I have tried to reproduce your problem. I cannot.

What I did:

- 4 audio tracks
- Bus A, B, C, D and the Master
- Bus A, B, and C routed to Bus D.
- Bus D routed to Master
-- Track 1: routed to bus A
-- Track 2: routed to bus B
-- Track 3: routed to bus C
-- Track 4: routed to bus D

Panning on all tracks - and busses - is followed and performs correctly. This is both using the PAN trim, and with Pan automation.

Note: If you have Pan automation and also have a PAN trim setting, you will not see true hard pans in either the Left or Right position. The Pan trim value is cooked with the pan automation value. It is used as an offset. If you want the automation to control the pan completely, then make sure the pan trim for the track/bus is set to center.

Perhaps you are doing something different. If so, please let me know how to reproduce the problem you are seeing.

Peter

Hi Peter,

Try this - Route the audio track to the master, pull down the volume on the audio track, then using a send, send signal to Buss A either post or pre.

You don't seen any panning on Buss A in this example. (Buss A is routed to master btw)

If you put an S1 on the same audio track, and pan using that - then the panning information is sent correctly.

In regards to 'proper' mix structure overhaul, here are a few glaringly issues.

1/ If you are in a surround session and you route an audio track to a surround buss, the surround panner on the audio track dis-appears.
2/ Soloing some busses on occasion solos another tracks randomly
3/ No 5.1 Aux busses, only stereo
4/ AAF import is broken. Never works on exports directly from Avid but works with exports from PT.
5/ Side-chaining (this appears in a lot of free software programs - its in Acid so why not Vegas?)
6/ Midi (this appears in a lot of free software programs - its in Acid so why not Vegas?)

If you can solve the problems/known fixes of the above that would be great.

Rick's two cents:

AAF import is broken. Never works on exports directly from Avid but works with exports from PT.
-- AAF import from Avid has always been broken! I have never been able to import AAF from Avids (or FCP for that matter via AutomaticDuck) Vegas does not support OMF either... another annoyance.

Side-chaining (this appears in a lot of free software programs
-- Though there are work-arounds, a serious deficiency for anyone doing anything more than very basic sound mixing.

Midi (this appears in a lot of free software programs - its in Acid so why not Vegas?)
-- I can live w/o MIDI . (But that's just my workflow)

Try this - Route the audio track to the master, pull down the volume on the audio track, then using a send, send signal to Buss A either post or pre.

You need to link the pan to the send.

Right click on the send's fader in the track.
Select "Link to Main Track Pan"

WRT your "overhaul":

1. I don't follow this. If the track is routed to the surround master, the track shows a surround panner. If the track is routed to a bus, then the track shows a stereo panner since the bus is a stereo destination.

2. I cannot reproduce this.

3. Has been requested. It will be discussed.

4. The AAF team is looking at thes issues.

5. ACID does not have Side Chaining either. It has been requested, and will be considered.

6. MIDI has been requested for a long time. It will also be considered.

Peter

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the pan send solution. How do we set this to the default track behavior?

In regards to the surround track output to a surround buss - all you need to do is send the output a surround audio track to a surround audio buss, as soon as you do the surround panner dis-appears only leaving you with stereo pan option. The expected behavior would be so the surround panner on the track remains being that we are working in surround.

Also, having native automatable pitch shifting is another massive hole that is missing from Vegas. It appears in Soundforge in one form.

Thanks for the pan send solution. How do we set this to the default track behavior?

You cannot set this as the default behavior. You should submit a feature request to get it into the queue.

In regards to the surround track output to a surround buss - all you need to do is send the output a surround audio track to a surround audio buss, as soon as you do the surround panner dis-appears only leaving you with stereo pan option. The expected behavior would be so the surround panner on the track remains being that we are working in surround.

Vegas has only one surround bus: the master. All sub busses added to a project is stereo, regardless if the project is surround. If the bus is routed to the master it exposes a surround panner, but it is not a surround bus. That is the busses number of input channels is always 2/stereo. Same exact behavior for audio tracks.

The destination of a source determines the pan: If a channel is routed to a stereo destination, then its panner is left/right. If a channel is routed to the surround bus, then its panner is surround.

