>>Maybe if SF would have made a little more effort to serve up some better stuff (like a real mixer!), folks wouldn't be so pissed.
<<

Peter decides to concentrate on the "the definition of a real mixer".

Man, oh, man...where has my sonic foundry gone?

Question to you all:
How come when I stated all this a while ago I was some raving lunatic to all of you - now you're hummin' the same tune. Welcome to reality. I figured it out on the first "upgrades" (yeah right).

Hey Peter, can you at least please respond to the MME 24-bit issue with the new delta beta driver in XP (Maudio says MME 24-bit issue is fixed - 24-bit is now wrriten in 3 word byte - but how can anyone test this?).

Others say that your app (VA20 and VV3a) has to use the command "WaveFormatExtensible" in the application to support 24Bits.

Does VA2 and VV3a use this?

JoeD

Peter,

I really hope I don't have to spell it out for you regarding what a real mixer looks like and does. Your "assign everything to buses" routine is tired, cumbersome and fat. I fire up an app like Nuendo, I get 18-20 tracks in a single window with all my controls (FX/EQ/Inserts) on each channel strip. Vegas is lucky to get 10 tracks (and that's not adding on any assignable FX etc).

The idea of adjusting the volume at a track level and then again after a bus assigment is a complete waste of time...why should I piss around in track view using sliders that move from left to right (never saw a real hardware mixer with channel sliders that move left to right?) to adjust volume and then go at it again with bus levels when it comes time to mix?

I add a track to a project in Nuendo - it immediately and logically gets assigned to channel strip in the mixer window - ready to go. I do not need to reassign every frickin track to Bus A or whatever or add buses to the project. If Vegas would at least automatically add a bus for each track (maybe I am missing something here?) - that would be a start...but NO - I have to add a pile of buses everytime mixdown comes along....

When I name a track on the scribble strip, I expect it to be saved when I save the project. Vegas lets you change the scribble strip alright and then when you open another project, the bus names from the old project stay there - that's real handy...who has time for this kind of shit during a session?

Need I go on?

Cuzin B

I'm frustrated by Vegas' lack of audio specific updates. Going from 2.0 to 3.0 really did little for me. I've just installed Sonar on the same machine as Vegas and my next project will be my first with Sonar. But already I can see some terrific features in Sonar that Vegas AUDIO shoulda had a long time ago. If all goes well with Sonar, I'm outta here.

Cuzin B, why do you need a bus for each track? That would be redundant. If you're going to do that, then don't bother with busses at all, just let everything default to the master bus. Busses are for grouping so that you may control a number of tracks together. For example, you could route all BGVs to a single bus to adjust all their levels simultaneously. But there's no reason to have a bus for each track; that's just creating a lot of unnecessary work for yourself as well as slowing down the previewing/rendering proces.

Chienworks,

I hear you on the buses. Perhaps I am creating more work for myself with all this bus reassignment but I am simply (like many others) very used to seeing vertical sliders etc when doing a mix and that's the way I like it. Trying to mix with these tiny horizontal track sliders is maddening. I know that they do the job but this is about a comfort zone especially when a paying client is sitting right there looking on...they expect to see some sort of (to use Peter's childish banter)"standard" looking mixer console....I do not understand why SF is so hell bent on being so different in this area...every other app out there has a "standard" mixer with standard appointments...

Here';s an example for you - I just fired up the demo of CoolEdit Pro 2.0 last night. I used to think this app was a kids toy but HOLY CRAP...what an excellent upgrade. The mixer in this app is exactly what I am looking for. Everything is exactly where it is supposed to be and very flexible for mixing. And it all works....I played around all night with the demo and it sounds excellent.

Now that is just one example of what's out there. The mixer consoles for Cubase SX and the upcoming Nuendo 2.0 will be amazing and if they are, I know where I am going to go to get work done.

Cuzin B

It is simple as far as we the buyers should be concerned.
I bought Vegas at the start then vegas video was introduced with the same audio features as it's sister at the time vegas audio. I had to decide to go up to veg vid or veg aud.
Choice was obvious. They both were the same upgrade price and one offered extra features that could have been useful in anyones next studio steps.So???
Why did not others get this as well.
Same price upgrade and was stated very clearly that Vegas video has same features as veg audio.
Come on, they were giving you extra features for the same price???
Everyone bitches when they do not give ya enough, then they do and ya still bitch!!!
I think this is a waste of time guys,hahahaha.
And everyone seems to have a great idea for what Sonic should do with their products?
Which one of us actually owns our own company selling our own audio/video products?
When we do I think then we can make those decisions on what WE should do with our marketing dollars.
Pretty silly eh??!!
Just upgrade and get to work.
The extra features you will get intrigued by and go to video anyway, trust me on this.
It happened to us and we are in a much better place now!!
Climb on and you will not regret.
Please direct all slanders/hate mail/ etc. to me directly because the guys at Sonic could be helping others on this forum out rather than reading things that are obviously not getting anywhere constructive.
Come on guys climb on!!!

