Thanks, that's probally easier than answering the question.
I spent about 4 hours today reading the manual and looking VERY hard at just about everythng I can to figure this out. Either I'm pretty slow, (a good possiblitty) or I'm having a mind block today. It seems this program is just not for me. In Premiere, I was way up and running in four hours. I've been editing about a year in Premiere and 8 years, 215 half hour episode, in linear.
And I can't figure out anything in this program. Zero just about.. well you get the ideal. Ahhh, I can't be that stupid can I? I want to make the program work for me, but it seems like the easiest things are very had to do.

Your Vegas should have come with a fold-out card for keystrokes to use for various functions including navigating about. Along the same timeline, you move from clip to clip (or "event" to "event") by hitting the left and right bracket keys.

For audio, you can create a separate audio meter for each audio track--the default on startup is only to show one meter in a master bus. You can also route audio signals & effects to separate busses which can be created as well.

If you've put up the money already but are frustrated by such a different interface, I would also suggest buying or borrowing the little brother of Vegas (called, don't laugh, Screenblast Movie Studio) because it has some good built-in tutorials, Flash based apparently, which literally walk you through many functions by highlighting the buttons, menus, tracks, etc., and moving a virtual mouse arrow in sequence. That's what introduced me to Vegas.

I hope you find a way to grok the fullness of Vegas since it has some stellar pro quality functions involving things like compositing, track motion, color correction and supersampling. Seems like all major NLEs follow the Avid paradigm for work sequence, whereas Vegas grew up from being a multitrack audio editor. I'm using Vegas on an indie feature because I don't have to leave the program to enhance my audio tracks.

I don't consider you stupid. Some people like the Vegas interface and find it intuitive even, (include me) others if they learned on Premiere for example need to unlearn how they did some things in that application.

I'm not sure what you mean by moving between clips on the timeline. In Vegas tracks are stacked one on top of the other. If you have two video tracks the top one normally obscure what's below it. This can easily be changed. One way, hover your cursor over the top of the track until it turns into a hand then grab and slowly drag down. This will reduce the opacity of that track allowing what's below to bleed through. You can also 'switch off' a track. Click on the funny looking icon that's a circle with a line through it. That "mutes" even a video track making it hidden.

If you mean how do you jump along any track just click where you want to be and Vegas jumps to that point. You can edit with or without the trimmer.

The key to quickly learning Vegas is understand events. An event is whatever you make it. You can split your source files into events. Just click on the timeline where you want a break, hit the "S" key on your keyboard and you now have two seperate events. Each can be acted on independently. For example you can drag and drop any filter and if you drop it on an "event" in only effects that event. That can be further enhanced with keyframes. Another thing to bone up on.

If you have a lot of tracks and want to move up and down, the arrows on the scroll bar at the extreme right do that. Clicking on the little square in the track header area will blow up the track as will clicking the keyboard up arrow. You can if you wish zoom in to a frame by frame level if you wish.

You may find the following useful. SPOT's site has tons of tutorials and examples as do the rest.


http://www.wideopenwest.com/%7Ewvg/tutorial-menu.htm

Thanks, you all helped. Things seem better, I'll work on it, sleep a bit and try again.

I like that "S" thing.
My goal, what brought me to Vegas, was that the Project Trimmer in Premiere was not working. From what I saw, I would really like to use Vegas for more than trimming a project.

After I import many clips to the timeline, could you suggest a way cut up and select the good and cut out and delete the bad, then trim the whole project?

I know about the Save As, copy and trim media with project, but how would you all go about cuttig up the clips? What system would you develope?

I noticed using the clip trimmer, you can highlight an area of the clip, then move it up to the timeline.
I could put the original clips on one track, use the clip trimmer to move the new "quality" clips up to a different track, then delete the original track and do the Save As thing.

I'd really like to hear your suggestions.
Thanks again,
Jon

The Matrix? Oh I get it, now your speaking a language I understand. Sure wish I had that pill today.