The request for surround sub busses has been made, and we are aware of the request.

In general, you should submit all of your desired features as a formal feature request.

Peter

"Vegas has only one surround bus: the master. All sub busses added to a project is stereo, regardless if the project is surround. If the bus is routed to the master it exposes a surround panner, but it is not a surround bus. That is the busses number of input channels is always 2/stereo. Same exact behavior for audio tracks. "

- Obviously being unable to send surround panning information from an audio track unless it is *directly* routed to the master completely scuppers Vegas for any serious surround work. Do you know when this will be addressed as this is mission critical for us and, I imagine, many others who have chosen Vegas to work with on surround projects?

- Is there a special reason why, after being presented with a stereo panner when sending to a destination other than Master, that signal is always send to center channel, regardless of pan position from the audio track?


Many thanks

- Obviously being unable to send surround panning information from an audio track unless it is *directly* routed to the master completely scuppers Vegas for any serious surround work. Do you know when this will be addressed as this is mission critical for us and, I imagine, many others who have chosen Vegas to work with on surround projects?

Many a fine surround mix has been produced in Vegas, so whatever scupper means, the lack of surround subbusess has not prevented serioud surround work from being done by others.

Depends really on your source material and what you want to accomplish. I'd be very interested in the workflow/problem you have that surround subbusses would solve.

I also suggest you submit a feature request.

Sorry, we don't discuss plans for future releases.

- Is there a special reason why, after being presented with a stereo panner when sending to a destination other than Master, that signal is always send to center channel, regardless of pan position from the audio track?

The default center channel is always 0.0 db in the surround panner. No special reason. The pan for left/right is accounted for in the front/rear. Center is 'generated' from the incomming signal.

Adjust it and the pan law for the surround panner as you require.

Look up Audio Panning Modes in the online help for some insight.

Look up 5.1 Surround Panning and Mixing in the on line help for details on the surround panner.

Peter

The use of bus structure is, firstly, very important in the proper gain staging of various signals and processes. Also the sharing of busses among many channels is also very commonplace in mixing. Let me give you an example, let us say that we want to set up Bus A with a gentle compressor and some EQ. We also want these processes to be shared among many tracks so that they all work *into* the same compression and thus take on a homogeneous character.
This would be important, for example, if you wanted all the foley from 10 characters in the scene to hit the same compression. 10 audio tracks, 1 bus. Thats what busses are for.
Then we set up Bus B with a different set of processes and send some tracks to that. We do the same for Bus C through F and lastly set up Bus G with a multiband linear phase compressor as a premix that takes all of the outputs from our other busses and again, combines these in a process that glues them all together. Bus G is then routed to the master where, at the very most, there is a simple brick walled limiter ready to catch anything that may slip through the gain staging net and give us an over.
This is standard mixing practice.

I think it's a simple as this, every other DAW that supports surround mixing that I have used allows surround tracks to be created, surround panners either as standard or user selectable. So a surround track will output surround information, busses merely a summing tool with identical surround panning capabilities.

I totally understand the pan law attenuation values that are available. I just don't get why it's logical to expect any signal to hit the center channel if you are panned hard left or right.
Surely a better behavior would be to 'pan through' center as you sweep from left to right etc.
As you can tell by my description of mixing with busses, it is not an option for me to disable the center channel of a bus that I may well want to send signal to from a track that needs to have center information.

Ah yes, 'Scupper' - it's ye olde English:-

scupper2
vb (tr) Brit
1. Slang to overwhelm, ruin, or disable
2. (Transport / Nautical Terms) to sink (one's ship) deliberately

SonyPCH:
You need to link the pan to the send.

It would be useful if that facility were available to R-Click on the Bus send in the Mixing Console, not just in the Track header.

Mixing surround from sends, with main faders down, is ridiculous and cumbersome; hopefully this will be fixed soon.

[I]It would be useful if that facility were available to R-Click on the Bus send in the Mixing Console, not just in the Track header.[/i]

I noticed this was missing. I have entered an issue against it.

Peter

I have not followed Vegas v10 closely. Are surround VST plugins supported yet? That's on my personal list of 5.1 deficiencies.
Jesse

Are surround VST plugins supported yet?

No.

Peter