David W. Ruby
AOSV STUDIOS

But wait. I thought VA3 was going to be a separate product that would have additional (unknown) audio features. And that once that happened, there would be a free upgrade to VV3 so it catches up with the audio features.

So my question is, if there is no more VA3, what happened to all those extra unkown audio features?

-Jeremy

Good poing Jeremy. That is what Sonic Foundry originally said was going to happen. Perhaps these are the new features that are being put in Sound Forge 6, and will make their way back into Vegas eventually.

We do see a lot of dissatisfied audio users in here. But, what tend to show up are the complaints, not the praises. Maybe the fact that we don't see as much on this issue from the video uses is not because the are a minority, but that they are mostly satisfied. It would be interesting to know what the proportion of audio-only users are to video users. I assume that Sonic Foundry must have a good idea of what it is. Perhaps their reason for dropping the audio specific version of Vegas is that the audio-only licensees are now a very small minority and most people were registering the video version.

Perhaps their reason for dropping the audio specific version of Vegas is that the audio-only licensees are now a very small minority and most people were registering the video version.

If they took the video side of vegas as seriously as they took the audio side how much of "premiers" market do you think they'd own consequently?

If you look at the history of Vegas and its audio features they really didn't measure up much compared to cubase,logic,cakewalk...audio in vegas was almost an after thought. When I went out to buy a audio sequencing software a long time ago NOBODY recommended vegas. I even asked about it by name and the response always was "no vst+no midi=no purchase" to be brief. Though when I bought the cubase "producer pack" that came with wavelab 2.0 EVERYONE recommended SF4.5!!! Go figure. And everyone swore up+down about acid 1.0.

It's sofo fault entirely. They didn't take their multitrack softeware seriously enough to warrent the audio communitys praise. The few that used it knew it was awesome but were hard pressed to argue why anyone should by a software that lacked so many "so called standards". If they were smart and added acid features +full midi to vegas a while ago things would be WAY different now. I can imagine how many audio shoppers they lost to SONAR since its release[or should we say VA3!!!IMHO...wink wink] Thats a huge market that sofo just GAVE to cakewalk.

Again I swear by the audio features in VV3. My sessions run great and my clients are always satisfied at the end result. I've gotten soooooo many compliments at how my sessions run compared to when I was using cubase. Now after I bought the contour shuttle pro I'm even quicker! But I don't feel that what I got was worthy of an upgrade cost[audio wise]. To me it was a bug fix/"keepin' up with the jones" type of reworking. God I hope that the next upgrade of Vegas 4 has got some BALLS to the audio department. Or will they just tack on that "awesome midi features" we all got in acid pro 3...YA![sarcasm].

You won't believe how close I am to buying sonar though. Did you see 2.0! Time will tell. Later.

Vegas simply isn't a sequencer, so it cannot be compared to Cubase, Sonar, etc. It's a digital multi-track recorder. That's fine, but MIDI just ain't dead as far as I'm concerned, so I'm using Sonar for my audio productions. Just upgraded to 2.0 as a matter of fact. Solid as a rock. DXi soft synths work great.

-Jeremy

Exactly my point.

There aren't really any new features in Sound Forge 6. It's finally been dragged into the 21st century with non-destructive editing, and some ludicrous limitations like the 1:1 zoom (not exactly adequate for sample accurate editing) have gone but must of the changes are just streamlining (though not unwelcome of course). It's actually been a very long time since Sonic Foundry added any significant audio features to any of their software.

I have to say that I think you're probably mistaken in your optimism that there may be large numbers of satisfied and therefore silent audio users around: I suspect anyone really dissatisfied will be long gone and that paradoxically, those who may seem to be complaining the most are actually the loyal supporters. You may well be right that the numbers of specialist audio users are now a 'very small minority' but how sad, and what a squandering of the prominence the company once had.

Jeremy is right that there seemed to be an understanding that there were significant audio developments in the pipeline that would appear in Vegas Audio 3 and in an update to Vegas Video 3. I personally can accept Vegas as a collector application (à la InDesign) for material prepared elsewhere (though I can't say I wouldn't be more productive if I could use MIDI and DXi plug-ins within Vegas) but even so I could do without these disappointments. If Sonic Foundry have decided not to pursue the audio market any further I think there'd be less unhappiness in the long run if they said so quite openly.

Barlycorn sed:

> Jeremy is right that there seemed to be an understanding that there were significant audio developments in the pipeline that would appear in Vegas Audio 3 and in an update to Vegas Video 3.

I would like a comment from Sonic Foundry on this point.

> If Sonic Foundry have decided not to pursue the audio market any further I think there'd be less unhappiness in the long run if they said so quite openly.

Agreed. SF, any comments?

-Jeremy

Joe,

I asked a question of somebody else. What does it have to do with what you are ranting about?

