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Audioon 4/11/2006
Acid/Vegas file compatibility
Too bad they couldn't figure out a way to filter out incompatibilities so all us long time audio users could load our projects. But I've done some research and found a few other things that would really bug me, like not being able to just slide events from track to track and such. Too bad. I'd love to be able to use sony stuff again and let Sonar go. (Although, to be honest and surprisingly enough, Tracktion is in some ways even faster and more logical than Vegas -- things like the scrollwheel doing zoom over the tracks and vertical scrolling when the pointer is over the input/output section...)
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Audioon 4/25/2005
Alternatives to Vegas?
I agree. There are some glaring errors in the implementation, but for getting around the project and moving the cursor while editing, Tracktion is great. And it doesn't require two tracks for a VSTi like Sonar (a real pain in the ass when it's necessary to render something); in fact it's the best rewire host and VSTi host I've seen. On the other hand, it's odd and inconvenient for mixing and the racks, while great conceptually, add latency and -- as such -- are useless, as far as I'm concerned. At least for mixing. It isn't perfect, but it does what is missing in Vegas for less (much less) than the price of the "two-audio-feature" upgrade. Too bad they can't speak together... (But then, if Vegas would speak to *anything* I wouldn't even think of another host.)
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Audioon 4/20/2005
Alternatives to Vegas?
Maybe they should have a two-tiered pricing scheme: video users can pay the full $149 upgrade price and audio users can pay for what they're getting... $19? $25? $30 tops. Seems fair to me. Think it'll fly?
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Audioon 4/20/2005
V6 summary so far
I just finished playing a show and am in no condition to post, but this thread brings up my latent hostility regarding this whole fiasco. The new Vegas update is a farce. Sony/SF's answerability to their customers is a joke. I'm sad about it, but there it is. But -- and here's a revealing thought -- another post talks about how if Sonar 4 only had mouse wheel zoom the poster would buy it. A good point. Well, I bought Sonar 3 when Vegas 5 didn't have Rewire or VSTi's, which were absolutely necessary for my work (rent, food, little things like that...) I immediately let Cakewalk know exactly how important mouse wheel zoom was to my workflow. I wasn't the only one. Sonar 4? No mousewheel zoom. What a simple, obvious thing to do. So I checked out Tracktion. Fabulous design, amazing coding, super efficient audio engine. Rewire, VSTi's. Mouse wheel zoom. But it had a horrific bussing setup. Bad for mixing; horrible for aux sends and many basic mixing functions. Lots of bugs in the rack/PDC setup, as well as in file handling and other places. I let them know. Tracktion 2? One stupid, unneccessary addition after another: colored midi notes, color scheme editor, etc.. Stupid shit that no one who makes music for a living would ever care about. The bussing system still sucks. The racks still add latency. Bottom line? Software developers make programs, not music. Too bad they don't listen to people who have to scrape their bottom line from that bottom line.
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Audioon 4/18/2005
Vegas 6 reliability
It's another $25 upgrade for $149. At least for audio users. It really is absurd, the utter contempt with which they treat those trying to use their software professionally in the audio field. Especially when they claim to be throwing their hands up in disgust, not knowing what everyone wants. Everyone has been telling them for years. Since back when it was "Vegas Audio." Tape scrub? I agree that tape scrub in the digital world -- where you can *see* what's going on, as well as hear it at any speed -- is like a bicycle for a fish. (As was buggy, latency-crippled input monitoring, the huge "gift" to the audio users of the last release... at least as far as I was concerned, though I'm glad it was useful for some.) Might as well sell a head demagnetizer accessory and an editing block, complete with razor blades and tape. And VST support? As has been pointed out, anyone who wants to use VST plugins already has a VST wrapper. Vegas still doesn't speak to Acid. It still doesn't speak with any other applications. The bussing system is still broken. Even just the ability to be an audio-only rewire host with no midi would have gotten me. Now I'll probably have to sit out two in a row. I never would have believed it. The epitome of stubborn, wrongheadedness. Well, I suppose there are only so many serious audio users and everyone in America has a video camera.
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Audioon 3/15/2005
VST support...
