Right, well when that link first appeared it had the following listed (pretty much anyway):

Vegas 7
- Full XDCAM Support
- Workflow Tools
- Render to iPod Compatible Formats
- Flexible window layout/docking options (preview window can be positioned above timeline)
- Simultaneous preview and external monitor support
- Event Media marker and XDCam EssenceMark display
- I think a couple more...

DVDA 4
- DVD Scripting (games, etc. Does not appear to be .Net-type scripting)
- Keyframeable object transformations (looked like bezier motion paths)
- Buttons on video
- Definable loop point for menu animation
- Motion menus, buttons, and backgrounds

I'm sorry, it wasn't up for very long... perhaps it was so quick I missed the part with the audio feature enhancements...

>I missed the part with the audio feature enhancements...

I doubt there will be any.

Your best hope is that the remaining audio features will make it into Acid Pro 7. Reaper is another option that is looking very promising.

Cheers,

Randy

"I doubt there will be any.

I hope there is continued audio development in Vegas, even if it is secondary to the video stuff.

How long do you think it will be until Acid reaches the level of Vegas 5? Another year? Or two?

>How long do you think it will be until Acid reaches the level of Vegas 5?
>Another year? Or two?

Two years is too late. If Acid does not reach parity within a year, Reaper will surely have reached critical mass.

Vegas has already lost its audio users (witness zero traffic on this forum). Acid Pro 6.0 was a promising development, but still falls short in some basic features (can't drag events from one track to another, no event normalize, poor routing, etc...).

Cheers,

Randy

It seems that SSF relies on loyal users and users who are easily satisfied.

Damn, I hope you're wrong about that. I'm a serious audio user AND I use Vegas extensively for video. One of the reasons I chose the app was because it was a single solution for everything that I wanted to do. I'm not really into looping recordings to simulate music or anything like that, though midi implementation in Acid and not in Vegas was a heavy hit.

From my understanding, the audio improvements in Vegas 7.0 consisted of absorbing the audio engine performance enhancements from Acid 6.0, adding some multi-channel rendering flexibility, and supporting rudimentary 5.1 audio importing.

The last two versions of Vegas have had audio-light improvements because the more audio-centric engineers were assigned to Acid 6.0, and also spent quite a bit of time supporting the soundtrack creator product (CineScore).

The future is really in flux right now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if future versions of Acid absorbed more Vegas editing features (like more useable takes, drag between tracks, grouping, ripple edit, etc.).

My my. This is the first *ever* post I've read from a Sony Media employee, actually being frank and honest about the future (or lack of for us audio guys) of Vegas. Thanks for being candid, Matt.

In a way though it opens up more questions that answers. Like, why weren't us many Vegas audio-only users clearly told about this change of direction a couple of years ago? And why was the absorption of Vegas features into ACID 6 only half-baked? Why haven't the broken 'audio features' of Vegas 6 been fixed, like the incomplete implementation of the VST spec?

I know I'm banging my head against a brick wall here... but that just gives you some idea of our frustrations.

When ACID feels and functions like Vegas on the audio side, with of course all the existing ACID stuff running smoothly as well, together with all our other feature requests (eg improving the very basic mixer routing), you'll have some very satisfied users.

Ben

...and, Ben, when ACID lets us open Vegas (audio-only) files so that we can just get on with using a single app from now on!


So.. is has all become clearer - with an official comment at last, which has been a long time coming:

Vegas - "V" - is for Video
ACID - "A" - is for Audio

But Vegas still does audio better than ACID!

So.. where will the "jump across" point will be?

The Sony guy I spoke to a few months back probably really did believe ACID Pro 6 would be good enough to lure Vegas 6 audio-only users across, but it's now so obvious how much is missing compared to Vegas 6 functionality that here we all still are - audio-only users moaning about how disappointing Vegas 7 looks for us.


Sony.. will we back able to jump from Vegas 6 to ACID Pro 7 and not be taking a step backwards in audio editing funcionality?

I ask here rather than in the ACID forum because we are Vegas users being told there will be little or no further audio development for what was, after all, an audio only app when we started using it!

It must be simple to answer - you know what Vegas does, you know what ACID doesn't do!

I too am anxiously awaiting Acid Pro 7. Hopefully it will be able to import Vegas projects. I am still clinging to a small thread of hope that I can continue with a Sony product.

In the meantime, I was quite surprised and happy that I could export one of my non-trivial Vegas audio projects as EDL and import it into Reaper without issue. I had to reestablish my insert settings and effect sends, but once I had done so the results are spectacular. I think the 64-bit float mixing engine of Reaper may be a very good thing indeed.

Cheers,

Randy

People are reading more into my comments than I am even aware of. I posted one little guess about the future of one product. The absence of information about other products does not mean there will be zero development effort put toward them - it means I don't know anything about the other possibilities.

Yeah, ease up on the guy! He just works here!

I'll admit, I got into Vegas initially to do audio work, but I found I kept getting asked to do video production, so it has served me well.

My only beef with it is it's audio mixer, and even that beef is small. I guess I just wish it were more like.....ohhh.....Samplitude's.

I just wish I could route each track to a separate hardware output without having to go through all the aux buss shenanigans.

This was an inspiring read, but take it with a grain of salt because here's one that pretty much is the opposite of the hopefullness you gained in reading Matt's comments.

"Subject: RE: Rendering jacks up the project
Reply by: SonyPCH
Date: 8/24/2006 10:53:47 PM

We are looking into the problems related to the pitch shift plugin.

For this type of work, ACID is not the tool of choice - nor is it intended to be such a tool. Vegas provides these features, so my recommendation is to use Vegas for this type of work. It was not the intent of ACID to be a replacement for Vegas."

Yes, its a perpetual mess.

You can only hope that sometime in the future Sony can develop a unified audio/video engine and roll Vegas and Acid into one application, perhaps with an "audio-only" version available for those users not willing to pay for the video features.

I find it hard to believe that a video producer has never wanted to work with a tempo map, for example.

Cheers,

Randy

Matt - any glimmer of light in the general corporate veil of darkness over plans for the Sony media software range has the potential to be blown out of proportion.

Yours may have been a personal view and a guess, but of course as an insiders view posted on the official board it carries more weight than anyone else's speculation would.

There's so little official information to go on - even the list of new features for Vegas 7 was removed from the site which makes no sense. There's a new version coming soon but Sony don't want to tell us what's in it!?


For some of us Vegas is the backbone of our production work - and for me I know it's the most important tool in my business. It's also a product I've recommended to others on a personal and business basis.

So there are many reasons why, like others, I want to know at the earliest opportunity if/when I should switch to another product (ideally ACID) because of a clear corporate strategy (ie moving the Vegas audio developers to work on ACID).

Meanwhile a guy develops a full-scale DAW from scratch in a matter of months - telling us the plans at every stage - adding features almost daily... and we're supposed to be patiently waiting for a new Vegas release that (for the brief time Sony let us see what was in it) adds almost none of the mountain of suggestions & requests for new features that have been posted on this board.

Although I am happy to invest in future SMS products I certainly don't want to end up buying the latest version of Vegas just for a couple of features that already exist elsewhere anyway if the plan for ACID is to incorporate full Vegas audio functionality and allow imports of Vegas sessions.

But nobody will tell us!