Wonderful post zig.

That first line could become quite a catchcry.

Very powerful.....

Very well thought and said, Zig...

for what its worth, ziggy, pipeline and most of all rednroll have said pretty much everything i would say if i had more time to visit this forum. i love forge, acid and vegas to death but the hybrid acid/vegas app would be the ultimate for my needs. moving files between the two is just daft to me, whereas i have no problem with sound forge/cda being it's own entity.

bottom line is, peter if you're still reading this, i'm a user who has ZERO connection with anyone else here, post very rarely, yet feel very passionate about the way the above contributors have voiced the frustrations i feel at how good things COULD be. i just want to add my voice, however small it may be and however it may fly against the predetermined route sony are taking.

we all KNOW it can be done because of the amazing precedent your software has set in the past, but as has been stated many times over in this thread, times have changed and the truly smart companies will treat these opinions as solid gold.

This has been an interesting read. I can see some truth in what SonyEPM is saying, As Vegas is a time based system there's somethings being asked for that simply couldn't / shouldn't be done, I get a headache thinking about how they'd tie in with video tracks.
But all that aside, from a video guys simple audio needs there's still some pretty gapping holes in Vegas's audio capabilities. Two that come to mind that have been mentioned many times on the Video forum.
Firstly Vegas will not lock A/V tracks in sync. I really don't know how to say this politely but how any company can describe a product as an NLE when it doesn't address that issue is beyond me. This is such a fundamental issue and the best response we can get to it is don't use ripple edit, well jeez, why don't we use Windows Movie Maker. Ah yes but hey look, we've added 2D planar surfaces and external control surfaces. Yeah great but we still cannot use Vegas to reliably EDIT.
Secondly, Vegas doesn't support BWF files. For all you audio guys, these are the standard for location multitrack recorders.
Now the response to the last problem is pretty much in line with what the rest of you guys are complaining about. It goes along the lines of "Do you have a need for that and if so please explain why". Well golly gosh, if i had a need for support for an industry standard do you think I buy a product that doesn't support it and then complain about it, that's not how it works in the real world.
People buy a product when they're starting out. They grow, they hope the product continues to meet their needs. The implication seems to be that lets say I'd moved up to needing a $10K location multitrack recorder and bought the thing for a major shoot and then I'm going to sit around waiting for the next release in the vain hope that I might get what I need. I think not, I'd be buying something that did the job pronto and Vegas would be history.
So it seems to me that the brutal reality is from what I'm reading here that there's a few diehards like Red and Pipe who know whats what that are hanging in there and there's a magnitude more who've come and gone.
From my experience it's not what your users think of your product that matters as much as what those that don't use your product think of it.
Now maybe some of those things would only get used by a small percentage of the user base. That simply doesn't justify not having them. It's not what you do with it, it's what you CAN do with it that sets the tone of the product. Not one of the FCP users that I know has ever ingested SD over SDI but they bought the damn product because of the 0.1% of users that do, it's that damn simple, not one of them has ever exported an OMF file to 'online' in an Avid suite but they bought the product because of the 0.1% of users that do. And yet everyone of them is blown away by Vegas but that translates into zero sales cause they already bought a different product because of features they'll never use.
Bob.

ahh... BWF - another of the three letter features possibly? (alongside VST)

Thanks for your feedback Farss. This is part of my point, both audio users are frustrated and so are the video users. This is why I say, let Vegas be the video app focused on the video user's needs and let Acid be the DAW, that us audio users desire. Although, I think Vegas overall is one of the best DAW's out there, it has the least recognition among the audio community because it's lacking eccential modern audio production technologies. Acid has a lot of weight behind it in the audio community, but seems to be gradually lossing ground due to the stubborn direction it's pointed in, where it is failing to meet the big picture needs of audio users, while other apps are taking on more Acid features, while expanding in other DAW like needed features at the same time. It would be interesting to hear you answer the point I made earlier from a Video users perspective.

That is: "You think we're frustrated with no cause? Well try breaking up the desired Video features between 2 seperate apps that are difficult to link a project together and see how many frustrated video users you have saying the same thing we are. "

So, I don't know how familiar you are with Acid, but imagine all the new features you want and feel are important to have in Vegas. Now you ask for something in Vegas and instead of it appearing in Vegas, it appears in Acid. Afterall Acid does have a single Video track in it, so you can sync audio up with it. So maybe there's a problem adding tempo mapping in Vegas as you mentioned.....doesn't seem to effect the Video track in Acid though. So now the things you feel you need, start to get broken up into 2 seperate video apps. Imagine if Acid got BWF file support before Vegas. You say, "well ok" I guess I'll need to get both apps to fill up my toolbox of video tools. Now the latest technologies to link these two tools are not available. No, OMF or BWF as you mentioned in your main video editing tool, to get it into the app that can save and open BWF project files. No way to render or open one programs project to the other programs project, although they're both made by the same company, so you would think the technological detail of how to accomplish that wouldn't be a major issue. No way to rewire them together, so you can play them both together in frame accurate sync, while at the same time you can rewire one of those apps, to almost every other "NLE LIKE" software out there besides the one you're using.

