I'm rendering from the original transfered .avi. I have 2 video cameras both recording the same time line, but from 2 different locations. One camera, that was close to the source, the sound is too distorted to use. So I'm stuck with the mono sound of the camera that was about 150 ft away. I'm trying to make the built in mic, sound a bit better, because it was live music I was recording. I can acheive this, while listening. So I just tried to rerender to a new .avi using the same thing I just listened to. I only used the stereo mix meters to make sure the levels didn't approach anything closer than -1. Are you suggesting that I'm distorting the sound before it gets to that final mixer? I know I exaggerated the EQ settings, but it seemed to sound okay until the render. I guess I don't understand why it would sound okay and then render differently, if the only thing I do is press the render button. I should point out, in case it matters, I did accent the color of the .avi and did lots of fades.

Nothing you do to the video is going to make any difference. All this stuff doesn't happen in realtime anyway when it's rendering.

Save yourself a lot of time and just render the audio out to as a .wav file. You can drop that back onto the T/L or whatever, you will not loose sync.

Obviously I cannot be certain what's happening but I've been caught out by the EQ thing. Put the rendered file into a new project and have a look at the waveforms where you hear the bad bits, zoom in so you can see the 'waves' and enlarge the audio track so you can see clealry. If any of the waves have flatish tops it's been clipped.

Now take a note of the timecode where it's happened. Go back to the original project and say create a small region around that section. Now you can try a few adjustments to the thing, render out that bit, just as a wave file and check it out. With any of these problems best trick is to narrow things down gradually. Waiting an hour for a render just to find an audio problem will drive you NUTS real quick.

Bob.

I will try what you suggested. I thought maybe, there was something that happened that might be obvious to a seasoned user and even though I've been using Vegas 4.0 for about a year, I barely know what I'm doing. I thought I had enough RAM to get a real time audio playback, live. (I even shut down all the video windows while listening.) Evidently, I don't get a real playback. Although, I can play that timeline back, over and over again and it sounds fine, until I render it again. I wonder if it would be better if I ran the sound through and external analog EQ and then brought it back in, if it would work better that way? Anyway, thanks for your help. I'll give it a shot.

I think trying to go through external devices and back in again will be even more grief. Lots of the audio guys do it but they can typically run say 20 tracks with several FXs on each in realtime and record back in on another one withour the thing raising a sweat.

I'd seriously suggest you get to the bottom of this problem first. Going down a more complex path has never been a good way to solve what is probably a simple issue.

Even on a PIII 500 MHz machine you should be able to render out an unlimted number of tracks. You might not get RT playback and the render might take 10 times as long as the video but it still should be pristine audio.

Bob.