Vegas 5.0b using as Audio editor

willsherwood wrote on 12/25/2004, 5:05 PM
I apologize for the trivialness of some of these, but appreciate any help you can offer.

I had thought Vegas could be used to manipulate audio-only projects, this is my first audio-only attempt (i've done vegas video editing previously, and vegas is great!).
My intent is to "fix" a wrong musical note by cutting and pasting an instance of the same music from a repeated section. I have done this, perhaps not in the most efficient manner, but the following questions arose during my attempt:


1. I cannot get UNDO to work when i have ONLY audio tracks to edit (no video tracks).
Everything relating to UNDO is always greyed out.
(It works fine as soon as i *add a video track* , even tho the new video track is unused/blank; that's certainly an easy work-around, but I don't understand why needed for UNDO to work)

2. Cursor scrub with CTRL key pressed currently shows the speaker icon and then proceeds to accelerate (somewhat wildly) in the direction that the cursor is moved. I would like to find a way to have my mouse movement affect the cursor and resulting playback audio directly (i.e., not the 1st or 2nd derivative) to "rub" back and forth (much like in the old days with recording tape over the playheads) to hear the track, to find, for instance, an individual 10th of a second note attack or pop.
currently it's more like a jog shuttle that's on steroids.

3. I know how to incrementally move the *cursor* itself left and right using the arrow keys; however, how does one move (nudge is the photoshop term) a track content segment (event) incrementally? (I know how to move it using the cursor, but that is too coarse )

4. I see how to display mono track *only while recording* , but i cannot find an option to display audio tracks just as one track (doesn't matter which) in general for routine editing. Another thing would be to adjust the display amplitude (for soft passages), thus the vertical scale of the display is affected but *not* the actual audio.

5. When i render for Audio output formats, the gain is peaked out to the point of severe distortion; how can i select a 0dB output to match the seemingly correct levels in each channel.

6. Is there a way to set the "granularity" (resolution) of the vegas editor timebase for audio recording? It's currently editable at a frame by frame basis, i.e., i cannot set the cursor at a time point between frame boundaries.


thanks ever so much!
will

Comments

farss wrote on 12/25/2004, 7:12 PM
4. Right click, Channels Left/Right Only
5. Reduce each channel / track 6dB, a number of ways to do this, either master or track header.
6. In options turn off Quantize to Frames.

In general SF7 is a MUCH better tool for doing audio microsurgery. Took me a while to get used to it's minor differences compared to Vegas but the UI is optimised for the tasks it does. Has much better options like Snap to Zero Crossing that make what you're doing much easier without stuffing things up badly.
Bob.
willsherwood wrote on 12/26/2004, 7:47 AM
excellent, thanks very much for the information (and so quickly)! i'm using 4,6 immediately.


4. This is perfect for display and editing, might you know if i need to switch back all the events prior to rendering to get stereo output (i'm interested in the single channel just for display purposes, no need to see stereo, and it makes the amplitude larger)

5. (render output level) - I had tried both track header and master, and they have no effect for me for generating, for instance, .WAV output.

6. I see the quantize to frames, now, thanks. Is there indicator to display which mode it's in? Usually in other applications, the menu option would change to show the opposite sense. of the setting

appreciate further opinions...
drbam wrote on 12/26/2004, 10:23 AM
>>6. I see the quantize to frames, now, thanks. Is there indicator to display which mode it's in? Usually in other applications, the menu option would change to show the opposite sense. of the setting<<

Yes the mode/selection display is very poorly designed IMO. Its often hard to tell which mode is selected or engaged and I see this as part of the overall cheesy color scheme that emerged with Vegas 5. It looks like it was created by a designer for the powder puff collection or something similar. Even with maximum contrast increase, the whole thing looks difused and pastel compared to Vegas 3. I'm constantly straining my eyes to see what's really going on and this is not the case with Vegas 3.

drbam
farss wrote on 12/29/2004, 3:27 AM
Regarding 4)
If you want to get both channels then yes you need to switch back to both channels. If you select right only then that channel is routed to both bus channels. If you want a better view of the waveform you can make the track taller or you can zoom in on the amplitude, use shift+UpArrow/DownArrow to zoom in/out. Very useful feature.
Bob.
MrPhil wrote on 12/30/2004, 1:09 AM
5. That's strange. If you pull down the faders on a single track, or several, or pull down the master faders, it definitely should affect the rendered output.
I usually listen thru the material, and check where the peaks end up above the master fader leds, and just adjust the faders accordingly.

6. Isn't there a small marker indicating that it's active?