While I agree it's possible for Vegas to communicate with the outside world using midi-beat clock, the sheer convenience of being able to mix within one box and route audio signals between apps using re-wire would be of huge benefit to a great many people.

I don't mind if Sony do the rewire or the uber app thing, whichever has the best UI and stability. The beuaty of this software is if you don't want to use an element, you don't have to. I don't believe in features getting in the way of other features.

The video stuff certainly doesn't get in the way of the audio!!

As there hasn't been an announcement regarding a new version of Acid prior to Vegas (as was tradition) I have a hunch they may have combined it into one app... though I could (and am prepared to be) wrong!

One way or the other, VSTis are a big part of the future of music production and they wont go away. Being able to integrate them into a mix totally in the digital domain, and to be able to change the part at any point is a huge feature that I hope doesn't get missed out.

Jason

"So the only thing missing from using midi beat clock is your ability to properly use it."
Hmm.
Using Midi Clock is just not that complicated.
It also isn't sample accurate, which Rewire is.
Perhaps you've never compared the two in a close listening test.
(Dont worry... I don't insult easily.)

And Yes Webpuppy, I totally agree with you and the benefits, it's those people saying they can't get work done because of it not being there, that I disagree with. I've been getting work done for many years doing the same thing syncing wise that Rewire does....and BTW, you're wrong too. :-)

"Perhaps you've never compared the two in a close listening test."

And I suppose you did? Then good, share that knowledge with the rest of us. Tell us how many samples the sync was off. Share some audio files showing how far the sync is off between the 2 methods. Even with rewire, I would still need to send external beat clock to an external sequencer like a drum machine or if a client did their own sequence in their ASR and wanted to come to the studio to lay off the tracks and start adding vocals. So what would happen with that "sample accurate sync in this instance and how would I benefit from rewire?" "Sample Accurate Sync", yeah sounds terrific from a marketing perspective, but in the real world applications it doesn't hold much water.

I agree though, rewire would be a nice feature addition to Vegas. I even requested it within my feature suggestions, but if you're going to sit there and tell me you can't get work done without it, I'm going call that straight up and say bull crapola.

It's true that work can *always* be done. Not having this or that or any new or advanced feature or tool will -- or should -- never prevent work from getting done.
I'm just spoiled now and want it as efficient as possible...
It's been a long time since I've taken a razor blade to tape. :-)

But to answer your question, in that situation you'd burn their tracks to audio; at which point you could benefit from Rewire if you wanted to add additional tracks from a rewire application -- they'd be in dead sync with your audio tracks and come back in the same mixer.
Otherwise, you're right. There would be no benefit in that situation.
As there is also absolutely nothing to be gained from it any kind of live tracking situation.
But in a lot of the work done these days -- mixing in the computer and using softsynths and samplers -- it (rewire) is much more than marketing hype.

I'm still waiting for you to tell us what the sync difference is between midi beat clock and Rewire's sample accurate syncing? You have this information don't you? Like I said, "sample accurate sync" is a nice marketing buzz word at AES/NAB conventions and everyone starts to buy into the, "I have to have it, or I can't get work done syndrome." If you look at it from the big picture, you'll realize that all the hardware/software in your studio doesn't have that same "sample accurate" sync device. So now are we suppose to throw all our current equipment away, just because someone says we have to have "sample accurate sync".

"at which point you could benefit from Rewire if you wanted to add additional tracks from a rewire application -- they'd be in dead sync with your audio tracks and come back in the same mixer. "

Sorry, I can do that even now, without rewire. Sometimes I'm pressed for time, and I will run my sequencer with Vegas and start recording vocals, without laying the keyboard and drum machine parts into Vegas. The Sequencer is just following Vegas's beat clock and have never had a problem. If after I layoff all the sequenced tracks to audio into Vegas and decide I need another sequenced track. I just reopen that Sequence and add the part, and it's still in sync having it follow the Vegas Beat Clock.

I do agree with your analogy of having VSTi and Rewire together. That makes perfect reasoning, thus why Acid has Rewire and VSTi together.

The simple answer is:
Midi Clocks = 24 per quarter note.
Samples: 44,000 per second (or 48,000 or 96,000 and so on...)
But I don't claim to be qualified to explain -- or even understand -- the intricacies involved.
I'm a musician.
All I know is that with Midi Clock, MTC, or SIMPTE I hear flanging and flamming between unison drums I don't hear with Rewire.
Entirely subjective. And no, I don't think anyone should throw away any of their current equipment.
Whatever works for you is whatever works for you.

I use Sonar rewire with Gigastudio for all my sequencing and love it!

