help the DJs mix thier voice with the music.

Travis ( www.Announcing.biz )

Been experimenting with Travis' method and can't really get it working so far.

Am I right to assume that I will need auto gain compensation turned on for this to work?

Also as I've already got compression on the voiceover track, the compression of the master bus track seems to be taking the voiceover compression over the top.

Any advice or sample settings from people using this method would be greatly appreciated.

The "FORCE" is strong in this forum...

I love the way everyone "GANGTACKLES" the questions. OUTSTANDING! Response time is lightening fast!

Skywatcher

Note, Travis's method is applying the compressor to the entire mix of the voice and music as he previously mentioned and not to the individual tracks as what would be done with a side-chaining compressor. I think this point was overlooked when he first described it. If I'm fully understanding his method, then for this method you would not turn auto-compensation on. Infact you need to make sure it's off. The basic function of a compressor is to turn things down, when the level of the audio exceeds the threshold value. So when the Voice and music are playing together, the voice being nearly 10dB louder than music, the level of the voice will exceed the threshold value of the compressor and therefore the compressor will turn down, the mix of the music and voice......thus your music gets lower in level. When the music is playing by itself, then the compressor threshold is not being exceeded, therefore the music does not get turned down, thus it is louder in level when the voice is not present.

Last week I had to produce very quickly 5 CDs which included voice over music for theatrical performances. I had just shelled out the money for Vasst's Ultimate-S plug-in for Vegas, which includes a component for setting voice-overs into music automatically.

It did the job beautifully, saving me much time and grief - I have done this manually in Vegas in the past. The plug-in's default of -12 dB for the music under voice worked perfectly across a range of music styles, but I tweaked the in and out curves a bit. Just for info ...