Peter

I posted in this thread a few days back that I was just checking out SONAR and already I have to say that I'm blown away by its features. I don't use or need the MIDI aspects of it, which is what initially attracted me to Vegas. SONAR absolutely kicks ass and I've only been using it one week, can't wait to delve deeper into it. The reason I made the switch is clear: when Vegas 3 failed to add new audio features which at least equal Cubase or SONAR, I got a nagging doubt that they ever would. And since I don't do video I just feel I'm paying for software which 60~70% of it I'll never EVER use! Why would anyone want to do that? Thank god I didn't immediately spring for the upgrade.

I highly recommend any here who is frustrated with Vegas' audio features to check out SONAR. I made the transition to the new interface in a couple days. It was real easy.

Goodbye SoFo! BTW, I still love SoundForge. Very interested to see v6.

What are you talking about????!!!!

All mixers - Mackie to high end consoles - route "tracks" to buses in some way.

I have Nuendo and it does the exact same thing.

You create a sub bus in Nuendo and are forced to have it on your track view as well as on your "VST" mixer page.

So, no, you are wrong. There is no difference in the routing. The difference is in the UI. ANYTHING you say you can route in Nuendo can be routed the same way in Vegas.

(Hell we give you more flexability than Nuendo. We have up to 32 assignable FX send/returns that can also be routed to any sub bus. You can also route any track to any bus as an aux send. An aux bus can be routed to hardware directly or to the master bus.)

Why must software be bound to the hardware mixer paradigm? A physical mixer is layed out vertically because it has to. Software has no limitiation. It makes FAR more sense to have the fader(s) that effects the track directly linked to the track vs showing it in the mixer as a track as well. (This IS what Nuendo does. Nothing more!)

So, other than for layout of the track faders, I see NO difference in the routing capabilities of Vegas vs any other app. You call how we do it fat and tired, yet they do the EXACT same thing.

As far as the 10 track thing, you must be have some wierd problems with your system. I can beat Nuendo hands down on the exact same hardware with Vegas. Same load of FX and same # of tracks.

Anyway, this is subjective and you are looking for Vegas to be Nuendo. It would be a step backwards for Vegas to become Nuendo like.

Peter

The idea of adjusting the volume at a track level and then again after a bus assigment is a complete waste of time...why should I piss around in track view using sliders that move from left to right (never saw a real hardware mixer with channel sliders that move left to right?) to adjust volume and then go at it again with bus levels when it comes time to mix?
<<
I get it now. You are adding a sub bus for each track so you can get vertical fader. Talk about adding mixing overhead.

>Peter decides to concentrate on the "the definition of a real mixer".
Legit question on my part. Somebody said we don't have a real mixer. I wanted to know what they meant.

>Question to you all:
How come when I stated all this a while ago I was some raving lunatic to all of you - now you're hummin' the same tune. Welcome to reality. I figured it out on the first "upgrades" (yeah right).
<
Sigh. What profound insights have you stated before?

>Hey Peter, can you at least please respond to the MME 24-bit issue with the new delta beta driver in XP (Maudio says MME 24-bit issue is fixed - 24-bit is now wrriten in 3 word byte - but how can anyone test this?).
<
Do you even know what they mean by 24 bit is not written in 3 bytes? ("3 word byte" means nothing.)

>
Others say that your app (VA20 and VV3a) has to use the command "WaveFormatExtensible" in the application to support 24Bits.

Does VA2 and VV3a use this?
<

We always have. Since Vegas 1.0. I have answered this one repeatedly. In fact we support every variation on 24 bit data transfer from drivers.

Peter,

Thank you for your response. After taking suggestions from a bunch of users in the forum, I believe you are correct when you say that the UI is the big difference (and the big confusion for me)here. I have been under the assumption for far too long that your "Mixer" was like everyone elses when it really is a poorly labelled dialog that should read "Bus Assignment" or something a little more clear. And yes - like an idiot, I have been adding in a bus for every track so I could get vertical "control" and a view of the project mix in a way I am used to seeing it.

Vegas uses the horizonal track slider paradigm which is fine as long as the project is small (let's say 6-10 tracks). My projects typically run 12-20 tracks and trust me my friend, when the tracks begin to pile up, Vegas becomes unbearable to use in this situation. Constant resizing, scrolling and moving around is not what I (or my clients) need to worry about during a session. In my Nueudo comparison (as you obviously know since you have it), it is a breeze to handle 20, 24, 30 tracks in the "standared vertical mixer" provided. As you add your tracks, they simply appear in the mixer and work continues.

Vegas does provide an excellent workbench for tracking. But for any serious mixing work, the "standard vertical mixer" paradigm is very much alive and will probably always be the preferred method. I would like to know why your team chose to implement your mixing workflow and how you arrived at the assumption that professional audio engineers (after years of mixing in a "standard vertical mixer") would suddenly embrace your design of horizontal sliders and endless bus additions.

Your software designers have done a fab job everywhere else but why can't they simply make the "Mixer" dialog into a multi-tabbed dialog like your Explorer/Trimmer/Media dialog? Place a standard mix view on one tab and the Bus assignments on a another. I would be in heaven, if that would happen.

Cuzin B

Cuzin B

Cuzin B, so you're looking for a screen something like this?

http://www.chienworks.com/media/vegasmixer.gif