It wouldn't hurt my feelings at all to throw Sonar away if I had the sequencing power in a Sony app.

Yeah Ben I agree wholeheartedly with pretty much everything you have written.

The growth and development of the audio side of the program has suffered massively since the great all-consuming video juggernaut rode into town. I wrote passionately about this myself when Vegas 4 was released.

The really worrying thing about the about the press release is that ‘event reverse’ gets mentioned as one of the big ticket new features...Very handy and long overdue yes, but hardly something to write home about...If Sony think that feature is worth releasing fireworks over I think some of us better start downsizing our expectations in a huge way...

...Which may be very difficult because for a long time now we have been promised a major audio upgrade this time round.

...All of that said, let’s just wait and see what the actual product before we start getting all ‘Joe D’....

Ok, so what is wrong with the ACID piano roll editor?

I am not saying there is nothing wrong with it, but I want to know why everybody hates it so much.

Peter

>>I would be willing to bet that Rewire syncing is based off of the same principle to make multiple apps sync together, but is handled internally.
<<
ReWire uses a different mechanism. It can be sample accurate if implemented in the host correctly - which ACID does of course.

>>>>Ok, so what is wrong with the ACID piano roll editor?<<<<

Ok, I can't answer that directly because all piano rolls are primitive and only use them when forced to. What forces me to continue to use CW/Sonar is Staff View. I can add REAL notes to the staff in the "music" written word. That's far superior to piling up stones across the floor or scratching 4 vertical lines sequentially and running a diagonal through to represent 5 as piano view equates to.

I do similar to what Red does syncing Vegas to a MIDI capable app. except with Sonar. I have no problem with MIDI clock but I have no need to use loops so Acid is a waste of money especially since it has no Staff View.

Although I've used CW apps. since PC's could produce a reasonable facsimile of music, I have no allegiance to them and beg you to give me the opportunity to be done with Twelve Tones. They've managed to copy many of your high spots in Sonar 3, can't you grab some of their best assets Peter?

MJ

Well, as far as video, thats all I need it to do. I use Vegas & Sonar for audio. Since softsynths seem to be staying with us for the future (and I use them a lot)- I almost always go to Sonar. I can't run a VSTi host and Vegas at once and hear them both at the same time.

I would like to know why Sony chose not to include any type of VSTi support (even the audio output of a VSTi) in Vegas 5.

**********Ok, so what is wrong with the ACID piano roll editor?

I am not saying there is nothing wrong with it, but I want to know why everybody hates it so much.**********

I personally love the ACID piano roll editor. I think its great and works perfectly and there is nothing wrong with it....

You can certainly use the sequencing capabilities in ACID very successfully, but I only do so when I need the loop based element as the primary initiation of a production piece.

If I need a sequence as the primary initiation of a production piece, then I use the program that was designed to be a sequencer first, Sonar.

I cut an entire album using ACID in December on an artist from Russia. His name is Vladimir Sarser. He goes by the name MiR (Pronounced meer), his record is called MiR On Acid.... How cool is that?!?!

I think that everyone that is crying about VSTi is wanting to see one program that has the loop based power of ACID, the ease of use and strength of Vegas in an audio and video platform and the sequencing midi authoring strength of SONAR and softsynth sample capability of G3 in one program and call it "HELLFIRE" and sell it for $149.95.

All I can say to you Peter, is congratulations. There is no doubt that the combination of Sony Apps or what I call the Sony Multimedia Suite is the most powerful and farthest ground covering suite of multimedia editing applications available anywhere at a price that is extremely reasonable.

LOL! :0
HELLFIRE! HELLFIRE! HELLFIRE! for $149.95
that was a good one tmr!

I'm curious now...for someone who doesn't make loop based music, how easy is it to use ACID as an audio sequencer? I tend to use audio over midi, although I do like softsynths.

"Ok, so what is wrong with the ACID piano roll editor?"

Actually, I may have mispoken. I went back to it today and revisted it. It does seem pretty good. I will have to give it another chance. Here's a couple of important tasks that I do in editing midi, which may be achievable in Acid and that I'm just not familiar enough with, so please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm a little new to Acid's midi functions.

