Multicamera Editing Audio Question

outrbanx wrote on 6/8/2008, 7:49 PM
I have searched for an answer, but to no avail. If I overlooked it, please point me in the right direction.

Even though I have had Vegas Pro 8 since its release, Today, I finally decided to use the feature I purchased it for - multicamera editing.

Everything was going great until it dawned on me that I seem to have no control over the mix of the audio tracks.

My project is a choral concert. The audio from cam A is from a set of x/y mics placed high in the air next to the cam to capture what the audience hears. Cam B has a small shotgun mic that I rarely use in post production. I also have a track recorded directly from the soundboard.

Normally, I create a mix from the soundboard and my own mics from cam A as the final track. The volume settings can vary from song to song. The problem is now that I have created this mutlicam track, all of the audio seems to be mixed equally.

Is there a way to seperate these three audio tracks back out as they were? Is there a way to control each independently in multicam editing?

Comments

jrazz wrote on 6/8/2008, 7:59 PM
Yes you can control the audio independently of the video in multicam. What I did at first was to make a MultiCam.veg copy of my original and then I would copy the audio from one veg to the multicam and that would leave my audio untouched.

Then, someone pointed out to me that I can exclude the audio in the multicam options. I do it that way now.

Tools-->Multicamera--> (make sure "Edit Multicamera Audio with Video" does not have a check next to it).

j razz
outrbanx wrote on 6/8/2008, 8:09 PM
Thanks, J.

I do have that unchecked, as I did not want to choose the audio exclusively from the cam I was using as a take.

The problem is that all three of my audio tracks were combined into a single one when I clicked on "Create Multicam Track". Is that the normal way of doing it or have I set it up wrong?

I suppose that my other option would be to simply add those tracks back to the timeline after I finish the edit, mute the multicam track and mix them properly from there. That seems counter-productive, though. :)
musicvid10 wrote on 6/8/2008, 9:21 PM
I copy all the audio tracks to new ones first and don't use the multicam audio, I just mute it. It's a not-very-useful feature, as far as I am concerned. Then I mix the copied tracks to my satisfaction.
Mahesh wrote on 6/9/2008, 12:59 AM
Deselect all audio tracks before choosing 'multicam'. Vegas will only combine video for multicam.
outrbanx wrote on 6/9/2008, 8:36 AM
Hi Mahesh,

I did try that at first, but the option for "create multicam track" was grayed out until I selected all (Ctrl+A) . Perhaps I didn't do something correctly. If that is the case, it's good to know for next time.

Since I am already 100 minutes into what looks to be a 180 minute project, I guess I will have to bring in the original audio tracks and re-synch them before I start to edit sections out.

Beyond the audio issue, I do LOVE this multicam editing feature. I should have been doing this all along! Probably would have saved me a whole lot of time.

Thanks for all of your help! :)
baysidebas wrote on 6/9/2008, 8:45 AM
I only select the video tracks when creating a multicam track (CTL-click on the track headers) and that has always left the audio tracks alone. When you did a CTL-A you in fact selected all the video AND audio tracks.
boggaf05 wrote on 6/9/2008, 7:06 PM
When I use the multicam edit with audio from the cameras, my first step is to right-click on each video track, then go to group and click remove from group, this will seperate the audio from the video that vegas automatically groups together. After doing this you can create your multicam edit and edit the audio independently from the new video track.
auggybendoggy wrote on 6/10/2008, 7:24 PM
how is the multi cam editing in Vegas?
My last job I did 2 cameras off the timeline and used a composite envelope to swtich between the two tracks.

Is Multicam easy to use? Is it confusing? Did it help you?

Aug
baysidebas wrote on 6/11/2008, 4:35 AM
It's helped me a lot, even though I own Excalibur and have used it before with good success, I find the new multicam easier to use for my basic interview editing needs. Excalibur still provides a vast arsenal of options and there's room for both these tools in my toolbox.

What I did with the new multicam was to setup a Contour Shuttle Pro V2 specifically for multicam editing and my workflow now flies along.