What Audio Features out of the box with Vegas+DVD

Douglas wrote on 8/18/2003, 2:43 PM
Hi folks

I had not heard of Vegas+DVD before last week when I read a review and am massively impressed - so I downloaded the demo. I am a little confused as to what audio editing features come out of the box in the non-demo product though. I got the feeling I was supposed to have external software that plugged in (Sound Forge perhaps).

Looking around I see the new Adobe Premiere Pro comes with some nifty audio editing.

Can you let me know what I can do with the raw product, what else I would need to comfortably work in both video and audio domain - how you think the feature set compares with Premiere Pro; 6.5 was much inferior but the gap seems to have closed somewhat.

Cheers - and I hope I haven't mentioned any dirty words!

Doug

Comments

Rednroll wrote on 8/18/2003, 3:05 PM
"Cheers - and I hope I haven't mentioned any dirty words!"
Them is fighting words.

In my opinion Adobe Premiere 6.5 does not even compare to Vegas on the Video side or the audio side. I can especially speak for the audio side. The only other thing you might want to look into for Vegas for audio is getting Sound Forge. Sound Forge is a stereo editor, which integrates with Vegas very nicely. It allows you to do offline editing of events, using all the features available within soundforge. This can easily be done, by right clicking on an audio event within Vegas and selecting "open in Sound Forge". Any changes you make within Sound Forge gets updated within Vegas. You can think of Sound Forge to be similar to what Adobe Photoshop is for Video editing. Infact that's what I found, how I can use Photoshop with the few video editing projects I've done in Vegas. I edit a picture within Photoshop and hit save, and if that picture is in the current Vegas project it get's updated.


The demo version of Vegas
does not allow saving of projects, CD extraction, CD burning, or screen capture
watermarks both the video and audio of all rendered files
has a two minute maximum for play/record
does not allow batch capturing

The demo version of DVD Architect
does not allow MP3, MPEG, or AC-3 files to be imported
does not allow file preparing
does not allow burning of externally prepared demo projects larger that 500Mb
Douglas wrote on 8/19/2003, 10:16 AM
>"Cheers - and I hope I haven't mentioned any dirty words!"
>Them is fighting words.
I knew mentioning "Adobe Premiere" would get me into trouble :-)

It seems like what you are saying is "If you want to get anywhere with audio in Vegas, then you need an external editor like Sound Forge".

If that is so, then it about doubles the price of the package :-( {Street $499 for Vegas+DVD, $349 for Sound Forge + whatever huge thieving tax/duty I have to pay to get it into Ireland}.

Vegas against "Premiere 6.5" appears to be no contest, but Vegas against "Premiere Pro" seems to be another story - the boundaries are less distinct.

And quite what are Sony's plans for the next gen Vegas?

But I digress - is this the story then - "You can capture your video and its audio in Vegas just fine - but without an external audio editor like Sound Forge, you are stuffed as regards making audio changes." What would you recommend other than Sound Forge?

Cheers

Doug (Who wants to buy Vegas lots)
bgc wrote on 8/19/2003, 12:40 PM
Hi Douglas,
I don't think you're stuffed without Sound Forge. The main difference between sound forge and vegas is that sound forge is a mono/stereo editor that allows you to destructively edit the audio. This means you can open a file and change the audio and save the results, replacing that file. Vegas is a multi-tracker and is non-destructive. If you load in a mono or stereo file into one of the tracks you don't change that original file, but you can edit/slice/and apply effects to it. To save that you render the result to a new file name. In actuality you can use Vegas to do quite a few things that you can do in Sound Forge for common audio tasks except use the pencil tool that lets you "draw" the audio and other batch processing or some interactive effects like pitch correction. There are many times that I just use Vegas for what I might otherwise have used Sound Forge for.
You'll definitely want an external editor at some time and Sound Forge XP is an affordable solution. Go here to check the spec differences between SFXP and SF:

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=718&FeatureID=6187&spid=23

You might be fine with XP.
Vegas also allows you to use any audio editor that you want (it's an option selection). You could find something free or shareware and use that until you've saved enough for SFXP or SF. Sorry I don't have any suggestions.

Regarding Sony and the apps I've heard good things and that the tools will get the support they deserve.

Hope that helps.
B.
Rednroll wrote on 8/19/2003, 5:41 PM
Sorry, I didn't mean to mislead you. Vegas is great for audio. Sound Forge as an addition is just like putting icing on the cake. Most things that are accomplished in Sound Forge, are also accomplishable in Vegas. There's only a few things you would ever need Sound Forge for. Those being, "reverse audio", "Remove DC offset".....although this could easily be done with the proper EQ settings also in Vegas, and drawing on the waveform with a pencil as bqc mentioned. Reverse audio could also be accomplished in Vegas if you're crafty, by playing the audio backwards in one Vegas, and recording in the other Vegas. Which leads me to another good feature. You can have multiple version of Vegas open and running at the same time. Which opens the doors for copy and pasting between different Vegas projects. Vegas supports automated effects, automated busses, direct burning to CD with a Disc-at-Once option. DX support for 3rd party software plugins. Surround mixing features. Vegas is pretty much like Ragu for Audio...."It's in there" :-)
Douglas wrote on 8/20/2003, 1:51 PM
Thanks guys - appreciate the kind assistance!
LarryP wrote on 8/21/2003, 9:29 PM
I started with Vegas for its audio. I still make more audio CD's than videos. Very, very nice for audio. I guess I look at Vegas as an audio multi-tracking tool that happens to do video.

Ok, that was tongue in cheek but get the idea.


Larry