Task 1: Splitting out of a midi Track. Here's something typical. A client comes in with their keyboard with their midi sequence in it, which only has a stereo output. What I usually do is record their sequence into my sequencer first. Usually their drum sequence is all on the same track, just each drum is a different note. To lay those midi tracks off to Vegas as audio, I have to split the notes out of their drum track onto seperate tracks, so that I can solo them to lay them off one at a time. Acid, can do this but is a bit cumbersome as compared to Studio Vision. In Acid you do a "Select All ON note", then copy and create a new track and paste into the new tracks piano roll. When you do the paste in Acid, you have to make sure, that your cursor is located at the original cursor start point it originally was. So if your note doesn't start for 16 measures, this could be a lot of scrolling and a lot of book keeping to remember. In Studio Vision, you can click on the far left and a note select tool automatically comes up and selects all of the same note, then you just do a copy. So no "Select All ON note" additional click necessary, then a copy. So Vision becomes a little quicker in doing this step. Then when you create a new track, alls you need to do is goto the far left of that track and do a paste, and it will automatically put the notes back in place where they where located in the original track. Thus, I don't have to do any additional scrolling to find my cursor position, and I don't have to spend a lot of time making sure that my cursor is in the correct position so that my note timings are correct. A nice new feature suggestion to do this same type of task, would be to click on the far left to automatically select all the notes, and you could Cntrl click for multiple notes. Then after you have done this have an option to "copy to new track."

Task 2: Track looping. I still haven't found a sequencer that does this as easy as Vision. Let's say I have a 16 bar verse. Composing of that verse is a 2 bar loop, a 4 bar loop, an 8 bar loop and a 3 bar loop. In Vision I just tell it, the sequence is 16 bars long and create the loops and put loop markers around them, and the loops will continue to loop until it reaches the 16 bar verse duration. So there's no copying and pasting of the 2 bar loop, etc. I just create the 2 bar loop and put loop markers around it, and it will loop for the duration of the 16 bars. The same for all the other loops. The 3 bar loop does not have a common demontator as the 2,4,and 8 and will change the pattern up a little when you loop it with the rest. I'm not sure how to accomplish this same kind of task in Acid. I was thinking this would be very doable having it work the same way acid does with audio. I create a 2 bar loop midi sequence, assign it's properties as being 2 bars, and be able to draw out the loops on the Acid timeline just the same as I can with audio. Is this possible?

Task 3: Piano Roll to List Editor funtion. I didn't notice that Acid did this behavior. I would like for it, if I select a note in the piano roll, then when I go to the list editor, that the values associated with that note gets high-lighted within the list editor and the list editor view locates to that highlighted area. Vision does this, and makes editing in the list editor very simple. Also, I'm not sure what "Data2, Data3, Data4" labels are. I'm assuming they may be attack velocity, and release velocity and duration. They're labeled what they are in Vision, so I don't have to figure out what they are, so I prefer this a little better.

**********I'm curious now...for someone who doesn't make loop based music, how easy is it to use ACID as an audio sequencer? I tend to use audio over midi, although I do like softsynths.**********

Loop based music and sequencing are two VERY different things .... so it makes it a little bit difficult to answer your question the way you asked it.

But I'll try to help....

...Acid has a very good sequencing interface. It works very well and it offers a lot more power IMHO, than any keyboard workstation ever could when you consider the ability to use VSTi and the strength of piano roll style sequence editing...

If you've never sequenced in a computer, then you will have a learning curve, but once you learn the method of piano roll style editing, you will not want to use another method.

In regards to #1;

Your experience is the same as what I have found, use the select tool, drag a selection and cut then you have to place the cursor correctly to paste. Let me say I haven't spent a lot of time with Acid up front though.

Sonar at worst allows you to click the piano key/drum name at the left and it selects the entire row of notes. Much better yet, and this is excellent, you simply select the track in Track View with all the drum voices in it and run "Split Notes to Tracks" and boom, all the drum voices are in their own tracks in the correct locations.

I really can't answer #2 as I've not tried this at all in Acid, again Sonar does what you describe looping with markers but I prefer to just write the say 2 bar part and use the Paste with X repetitions command.

#3 I find the same thing, the cursor does not appear in List Edit, it starts at 0 when you switch views. Sonar does like you describe, the "Now Time" as they call it is in unison in every view.

The "Message" column is where you see what type of data the MIDI message is, Note, Volume etc. the Data columns list the values of those messages.

MJ

>>>>piano roll style editing, you will not want to use another method<<<<

I'd agree with that if one can't read music and has never worked with "Staff View"

I started editing in 2" x 1/2" LCD windows on external sequencers and drum machines. I agree piano roll is a huge improvement over editing events on those. But Staff View is exactly that, a music staff and you enter real notes with all the values of real notation on the staff just as you would score sheet music only much easier given C&P etc functions of a PC. Also when you can read you can see what is going on much better than looking a little blocks on graph paper so locating parts is a breeze without having to rely on your ear and where the cursor is.

MJ