Vegas Pro 8: Audio scrubing with external control

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 4/17/2008, 3:00 AM

Hi,

Recently bought the Shuttle Pro Multimedia controller, seel below:

http://www.contourdesign.com/shuttlepro

It's a very nice controller and I am using extensively, since it enables me (after some training) to edit so much faster. Recommended.

However, I am a little disappointed by the fact that spinning the inner jogweel does not produce any audio scrubbing!!! The video "scrubs" fine.

I also use Vegas extensively for audio editing (such a nice program for that purpose). The audio scrubbing was one feature I was hoping to get when purchasing this controller. But Vegas does not support audio scrubbing with an external controller?!

I started this thread because I believe the audio scubbing (using an external jog-wheel) is a very important feature that is missing in Vegas. I'm not probably alone with my opinion. Recently also Nick Hope added this on his Vegas improvement wish list. I quote:

"Audio scrubbing while spinning a Shuttle's inner jog wheel or dragging the cursor by the black line (not the pale blue thingy at the top of it)." This is the link to the thread:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=588920&Replies=27

Is there a way to get it to work that I don't know about.? The audio scrubbing (using the same controller) works well with other audio applications (like Sonar or Cakewalk, probably others as well). I assumed it would also work in Vegas, since its roots are, after all, in the audio world :(

Christian

Comments

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 4/21/2008, 1:03 PM

Bump,

I thought my post deserved a bump since there are no replies nor any comments, and its falling soon off the list ;)

Appreciate to know if there is any jog/shuttle control that is able to scrub the AUDIO track in Vegas Pro.

Thanks

Christian

EDIT: I know, this is an audio question, but the Vegas audio forum is quite quiet...

baysidebas wrote on 4/21/2008, 2:00 PM

I'm not anywhere near the Contour shuttle right now, but since you can program "macros" into it, and you can use the keyboard J,K,L keys to effectively scrub with audio, it shouldn't be hard to program this function into the shuttle's jog wheel.

Former user wrote on 4/21/2008, 3:40 PM

I have the Shuttle pro Controller and when I use the OUTER wheel to shuttle, it will scrub audio. The inner wheel doesn't.

Dave T2

JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/21/2008, 4:10 PM

> I have the Shuttle pro Controller and when I use the OUTER wheel to shuttle, it will scrub audio. The inner wheel doesn't.

Ditto. My outer wheel scrubs just fine. I can get it to go at a snails pace for faster than real-time. I don't see the problem here. It works great right out-of-the-box. The inner wheel is for frame-accurate positioning.

~jr

baysidebas wrote on 4/21/2008, 4:19 PM

Dave and JohnnyRoy are right. I was able to set the inner wheel to perform J and L functions instead of left and right arrows, but using this sets the scrubiing in motion and you then have to use pause or stop to cancel. That's very awkward. I set it back to the way it was.

However, I just checked the outer ring functionality and there's no audio scrubbing. The outer ring has right and left arrow functions, just as the inner wheel does, with the exception that the repeat rate varies with the amount of deflection. This would explain why there's no audio. If either of you could look at what's behind the outer ring positions on your shuttles, it may help us get to the bottom of this conundrum.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/21/2008, 8:05 PM

> If either of you could look at what's behind the outer ring positions on your shuttles, it may help us get to the bottom of this conundrum.

I loaded the Shuttle pro settings right from the Sony Vegas Pro 8.0 folder (Sony Vegas Pro 8 -- ShuttlePRO v2.pref) and Scrub Forward 1 - 7 are F17 to F23. Scrub Reverse 1 - 7 are Ctrl+F17 to Ctrl+F23. I would just load the prefs from the Sony folder. It scrubs audio real smooth.

~jr

baysidebas wrote on 4/21/2008, 8:35 PM

Thank you jr, the shuttleproV2 settings I was using were the ones from the contour website, obviously they're not the same. Once I loaded the ones from the Vegas Pro 8.0 folder I got the audio to scrub as well. Thank you again.

Bas

NickHope wrote on 4/21/2008, 10:46 PM

Yes it's a shame that the jog wheel doesn't scrub audio, but this is not the Shuttle's fault, it's because Vegas won't give you any audio if you move frame by frame with F3 or F9 that the jog dial activates. You don't get audio with the left and right arrows either.

I also really wish the pitch of the audio could be maintained during audio scrubbing, and that there was some way to hear the audio when you move a single frame to the left or right.

To be honest, audio scrubbing is something that I found much more user friendly in Premiere 6.5. The pitch is maintained, whichever speed you scrub at, and it even lets you hear scrubbing if you move one frame to the left or right with the arrow keys. I used to use it all the time to position the cursor at the exact frame after someone finished speaking for example. I just can't do that with Vegas and I tend to do it visually using the waveform instead and playback to check.

As for the outer shuttle dial, mine is working great and this is how it's set up. I'm not sure if this is the Vegas Pro 8 setting or if I have edited it:

Shuttle in Left 7: Control + F23
Shuttle in Left 7: Control + F22
Shuttle in Left 7: Control + F21
Shuttle in Left 7: Control + F20
Shuttle in Left 7: Control + F19
Shuttle in Left 7: Control + F18
Shuttle in Left 7: Control + F17
Shuttle in Left 7: F16
Shuttle in Right 1: F17
Shuttle in Right 1: F18
Shuttle in Right 1: F19
Shuttle in Right 1: F20
Shuttle in Right 1: F21
Shuttle in Right 1: F22
Shuttle in Right 1: F23

I also have JKL / shuttle speed set to "Fast" in the Vegas preferences.

baysidebas wrote on 4/22/2008, 4:48 AM

For anyone interested, I've created a shuttle pref for multicam editing by assigning CTL-Numkey 1-4 to shuttle buttons 10-13 [ those are the 4 buttons just below the jog/scrub control. They conveniently match the preview layout of up to 4 cameras and a single press of any of them creates a default transition [that's what the CTL key does, I have my default set to a 15 frame (1/2 sec) dissolve] selecting the camera take I want. Button 5 I assigned to take me in and out of multicam edit mode [CTL-SHFT-D] by a single push and allowing me to instantly preview the edits in full screen and making for a fast and efficient workflow.

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 4/22/2008, 7:09 AM

Hi,

Thanks for your input. I had the same problem, used the Contour Vegas Pro 8 preferences file, but the one (that I didn't know that exists) in the Vegas Pro program folder works great! Now I can scrub with the outer wheel, but the centre wheel still just advances frames. I can live with it, but hopefully SCS improves this someday. Shuttle Pro v2 does not provide a possibility to program macros that would simulate an K & L sequential activation...

regs,

Christian

baysidebas wrote on 4/22/2008, 8:26 AM

However, there's nothing to prevent you from using an external macro app and calling its hotkey combination from the jogwheel. I've been using Macro Express for years, and it's one of the most versatile tools in my bucket. You can also map Vegas scripts to keyboard combos and call those from the Shuttle. I did exactly that with the Zoom Preset Level script that Ed Troxel so kindly furnished. I keyboard mapped the script to SHFT-D and assigned that to one of the shuttle buttons.