This is all well and good. But when I first bought Vegas it *was* an audio application. There was another Vegas that was video (actually, that came a bit later). The distinction is artificial, after the fact (read: after SF had my -- and lots of other audio people's -- money, and in that odd way that musicians love their tools, loyalty) and, at this point, unsupportable, at least in terms of a historical view. In some ways I hate to complain: the Vegas I bought still does what it did when I bought it. It still works. But I do wish it had continued to grow down the path it was on when I bought it. And that path was audio.
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Audioon 3/13/2005
VST support...
I agree. I haven't been here for quite awhile (why? I gave up and started using different software for all but mixing, for one thing... ) but that was absolutely the best post I can remember from Mr. Rednroll. Insightful and on the money.
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Audioon 11/17/2004
Vegas 6 suggestions
ASIO DM would be a big one. All that effort going into the perpetual-motion-machine snake-oil cold-fusion-in-a-mayonaisse-jar of software monitoring when there's a perectly good hardware solution lurking unused in almost everyone's audio hardware is just silly.
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Audioon 8/5/2004
Where is the "render ALL BUSSES" ?
That's a very reasonable response: people make mistakes. And, actually, if I were using 5.0 instead of 4.0 and had persisted in looking, it wouldn't have been a problem anyway, as 99 times out 100 a "render all busses" means I'm heading to Mac/Pro Tools land and aiff is the preferred format anyway.
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Audioon 8/2/2004
Where is the "render ALL BUSSES" ?
No answer from Sony? I'm surprised there hasn't been a storm of protest. This move strikes me as particularly gratuitous, though it fits right in with what seems to be their plan to remain as incompatible and inconvenient as possible.
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Audioon 6/27/2004
DX versus VST
Actually, there are many great VST plugins. The quality varies -- you're right; the Steinberg stuff is poorly written -- but the variety is great. VST has been a standard and very popular in Europe for quite a while; a lot of good stuff comes out of there. The Voxengo (Russian) stuff alone is worth having a wrapper program; they're only VST and there's nothing else quite like some of them.
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Audioon 6/10/2004
Sleeping SONY?
True; video is a lot further off the audio track than midi -- which doesn't make it necessarily bad, of course. And, by the way, pro tools has rewire and does midi at least as well as acid and I've seen quite a few pro facilities using logic.
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Audioon 6/1/2004
Sleeping SONY?
Just back from the road and missed this entire thread. (thankfully, I suppose...) But I would like to thank Caiwyn and Tmrpro for their lucid defense of my basic points in the debate: software monitoring is not good enough for the intricacies of much music, in terms of phrasing and rhythmic accuracy, and using two computers and midi clock -- which, by the way, is not a mysterious and arcane procedure; everyone knows how to do it -- is a vastly inefficient method of modern music creation, given the other choices available (and widely requested). I hope everyone survived the shouting.
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Audioon 4/30/2004
Help. Trying to find $150 worth...
That's it. God is in the details, but the devil is in the choices.
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Audioon 4/29/2004
Help. Trying to find $150 worth...
Yours is a herculean task, I understand; you're doing/have done fabulous work. (I once wrote an article for a Swiss art magazine which, among other things, posited the opinion that no once was likely to use modern music software programs to create art as elegant and interesting in form and structure as the programs themselves.) And I'm not generally comfortable in the role of squeaking wheel: there isn't time for it. But you can't even map the scroll wheel to "zoom" in Sonar... (See what I'm up against?)
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Audioon 4/29/2004
Help. Trying to find $150 worth...
I'm glad you two understand my frustration. It's why I consider -- unreasonably, no doubt -- everything else on the new feature list to have been a misappropriation of resources, an absurd juggling of priorities, and why I started the unspooling of this perhaps regrettable, whining thread...
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Audioon 4/28/2004
Help. Trying to find $150 worth...
Me neither. Between the co-renders, the perfect sync -- no delay on start or stop or the occasional mis-positioning that happens with midi clock, and mainly the ability to create sounds while listening through the same monitor chain and using the same effects as the live audio, I could never go back. So I put up with the idiosyncratic and inefficient Sonar conventions and curse the gods who, for some reason (no pun intended), shuffled Rewire from the top of the "most wanted " list to the bottom of Peter's "to do" list.
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Audioon 4/27/2004
Help. Trying to find $150 worth...
As long as there's vinyl involved it's all good.
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Audioon 4/27/2004
Help. Trying to find $150 worth...
