Seperating Video & Audio - Is there a better way?

Sierra Nomad Photography wrote on 8/9/2009, 12:03 AM
I'm another new Vegas user. Had been using Media Studio Pro, but they abandoned the program and is not vista compatible.

Often I need to replace a clips audio with another clips in the same project/timeline.

I struggled a little in trying to figure out how to do this in Vegas, but came up with a way. It seems a little unwieldy and I was wondering if there is a better, cleaner way.

Here's my method: 1) mute the audio of the clip with poor sound. 2) a) Find a clip with good audio. b) Drag this into an empty track on the timeline. c) Hit the "mute" button on the track containing the unwanted video. d) drag the good audio to overlap muted audio referred to in step #1.

This seems to be getting the job done, but is a little cumbersome. There must be a better way?

Oh! And I'm using VP 8.

Thank you,

Jon

Comments

Grazie wrote on 8/9/2009, 12:34 AM
Very creative indeed! - What you are kinda doing is creating "Takes", audio takes of different versions. And yes, Vegas can do this for you.

1] Locate the Audio Media OR combined Video and Audio Media you want to use as the substitute.

2] RightButton(mouse)+Drag this onto the existing Audio Event on the Timeline, and release.

3] Choose from the Menu that pops-up want you want to do:

a) Add as Take to add as Take

. . or . .

b) Audio Only (this for combined Audio+Video) and Add as Take to add as Take

Done!

What you WILL have is a number 2 on the Audio Event indicating that you have 2 Takes - the original and the newly applied substitute. If you now select the Audio Event and hit the "T" key on your keyboard ("T"ake) you can cycle through Take 1 > Take 2 and so on. Often when I am wanting to compare various Takes of remedial audio I have sent through IzotopeRx I can audition all these Takes by just hitting the T-key.

Good question you've asked. Welcome aboard!

Grazie
farss wrote on 8/9/2009, 12:38 AM
After you've dragged down the good track you can check the Ignore Event Grouping icon and delete the unwanted vision, saves a track.
You can also use the mute envelope to mute vision or audio, it's a thin blue envelope at the top of the event.
Don't forget to uncheck the Ignore Event Grouping icon.

Bob.
Grazie wrote on 8/9/2009, 12:41 AM
Bob, I honed in on this: "Often I need to replace a clips audio with another clips in the same project/timeline."

I think we need to hear more from our chum?

Grazie
ritsmer wrote on 8/9/2009, 1:38 AM
Oh! And I'm using VP 8

Be sure you have V8.0c which is a very reliable and very stable version. The upgrade from earlier V8 versions is free and easy too.

Have fun.
farss wrote on 8/9/2009, 2:24 AM
Grazie, I honed in on how he was doing it currently.
Using Takes sure crossed my mind as well but I didn't mention them as they might not suit his current workflow.

That said there's so many ways to skin the cat with Vegas and none are right or wrong that all suggestions are valid. Our chum can try them all and use which one best fits what he's doing.


Personally I tend to use Takes only when the choices are between direct alternatives, say 4 Takes of an overdub. When they're wild options I like having different tracks so all the choices are visible.

Bob.
gwailo wrote on 8/9/2009, 4:13 AM
wow... I've been using Vegas for audio projects since version 3.

I had no idea you could do this

this is going to keep my dubbing sessions a lot more organised and speed them up a bit.

I've always looped, but sometimes I need to stop recording, this has has always created new clips for the same dubbed line. I just kept adding tracks before this and muting objects.

It's too bad you can't do this by picking up an event on the timeline itself, which is where the natural place would be, to pick up a newly recorded event.

Grazie mille Grazie
Grazie wrote on 8/9/2009, 5:22 AM
"It's too bad you can't do this by picking up an event on the timeline itself, . . "

If it IS on the timeline already then it has a corresponding presence in Project Media. If it is there then try the method of Rt+Drag from there too?

Grazie
farss wrote on 8/9/2009, 5:24 AM
"It's too bad you can't do this by picking up an event on the timeline itself, which is where the natural place would be, to pick up a newly recorded event."

Not entirely certain if I follow you here but you can do this.
Create a looped region. Arm new track for record, each time around the loop you create a new take. Great for ADR as the location sound and vision will playout. Use busses / mixer to create a mix for the talents cans. Might be good to add pips as leadin.

Bob.
Sierra Nomad Photography wrote on 8/9/2009, 6:24 AM
Obviously I came to the right place! Great input.

Bob's suggestion is most comfortable to me, as it matches closely with the way I am used to doing it.

Sure glad I asked. I appreciate everyone's input.