Try wearing those shoes. I'ld love to hear your opinion on that view point.

Thanks again,
Red

I dont see what possible problem there could be from having tempo mapping. Maybe make an audio grid and a vdieo grid?

Changing where gridlines are couldnt possibly hurt anything could it? Im not asking events to stretch or any thing like that, just grids to line up to. Better yet if you could see the grid well, WIHTOUT snapping being turned on.

I know Im off topic, but this seems such an assinine omission

Red,
I understand your frustration, Pipe maybe you're right but here's my spin on it and how I work and I'm far from being a creative type so maybe I'm not seeing this like you guys do.
I handle vision or I handle audio as one phase of the project. I get it locked down and then I deal with the other side. So I don't have any issues with having a program that has two personas or even two different programs. I bring one track of finalised vision into my audio app or the other way around.

What really frustrates me a lot is when I'm editing audio I cannot lock the vision nor the other way around. I don't need to be able to edit 20 tracks of vision and 20 tracks of audio at the same time, in fact I'd be happier if I couldn't as ever so many times I've done something as simple as split an audio track only to discover that I've also split all my video tracks etc, etc.

Maybe I'm way off base with what I'm saying and I know it doesn't directly relate to where it all started but here's another example. I use CDA a lot, churn out many masters with it. Now I don't need it to have most of the things it does. I get my audio locked down in Vegas, if I want to change anything in the audio that's going onto a CD I open up the Vegas project and do it there and render it out again as 16/44.1K. All I want CDA to do is make a compliant CD master and let me use all the features that a CD can have. Thankfully it seems we finally got that but I would have gladly done without all the other things in CDA just to have CD Text.

For my money SF is the best of the pack at how it tackles things. It's focussed on doing one job extremely well. I can have one track of vision in it and that's all it needs, it doesn't need to have full on video capabilites either, it should be just there so we know where we're at in the video. Same I would have thought goes when you're multitracking or recording in Vegas.

Bob.

Yeah pipe it’s exactly the same as the (non) argument as to why we can’t have Rewire.

It simply should be a mode or an option that could be switched on or off.

Like quantising to frames; totally irrelevant to us audio users so we switch it off.

If Sony applied the Rewire argument to that issue then quantising to frames might be permanently switched on in V6.

...Naturally if any of us audio kids questioned this update the response would be ‘what are you guys complaining about the program is what it is’.

Vegas does what it does. Vegas is never standing still. We always add more in each revision. Somethings will be added that some feel are way overdue. Some things will be added that no one expected. Some will be excited and others will be disappointed because they feel we've left out something they assumed would be there. What more do you want me to say?

Just thought, I would throw that out there for a little commercial interuption because, we haven't heard it in awhile.

LoL @ Rednroll. Nice one!

Just thought I'd quickly chime in here guys and, for what it's worth, give my 100% support to everything you've been saying. I think we've all been stating the need for these essential features Vegas over the years here, but it's nice to all finally pretty much agree within the same thread. Everyone who's ever posted on this forum should be posting here, if nothing else just giving their support.

There's nothing really I can add to what Weevil, Ziggly, Rednroll, Pipeline, et al have said. I love your Dozen Dozen thing Weevil - that really sums up <exactly> where Vegas needs to go to begin to bring it in line with the rest of the DAW world in the 21st century. Well, that and fixing the strange routing annoyances and 'bugs' that crept into Vegas 5. Oh, and fader grouping please ;)

Looks like Vegas 6 is on the way at NAB in mid-April; I don't know if I'm excited or scared...

Ben

I agree with the majority of the arguments and suggestions posted here. My chief concern with adding more features is stability and reliability. I wonder how many audio users are still hanging in with Vegas 3 simply because virtually everything works and its arguably the most stable of any version so far. We sit here now, almost at version 6, and still have a broken metronome! The symbolism of this paints a pretty bleak picture in terms of invisioning a future for Vegas that actually WORKS as it is promoted to be. Most of you have probably seen the posts about the continuing Acid 5 issues and now SF8, both of which make me feel pretty discouraged in terms of Sony's ability to provide what I'm looking for. I purchased Acid 5 several months ago, but haven't even taken out of the wrapping yet. Buggy software is simply a creativity killer for me and if stability means less features, then I'll choose less features. I wish we could have both, but with competition being what its, it doesn't seem that ANY developer is going to accomplish this. Theoretically it seems quite possible, but obviously the real world dictates that we will have to find a way to live with tradeoffs, compromises and workarounds. Frustrating. . .

drbam

I still use version 3. I sometimes use ver. 5 for it's ASIO capabilities, but that's all.

