Actually punching in in Vegas is extremely powerful. But it just takes a little getting used to its functionality.

In order to punch INTO an event, you have to select it. So, take your 8 drum tracks, find the part you want to punch in on all 8 tracks and split the event at the start point and end point (after selecting all, so that the splits are all in the same place). Then, you can do one of two things. You can perform a loop punch, which means you can create a Time Selecion (using the yellow bar on the time line by dragging with the left mouse button on the ruler) around the selected events and record with pre-roll and post roll as many takes as you want until you stop recording. This is incredibly cool because when you're done, you will have all the takes within the events which you can easily toggle between to compare by pressing the "T" key while highlighted on the event. You can alos perform a regular punch by selecting the events you want to record "into" and then position the curor anywhere in front of that point by clicking on the ruler area. Don't click in the track area or you will lose your selected events. Then just record and you will create new takes in those events. If nothing exists after thatose events, you can keep recording even if the recording goes PAST the end points of the events. You just need to grab the trim handle and "pull out" the newly recorded area. Same goes for the pre-roll. If the performer starts early (before the start point of the event) it actually DOES get recorded. You just need to pull out the edge of those events to uncover it.

And don't forget the ever-powerful slip-crossfade function, which allows you to take a crossfade between two events and "slip" it in either direction, allowing for fine tuning of which side of which event works better for the crossfade. So you could use the end of the original take and crossfade it with the beginning of the newly punched in take and then slip the crossfade around to see if it works better a little earlier (with the early punch) or with a little of the original take fading into the new one. To do this position the cursor over the crossfade and left-click and drag while holding ctrl-alt. I LOVE this edit feature.

So, is any of this clear? Punching is really cool in Vegas. So much more actuarte than punching in on a reel-to-reel or "on the fly" because you get the added advantage of the recorded pre-roll to tweak.

if you need more help with this, feel free to email me.