While some may think its a little unorthodox what I frequently do when first starting to work on a new project is play the source file through from the start and when I hit a section I think I'll delete/move or edit I hit the "S" to split it out. Then I may slide some "events" up on to the track above. So far I have just two video tracks. The main and the top one. You can then just push the section or sections around and do with them what you will never needing to use the trimmer at all. Once done, I play the whole thing again and do some futher editing. Its really a process of elimation method. If you haven't discovered it yet Vegas has a nifty feature that makes it very easy to grab a whole bunch of events from a selected point to the end. Its called 'select events to end' Right click on the timeline and everything from that point to the end is selected. You can even span multiple tracks, also apply switches that way. I find it a great time saver.

You stated:
"I'm having a hard time understanding this program."

Sorry...I thought I was answering the question.
I didn't mean to imply you were stupid either.
I thought you were asking for ways to learn how to better work with Vegas.

Here's a site with alot of links to various Vegas related sites.

http://www.blue7media.com/vegas/

M

Scubatv,
I'll make one other point that maybe you already know but it isn't stated above...you can drag the edge of the clips vice spliting and deleting or moving the remainder. This cuts down on the discarded pieces of your events (clips). You can also control drag to create slow-mo or speed up the clip (slow drag out, speed up drag in). You can do just about anything you want to that event while it's on the timeline. Hope this helps.
Randy

could you suggest a way cut up and select the good and cut out and delete the bad, then trim the whole project?

I use "Extract Good Clips" in Tsunami.

Everyone above here has had soem good ideas.

If you bought a physical copy of Vegas (not a download) then you should get a tutorial book. It's quite useful, and about 80% of the "how do i" questions on the forum can be answered there. It's the book with the serial number in it.

Another idea for you is to force yourself to use Vegas on a project without using any other NLE. I started using Premiere at work about 3 years ago. I bought Vegas for my personal use this year (as soon as i could pre-order the box version). Before I bought it though, Sonic Foundry had a free beta release. :) It took me a couple weeks, but I can now use Vegas better then Premiere!

I am not sure I can add more to what people have already said about the trimmer - other than I don't use it. But that is just the way I edit.

However you mention audio and the levels. I am guessing you mean in the mixer as it relates to actually mixing. I use Premiere still and I have never jumped up and down at the audio options in that program - however premiere never claimed to be a DAW so I can't complain that much. One of the things I do love in Premiere is the ability to mix real time and during output. Perhaps this is what you are looking for with VV - and for whatever reason VV does not do this. To me this was some strange oversite because the reason I ever looked at VV was because of its mixing potential. The fact it could edit picture was a bonus side. So - if you are trying to see the audio levels as you playback or PPT - forget it. You can't.

As for "in" and "out" points - you are correct that those are basic items for editing. VV is not your traditional edit program however. First obvious thing you see is lack of any "source" or "playback" window/side. There is only a "record" side and short of opening it all in the trimmer you can't really mark an "in" and an "out". ..and on the record side - forget about it. many disccusions have been had about both the trimmer and insert editing in these forums. The "S" key is easy but because it goes along with where your cursor is it isn't always exactly where you want it (or should I say - it isn't always where you think it is). Best bet is to zoom in on the timeline and find the exact place you want to cut into. You could also use the "F3" (back one frame) or "F9" (Forward one frame) keys and do it that way.

I have said this before about VV and that is it tries to sort of be a swiss army knife of NLE's. Premiere has always been a NLE is the "traditional" sense - people use it to edit mainly. Not do audio work and not do composite work and no create titles and so on. VV sort of fits into that mold of DIY where you, in theory, spend 1/4 of the money on one program that does it all. But I see that a lot of basic editing needs are left out of the program, and other things that seem to add a few extra steps. But that is just me - and that is why I still use Premiere as well as VV. I fully believe that people who are not used to editing either on tape or with other, more traditional NLE's, can pick up on VV a lot easier.

"First obvious thing you see is lack of any "source" or "playback" window/side."