I would love stability over amounts of features. Maybe Sony needs to just create a new product from the ground up, with only our needs. The product could be called "Limelight" or something, and they could charge an honest 200 bucks for it... oh wait, that might create competition with Tracktion... nevermind…

I think Peter's reaction (and Sony's policies) are what has driven the nails into the coffin for me. I've been a Vegas user since 1.0 and have since then purchase the upgrades for Audio 2.0, VV3, and Vegas 5. I've been quite happy with the product over the years and have dabbled with the video editing side for home videos and such. But I've never been completely comfortable with the music production workflow of the software.

I want an all-in-one solution just like everybody else. And yes, not at the sacrifice of stability and the simplicity of the GUI that Vegas is a star at. But Vegas doesn't quite meet my needs in this area. And everything that Rednroll and others are saying is needed is bang on! Give the audio users an all-in-one solution, be it Vegas, Acid, or whatever you want to call it.

Listen to your users. The number of people who have been vocal about these issues on this forum may be "few", but they are absolutely representative of the group at large. Just look at the support these vocal "few" are receiving in this thread alone.

A DAW with all-in-one integration is what we've wanted for years. I wish that you would just stop saying "NO" all the time. We want to work with you Sony to make this software a reality, why not just accomodate? My personal wishlist is as follows:

1. Vegas-like multitracking and editing
2. Acid-like looping
3. MIDI sequencing and editing
4. CD burning
5. Soundforge-like audio editing
6. A bars and beats timeline with tempo change and a MEANINGFUL gridline display and snap
7. All of the feature requests mentioned by others in this thread

... all in one application

For years I've wanted to have just ONE software application installed on my workstation that does all of the above without the need for four separate software apps. Adobe Audition has come close but I don't like the workflow. Forget about Logic, Sonar, et al because I can't stand the GUI's and workflow on those either. Right now I'm using Tracktion and am enjoying it.

If Sony wants to continue pocketing my upgrade dollars they'll have to start moving towards this user requested DAW model. For now, I'm just so turned off by Peter's response to this whole issue.

I hope things will turn around.

I can't believe how patient you guys are with Vegas. I gave up long ago on this software.

Sonar 4 has been working out quite well at the studio. MANY CD's being produced on it.

Yeah, as you can see most of our patients are running thin. I think you're right though, maybe it's time to pack the bags and move to Sonar. I can always move back when either Acid 10 or Vegas 10 is released, hopefully by that time they might have Weevils dirty half dozen features in either Acid or Vegas. I remember when I first started using these apps, the name was "Sonic" Foundry, and there was "Sound" Forge. Too bad, the audio element got lost somewhere down the road in the translation. I guess there's still Sound Forge, it seems to be the only one of their apps that remains focused on current feature sets having to do with audio and music production workflows. Maybe we'll be surprised with the release of Vegas 6, but I doubt it. We'll probably get VST support and no rewire support for audio side features. I'm sure CDtext will be left out in Vegas too.....that's not something the NLE users need. Priemere style audio scrubbing, yep jump right on that, the video users need that. To hell with the audio users needs they already gave us the best featutre suggestions over the past 6 years to make Vegas the NLE that PPro can't compare itself to on the audio side.

Red - I know you can't say anything about it if you are, but I take it you're not involved beta-testing of Vegas 6 then?

Btw, anyone notice that EPM deleted his mysterious three letter reference in his post above? Unfortunately my guess is he was talking about HDV - I don't really care or know exactly what's that all about, and couldn't give a monkey's whether it's in Vegas 6 or not. I think we should redefine HDV as to Hell with Damn Video :)

We bought an <<<audio>>> product way back in 1999, initally beta-ing it for them for free, and Sonic Foundry and now Sony have massively gained from our <years> of investment in Vegas - buying every upgrade. In fact, in my case, as a proponent of Vegas, a major UK radio group I worked for bought dozens and dozens of licenses, together with Forge. Time to respect your users that helped launch the software in the first place perhaps?

But hey guys, I bet we get a Media Manager so we can score some Acid loops to a wedding or something. Makes it all seem worthwhile, eh?

Ben is what he is today. Angry with Sony.

Ben

"Red - I know you can't say anything about it if you are, but I take it you're not involved beta-testing of Vegas 6 then?"

