Seeking advice on Vegas and 5.1

Weka wrote on 3/22/2003, 10:39 PM
I am new to Vegas and this forum, so apologise if this is an old chestnut. I am quoting for a job that will require effects to rotate and cavort in a 5.1 environment – in a museum.

I have just d/led the Vegas 4.0 demo and am toying with it, automating samples - and it is working well. However, I was hoping there was a way that I could record the automation in real time. By that I mean that, as I spin the cursor between the speakers, the automation is recorded. Am I expecting too much by this or am I missing something?

Also am I correct in understanding that Vegas DVD will allow me to complete the entire process of rendering, encoding and burning the completed six (5.1) tracks to DVD without the need of further software or hardware. And is it ……… any good at all of this?

I’m a long-time user of SF and CDA and expect good things from Sonic Foundry, but I’m under pressure on this job and would really appreciate some experienced advice.
Many thanks
Weka

Comments

jbrawn wrote on 3/24/2003, 7:47 PM
I am unaware of any mechanism in Vegas to record audio settings, like surround panning, in real time. I agree that would be a nice feature for a future version.

I've done a couple of short 5.1 projects with Vegas+DVD in the last two weeks. Once I had my multi-track audio on the hard disk, I was able to do everything else in Vegas+DVD.

I don't have a surround capable monitor system, so I was often writing short DVDs on +RW media to carry into the living room and listen on my home theater system. All the audio worked exactly as I expected. (I did have menu problems with DVD Architect 1.0, which have been solved with 1.0a.)

Also, I found the mixing guidelines from Dolby Labs very helpful: http://www.dolby.com/tech/l.ml.9811.surmix.p.pdf

Good Luck

John.
Weka wrote on 3/25/2003, 11:25 AM
Many thanks John.
Weka
DaSoundGuy wrote on 3/25/2003, 11:55 AM

Seems like there's no one program that does it all!

As much as I love Vegas, I find myself using other softwares for various things it isn't equipped to do. Emagic's Logic (now Mac only; formerly on PC as well) has a great implementation for live recording of surround-panning/fader/fx automation. You might want to check other softwares for better automation implementation; I'm prety sure Cubase SX and/or Nuendo does this, and I'm sure there are others.

There's nothing that replaces mixing in real-time and having a system to record it, and subsequently edit it. Vegas would greatly benefit from this type of automation.

DSG