I'm hoping that Vegas 4 will have DX automation.

George Ware

If you just need eq changes at different points, then this is pretty easy by doing a cut of the section and moving it to another track with a seperate eq. If you need to do a sweep, then I use my digital mixing board, which is synced up to Vegas with SMPTE and makes this easily accomplishable, so therefore you're not totally "screwed" if you have outboard gear and know how to use it to it's full potential. For now it doesn't have this ability within Vegas, but will most likely be coming soon.

I need to mix to picture... and need gradual eq changes to move sounds around in the z axis. Unfortunately those aren't one-shot sounds, but continuous sounds. So I can't use the approach with multiple tracks.

Ok, this is a slightly long-winded approach, but it will let you record EQ changes.

1)Go to the following web page: http://www.ntonyx.com/vac.html and download the VAC3 demo. Install it.

2)Open your Vegas project.
3)create another mix bus,and assign it's output to new VAC output instead of your soundcard's out.
4)route the audio track you want to eq to this new mix bus using the fx send control.
5)create a blank audio track
6)on the new audio track, choose the VAC inputs as the record source.
7)open the eq plugin for the original audio track
8)hit record button; as the track plays, make your eq adjustments as required.

Basically this is what you are doing:

original track->EQ->VAC outs---->VAC ins->new vegas audio track

Because you are sending the Audio on VAC using the Aux send, you can still hear what you are doing with the eq on the master bus output, which should still be feeding your soundcard outs.
You can do as many takes as you want - it will no doubt take you a few practices to get it spot on! You can edit the best parts of each take together if needed.
Because you are using the VAC demo, you may get some delay on the recorded track - just use Vegas to line up the new audio with the old (easy!).
Obviously you can do stuff with delay/chourus/flange etc plugins.

hope this helps tide you over till Vegas 4.... :)

Once you have VAC installed, there are several other neat tricks you can pull off.

1) open a project in vegas
2) set up a new aux bus as described above (and assign it to VAC outs)
3) open another instance of vegas.
4) create a blank track and choose VAC as the record input.
5) here's the fun bit! - set the second vegas recording. Now anything you do in the first vegas will be recorded - try slowing down the playback speed, or reverse playback. Grabbing the scrub button and slowly adjusting the speed can be interesting (if you're bored!).
If you just want to bump the speed of a project up or down (the pitch WILL change though) this is the way to do it if you don't own Soundforge or equivilent.

Mike K

Great tip...!!!....thanks.