I know a lot of people want since decades to use side compression in Vegas Pro
Many times I requested side-chain capability starting with the audio-only Vegas 1. I have used a few compressors that did not need the host app to have side-chaining, I think the db audioware side-chain comp will work with no side-chain host app. They have a demo to try out. I recall trying out the Slim Slow Slider Side Chain Compressor many moons ago a but further recall it was erratic and did not sound good. It was free, if you can find it to try.
That said, I usually manually draw volume envelopes or use a multi-band compressor with automation envelopes on the comp's master fader and frequency band(s) that conflict with the VO's frequencies. I sometimes resort to using SloTools for music projects.
thank you, guys. in fact I tried today with FabFilter pro-c and it works quite well, it seems. there's a side chain option with a "in" and an "ext" cases to choose.
I re-tested the db audioware side-chain comp V2 . I put the side-chain 'db audioware' comp plug-in on both tracks and set the control track (narration) to 'Send' on the plug-in, and set the other track (music) to 'Receive'. To create a prefade scenario, I duplicated the narration track and moved it ahead by 30 frames or so and increased the release parameter. I did not assign the duplicate control track to the master. It also has high and low pass 'send' filters that can be used in or out or the side-chain mode.
Unfortunately in the db audioware side-chain comp, user presets cannot be saved (error message) and the default settings return when a project is reopened. This may be a limitation of the demo version. Fortunately, there are not a lot of settings to recreate, and files render OK.
Big things are on the horizon. Things that me, and many other people are around these forums, have been begging for since Magix acquired VEGAS. They have finally listened, and a synergy that will benefit all of their products is to come, as this press release hints at.
For those of us who are video and audio editors, Vegas Pro is a beauty and this is a part of its success; but urgently needs a review and updating of its audio system. Let's hope it doesn't disappoint with these changes to come.
I used to do all my audio editing outside of Vegas but have come to appreciate the advantage of editing multi-track audio while being able to see the all the musicians playing it from various angles. Makes a big difference in the synergy of the audio with the video cuts. I'm hoping Vegas keeps advancing it's internal audio resolution so I can do more with its mixes.
Of those mentioned above, the most current ones are Vegasaur and HOS that use ffmpeg to automatically analyze the silence in audio events even when there are no empty gaps between the audio events.
Only the official developers have never been interested in creating this feature and I honestly don't have hopes that one day they will create this option natively in VEGAS.
Side-chaining has been wildly used since the early days of analog outboard gear, why Vegas never supported this is beyond me .. but likely the devs are not audio folks. I recall the days of Sound Forge 3, where the dynamics parameters had non-traditional audio names.
Been playing around with Wave Hammer Surround side-chain compression. Found some old camera and audio clips to experiment with on my laptop hard drive. I was able to get it going in stereo but the process was totally nutty. Duping tracks and having to edit them in tandem is a mess. So I tried just doing it as a surround project and that's much better... no track duping or extra buses. I haven't actually ever done surround before or have it happening on my laptop. I'm just using it to get Wave Hammer routing to operate on more than 2 mono channels while monitoring and rendering stereo. I really don't know what I'm doing but it seems to work. Here's how I panned a voice track plus stereo piano with setup of compression and routing...
Also mocked up my usual stereo setup without side-chain. The 2nd WaveHammer instance above is the same as below. Liked the stereo sound better. But I've only been able to listen with my laptop speaker and earbuds for now.