Filmy, interesting perspective, but I don't agree . The Trimmer IS the source window, but much more besides.
A source window allows you to play through a clip and mark IN and OUT points. So does the Trimmer.
To make this process even easier, the Trimmer also shows you the audio waveform and thumbnails of the entire clip, and can be zoomed in or out of with the mouse wheel. It's often possible to select and pick up a selection without even playing it, by using the waveforms as a guide.

You can also create, name and save regions in the Trimmer, making them virtual subclips to be called on any time from Explorer. Next version we hope they'll also be storable as sub-clips in Media Pool bins.

I and O mark in and out points in the Trimmer, just as they do in Premiere. Highlight this selection and "A" adds it to the timeline.
Alternatively, hitting pause (Enter) before O automatically highlights the selection, ready for adding with "A".

Each track can be sent to a separate audio Bus if you want to visually monitor levels separately. And it is completely possible to monitor levels as you playback - the Print to Tape is a later step, once you've got the levels etc right.

I know it all comes down to the way you prefer to work, but I've found Vegas much faster to work with than Premiere.

What I see people using the trimmer for, and this is an overall feeling from many posts around here on the topic, is not so much using it as a "source" player but as a "logger". For me these are not the same - you log your shots first, than print circled takes so to speak, than start to edit. This is combining both film and tape - yeah I can put the tape in and log it and than go back and edit - really there is no other way. With film, on the set hopefully someone is doing circled takes and that is all that is printed. FIlm would be broken down shot by shot and hung on a bin. So with NLE seems the best of both worlds is to log the tape and capture the selects. You can batch capture with most NLE's, including VV, so this is not such a hard thing to do. Saves hard drive space as well. But I see many many people just take the full tape and start capturing and come back in an hour or so and "log" it via the trimmer window.

What I am talking about is the Tape > Computer software idea of having playback deck on the left and record deck on the right - at least the monitors anyway. Controller too for that matter. What the trimmer does is allow you to mark in and out points but it doesn't allow you to select what tracks you want to put them on - that would be the record side - which does not allow for this either. Other threads cover this more but with the Premiere to VV comparisions - Premiere lets you cue up both the source and record sides and mark in and outs. VV does not - because it doesn't really have source and record sides. Premiere also allows you to choose what track(s) you want to place the material on. That is all I was trying to say.

Audio wise - you said "And it is completely possible to monitor levels as you playback - the Print to Tape is a later step, once you've got the levels etc right."

But this wasn't what I was saying - yes while you playback, but not actually as you "mix" out to tape. Again - in the Premiere to VV comparsion - Premiere allows you to mix, and automate those mixes, both before and during output. VV does not. With VV you must manually mix, so to speak, by adding markers and envelopes and what not. You can't just sit there and record your every move, do a PTT and decide that you want to tweak it a bit here and there as it is outputting. I would suspect this has everything to do with the fact before audio will be sent down the firewire it must be converted/rendered to the W64 format. That would sort of would dissallow for any last minute changes without doing a full audio render again. Premiere does not have this issue however - I can, and have, dropped Mp3's along with different waves onto the timeline and output them all real time, with mixing, to tape.

I've found the trimmer is great for long clips (or, more accuratly, clips that i won't be using much of). I just play in the trimmer, when I get to what I in point, hit "[". When at the end, hit "]". Then hit "r" to make it a region. Double click on region and plop onto timeline.

When I first got VV, i didn't know the use of the trimmer. It didn't work like one in Premiere. Now I find the one in Premier annoying. :)

A note about the trimmer: If you enable the animate trimmer fames in the preferences, then it shows what the current frame is in the trimmer as one of the thumbnails. Pretty cool.

Yeah, filmy, I take your points but it does sound as though you'd like to continue using to the film editing metaphor as far as you can, even though the playing field has moved.

Having said that, the NLE way is much more akin to film editing than the linear A/B tape to tape method. I've edited 16mm film, and we're now back to the days when you can virtually "hang" all your selected clips/takes on pins in a bin.

The idea of mixing as you actually go out to tape was one of the things we used to have to do in the linear days, but there was no guarantee that you could replicate exactly the same if you had to repeat the edit.
Now we can have every aspect finished, locked in and saved.