Cosmo... I'm not having trouble with the monitoring; I was just talking about relative feature importance. Too me, even when functioning properly, the delay of software monitoring is just too long (after a lifetime of hardware monitoring); ASIO direct monitoring seems to work better. But that's beside the point: If even one person finds it valuable and loves it I'm happy for them and it's a wonderful addition. I'm basically just letting my inner curmudgeon vent: I'm pissed that I have to keep using Sonar for projects that come in OMF format and anytime I need to use a combination of live audio and softsynths. And that I don't positively know that Vegas will *ever* support Rewire and OMF. Just being a selfish bastard. :-)
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Audioon 4/26/2004
Help. Trying to find $150 worth...
Weevil, I knew you weren't being sarcastic, Red, no worries. I've been to Detroit. Yeah. They (Sony) should just be upfront about what they are or aren't going to do. It's the only way anyone can make an informed decision. I absolutely appreciate Peter's intelligence and earnest approach, but really, when you buy a program and its upgrade path you buy the future and who wants to buy a future cloaked in silence, mystery, and swamp gas? Can you say "pig in a poke?"
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Audioon 4/26/2004
Help. Trying to find $150 worth...
Sorry for coming across like a big shot; I was goaded into it. I’m just a working musician, nothing more, with all the ups and downs that implies. And it’s no big deal: my friend Gary Mallaber could laugh at two gold records. He has forty. But he wouldn’t. Why? Good musicians don’t laugh at musicians. Or insult them. But whether anyone thinks that there aren’t musicians who can hear/feel five milliseconds delay (believe me, there are) or whether this or that widely requested feature did or ever does make it into a program are beside the point. What bothers me is the mystery stance. You know, “will we implement it? Maybe. Who knows? Our policy is not to say... give us your money and take your chances.” It just seems unprofessional. When I was researching alternatives, I found that Samplitude was the only other major application without Rewire. I sent them an email asking about it’s future implementation. In fifteen minutes I received a reply – from Germany – saying, “yes, absolutely, next revision” and giving me a date. That’s professional. Do I want to use Samplitude? No. I hated the interface. I love Vegas. And to answer your question, Thomaskay, I use it for anything involving picture, mixing of anything I haven’t created in another program (once again, for me pre-production/creation *are* production and I have a piece half-mixed by the time it’s written), and the big one, the blue ribbon, gold medal, red letter Vegas audio advantage: Nothing anywhere anytime comes close to Vegas in the way it handles overdubs, multiple takes, and vocal comps.
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Audioon 4/25/2004
Help. Trying to find $150 worth...
wow, red. Tough love for sure. I don't have a day job, if that's important to you. I never have. I do have two gold records, several close, and a long list of tours. There's a piece I mixed in the Whitney Museum right now and a show on the Discovery Channel for which I composed and recorded the soundtrack. Most of my work has been in those places where 5ms delay in the signal chain would seem like a boulder in the road. It's more about the attitude than the money, as far as the upgrade goes. Attitudes don't get much worse than yours -- it seems -- but I'd be glad to sit and talk about this stuff if we're ever in the same area. I'll be on the road all next month with Evan Dando; maybe we'll be playing near where you live and we can have a drink without the danger of this format making anyone seem "condescending."
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Audioon 4/24/2004
Help. Trying to find $150 worth...
My interface is an Echo Mona; it only goes as low as 128 samples. And 256 is where it most reliably sits. So maybe there's the rub. (It does have direct monitoring, which works great and required no software upgrade). But I'm glad that the auto input has been a substantial success in your case (and that of others) and I thank you for your reply. I'm just trying to decide if it's worth throwing another $150 into an upgrade that will not materially affect my work situation (a lot of that development money is, no doubt, going into video features) when the company has not shown itself to be very receptive to user input. By this I mean, and I have no exact figures, it seems that Rewire was one of the most universally requested features in the "tell us what you want:" thread and it has been roundly ignored in version after version -- with the official "no promises" being the only answer to questions involving the program's future.
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Audioon 4/24/2004
Help. Trying to find $150 worth...
I wasn't monitoring through both. Perhaps "flanger" was a bad word choice. It's the delay I was talking about. Software monitoring is a reality, but not a perfect one. Hardware is better. In music, as you know, milliseconds matter.
klyon
Offline, Member since 1/21/2002