Vegas and Sound Forge Integration

[Jim Justice]

I am looking into Sound Forge due to its better Mastering abilities. How do Vegas and SF work together? Is SF integrated into Vegas? Does SF work with Vegas just like the native audio controls do. Basically, if I am working on a video project and I need to pull some audio off Vegas into SF, does it do it seamlessly or would I need to pull the audio of the video, render it to its own audio file, work on it in SF, save it and then import it back into Vegas. I am quite sure that there is a simpler term to call this process but words are escaping me at the moment.

[Emre Safak]

You can right click on a clip and say Open in Sound Forge. Once you save the edited file in Sound Forge, Vegas updates the timeline, so the integration is pretty good.

Now ask why Vegas does not have real-time sound effects :)

[Edward Troxel]

Originally Posted by Emre Safak

Now ask why Vegas does not have real-time sound effects :)

It DOES - you add them to the track instead of the event.

[Emre Safak]

Okay, okay...at the event level :P

[Fred Helm]

what would be really trick is if SF would allow the track to be played from SF and linked to V8 in a view like a real console. Coming out of the music biz..I cant stand the horizontal track view in vegas...

[Paul Fierlinger]

Originally Posted by Fred Helm

what would be really trick is if SF would allow the track to be played from SF and linked to V8 in a view like a real console. Coming out of the music biz..I cant stand the horizontal track view in vegas...

I'm pretty sure that exactly that is what's on the list I read on the Computer Guys' site.

[Jon Fairhurst]

I use both products. The integration (or lack thereof) isn't a big deal for me.

Mostly, I use track effects in Vegas, at least for compression, EQ and reverb. I often route the tracks to sub-buses (for dialog, strings, music, trailer announcer, etc) with the effects placed there.

The only time I go to SF is when I want to do noise reduction on a given clip (though you can do that in Vegas as well - I did it on our 48-hour film when I had no time left.) I might also use SF to time stretch or do some really specific surgery on a clip.

After the mix is done - turning down the master if needed to ensure no clipping - I render the wave and master in SF. At this stage I'm done with Vegas for audio. I master and send the result to my son (the video editor) to integrate.

Overall, I use SF for the micro and the macro, and Vegas for everything in between.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Vegas 8 now offers an exact console view like most DAWs.

[Fred Helm]

that is huge news! cant wait for it!

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Fred Helm

that is huge news! cant wait for it!

But why?

Sonar has had a mixer view for years. If it came on the screen, the first thing I'd do is turn it off. (Never mind that I just use Sonar for MIDI sequencing. I use Vegas and ACID for mixing.)

I gather that the main advantage is that you can fit more faders horizontally than vertically. That's cool, but...

When I mix, I prefer to see the waveforms and envelopes. Looking at a fader only gives me a single level, or, if automated, a snapshot in time. Looking at the waveform and envelope gives me the whole picture.

So, it's good that they are developing features that people want, but I wonder if it really gives any advantage, aside from more tracks on screen at once - and a familiar view for people who have looked at consoles for years.

Am I missing something here?

[Seth Bloombaum]

Well, this is pure speculation, as I've not seen the implementation in Vegas 8.

Envelope automation is a pretty spiffy tool for roughing out multitrack mixes. I could see as how it might be easier to use with a virtual console, perhaps elminating the need for a midi control surface for some people.

[Paul Fierlinger]

I can see the advantages of having the luxury of using both in tandem. I often do better adjusting slides on the fly but usually with a few "oops" along the way, to which I could now return to and fine-tune on the spot by tweaking the graphs.

[Fred Helm]

not missing a thing..its pointless to final post or even pre post. I think its a good marketing tool though for most of the consumers who see it as a robust improvement. I have a hard time memorizing my tracks when they are horizontal. Years of channel layout on consoles has allowed me to recognize tracks by looking at VU meter only...silly but much more comfortable for me. I was looking at V8's console view...love faders and VU.

[Paul Fierlinger]

I don't see it as pointless at all. All my films have lots of small sound events such as snippets of dialogue and sound effects, perhaps a storytelling narrative that ties it all together.

But under all of this I often have a long piece of composed music and to get the balance of this just right is a matter of much tweaking.

The levels of small sound clips are obviously best set directly under the picture, but the changing volume levels of the music bed is best controlled on the fly because I have to listen to everything else that is going on.

I am thrilled that VP8 will now have this. And here's one more thing: I never use this mix for the final cut. That is done by my sound engineer in his studio. But why it is important for me to be getting as close to a final mix as I can get is that I get to listen to my yesterday's mix every next day and so does the mixer who is also the composer, who comes to my studio often and he'll play with the levels too. Obviously it is easier for him to play with these levels on the fly, rather than picking at little nodes in the time line.

This way we have a pretty good mutual understanding of what we want the movie to sound like long before it comes to the final mix.