I don't believe there's anything in the NDA, which forbids me from mentioning if I'm part of the beta team or not. No, I didn't make the cut for V6. In some aspects I'm kind of relieved. I use most of the Sony products in my workflow and am quite familiar with all their apps. I'm relieved due to the fact that Sony has been quite busy releasing apps pretty much one after the other, where as soon as one is released, the next is beginning beta tested. So beta testing has almost become a full time job on my part, where it went SF7, Vegas 5, Acid 5, SF8 and CDA 5.2. I spend a lot of my free time trying to find problems, and taking the time to document the steps in reproducing problems and then in addition spending time giving feedback suggestions of new feature implementations. So it feels good to have a breather. I'm not sure why I didn't make the cut this time around. It could be they didn't need so much audio testing for V6, where my feedback wasn't that much of a value. It could be my feedback wasn't up to par in finding problems as I've done in the past, due to the recent rash of testing I've been doing. or it could be, I've stepped on someone's toes too hard, because as you can see I can dish out some tough love. Or it may be because, sometimes I run my mouth too much in these forums. It was actually kind of nice, Sony did something out of the norm for SF8. They publicly released the feature list the same time beta testing started, so I didn't have to keep such a tight lip on new feature discussions. V6 obviously has a NAB target release if you've been following discussions in the Vegas Video forums, so of course it didn't follow the SF8 strategy, to keep some marketing excitement for that event. In any event, I'm not too excited for V6 on it's audio aspect side, after this discussion with SonyPCH, hopefully I'm wrong. Probably, a good reason why you saw SonyEPM's post in this thread. Peter tends to run his mouth a little too much also in these discusssions. Most likely because he's like me and is passionate about the software and it's success with the audio crowd. I truly appreciate that on his part and participating in these open discussions.. SonyEPM will always try to keep you guessing and playing the peace maker middle man, where usually with a discussion with SonyPCH you can start to read between the lines. SonyEPM, probably deleted that line because he intended it to be a positive feedback guessing game, where as you can see the negative viewpoint from us audio users was left too open for debate.

Ben: I believe it was VST that Sony EPM was reffering to (he said it started with V).

But, don't count on Vegas as being an Audio program to face the future with. Not even in Version10, Red! LOL

I have been checking in with the Vegas Video forum lately to see what their take is on all of this. They seem all hyped to be getting HDV support (whatever that is!). Also, there will be a demonstration and showing of Vegas6 at NAB in a few weeks, so keep your eyes on the Video forum to see what they say about it.

Interesting thing that I notice in one post: Someone (Premiere user) said they were considering switching to Vegas, but wanted to know about the scrubbing in Vegas. He was told by Sony that "Premiere style" scrubbing wasn't in Vegas, but was being considered for a future version. - That's more information than we EVER get here. Even the one hint we did get got deleted!

But, I will tell you what was not said to be "in consideration" for a future version was fixing the f*cked up panning changes they made to Version5 (without telling anyone). My response from Customer Service was that "In the newer Vegas 5.0 software, this is how the audio routing has been redesigned. At this time, it's hard to say what is going to be done for a later version of Vegas. The work around at this point is to include the "Pan" Track Effect in any tracks you would like this capability in."

This is about as telling as it gets! It either shows a complete lack of understanding of Audio mixing (which I doubt is the case), AND a COMPLETE DISREGARD for the Audio Users. Period! If anyone at Sony wants to dispute this, I'd love to hear from you.

So, we'll likely see some little features to string us all along to the next version. But, IMO, the jig is up - Audio users are not a primary focus for the program.

I honestly believe Vegas users are in deep denial about the future of this product.

Sonar has made some significant jumps in becoming a premier audio editor. Still missing a couple things I would like to see, but mostly, I think they are addressing the needs of the professional audio engineer better than Vegas has been.

I don't think the GUI is any worse, and with the new "Track Folders", you actually have more powerful group editing functions. I would like to see a few changes in that, but one of the reasons I won't go to Vegas is BECAUSE Sonar I feel surpassed it in the group editing department.

The writing is on the wall here folks. Indeed, Vegas WILL add some features that make it far more professional. But, you can bet that it will firmly stay behind the curve of features in music production DAW software.

I am sure the video part is quite nice though! :)

Alright already sonusman. You don't have to rub our noses in it.....we already got Sony to do that. Besides, Vegas isn't targeted to compete with Sonar. Sonar is a DAW. Vegas is a NLE with "DAW like" features. Some of us are just idiots because we've been using the wrong software and then asking for more DAW features. Simple mistake, I once purchased Cakewalk 5.0, 7.0, and 9.0 in the past and had to keep asking when I would be able to bake a Cake? I was just as shocked when Cakewalk finally told me, "there are no cooking recipes in Cakewalk." Son of a Byotch....I knew I should have bought that Betty Crocker software. I must be the reason, they changed the name from Cakewalk to Sonar. <bg> :-)

With Sonar's "import vegas key preferences" thing, its awful tempting! But the omission of mouse wheel zoom makes it useless to me. The real estate left for track view in Sonar is kind of sad also. If Sonar all of a sudden included ASIO DM, then there would be an awful hard choice