Jon

P.S. Oh, and I am using 8.0c
Guy Bruner wrote on 8/9/2009, 8:14 AM
Hi Jon. I see you found the expert's forum. I often do multi-track audio the way you describe in your first post. It would be nice if Vegas had a multi-audio track edit feature like there is for multi-cams. But, right now, I'd just settle for bug fixes.
gwailo wrote on 8/9/2009, 10:28 AM
@ Grazie

I meant, just picking up the extra clip on the timeline itself with the right click + drag and combining it with the last take on a different track or something.

I don't go anywhere near the project media list when I'm doing tracking.

The timeline - right click + drag already has - move here - copy here

... it would be great if they simply added the add as take option as well



@ Farss

I do ADR looping with pips and a streamer, to clarify, if I need to stop recording and talk to the talent, or let the director talk to the actor, it will create a new clip when I start recording again. So it would be cool to be able to merge the 2 clips together without digging into the project media list.

I'll probably still use this new method that you guys told me about. It's just a bummer that it requires more clicks than it should.

I will post this over in the audio forum to see if Peter likes the idea.
DaveM2 wrote on 8/9/2009, 11:21 AM
[i]"It's too bad you can't do this by picking up an event on the timeline itself, which is where the natural place would be, to pick up a newly recorded event."[i]

Pretty cool stuff. In experimenting, what I did to get timeline audio event1 as a take on timeline audio event2 is to rClick timeline audio event1 to the trimmer, then rClick + drag from trimmer onto timeline audio event2, and then choose the "add as take".

Maybe that is what someone already said.....
gwailo wrote on 8/9/2009, 12:09 PM
I think it's a little faster to right click and -> 'select in project media'
because then you can pick up the file right away

you don't need to select ctrl+a to get everything in the trimmer
DaveM2 wrote on 8/9/2009, 1:11 PM
Not quite following why you would have to do a ctrl A - but the thing I noticed in messing around with it is that rClicking and putting the event in the trimmer, if the event is actually just a portion of a larger clip, by having it in the trimmer you can select the IO area before adding the take to the timeline audio event and that way you get the exact start of the audio as it was on the timeline event that you choose it from, whereas if you go to project media, I can't seem to readily identify that specific IO area that was on the source audio clip that was on the timeline.

Guess I will have to play around with that a bit more.
Sierra Nomad Photography wrote on 8/9/2009, 4:52 PM
Hi:

Grazie: I shoot nature video; often several shots in the same location (i.e. meadow etc.) It isn't uncommon for some "non" natural sound to ruin the audio on an individual clip (voices, car, plane). Sometimes I'll retake the shot; but I always end up with some clips that need their audio replaced; and it is no problem because I have other clips with good audio that were taken in the same setting.

Guy: You're here too! I shouldn't be surprised. I didn't want to post this on camcorderUser.net because if someone else didn't have an answer I didn't want you to feel like you had to "hold my hand" since I got the software from you. Besides, everyone here uses Vegas.

I've learned some very helpful tips from the many suggestions here, and has answered another question I had. However, I do have another, and I'll start a new thread. Thanks again to everyone.

Jon
Soniclight wrote on 8/11/2009, 12:22 AM
Hmmm.... maybe I'm missing something here as far as this conversation, but I separate/remove/replace the audio from a clip when original audio is no longer desired in this simple way in VP8 -- no muting, etc. needed:
PeterWright wrote on 8/11/2009, 12:41 AM
>"It would be nice if Vegas had a multi-audio track edit feature like there is for multi-cams."

Not sure what you mean here Guy - Vegas is already very well set up for multi track audio, and there's one HUGE difference between multi-track audio and multi camera:

With video, the usual thing is to select one camera at a time, and as soon as one is selected it becomes "the only vision" at the expense of all other vision sources.

With audio of course you can hear every track at the same time, and the decisions involve how much of each track you want to hear, plus stereo positioning etc.
Dominated wrote on 8/11/2009, 4:38 AM
I may be getting your problem wrong and if so sorry but why not try and ungroup your bad audio from your video and delete it ...highlight the video or audio hit U and then discard it ...when the new audio is put in place do the same but hit G and group it back together..
Soniclight wrote on 8/11/2009, 6:37 PM
Yup, basically the same as my suggestion in posting above here -- though I didn't mention re-grouping the new audio to original vid clip :)
Guy Bruner wrote on 8/11/2009, 9:19 PM
Peter,
I understand about hearing all the audio track simultaneously. I often use that feature to align multiple video events. What I'm referring to is the ability to select audio takes like we can do with multicam...switching between audio events as we edit on the timeline. It's an enhancement, not an absolute necessity to what is already a robust NLE.