Any news on pan to buss problem?

ultrafinriz wrote on 11/23/2006, 6:53 AM
I've searched the forums and read. I've submitted an issue to tech support (pending.)
I'm on Vegas 6c and I'm wondering if my days with Vegas are nearly over.

Is there any update to the pan to buss (bus) problem?

If you have a track and two stereo busses (the first 'main' and the second feeding 'main') and pan the track to one side the pan follows to the main buss route but not to the secondary buss route. The same is true with FX busses - the input to any buss but the master is mono.
Essentially the aux buss send should be post pan.

The two workarounds I've read/discovered:
1) panning works if you route the track's output (main, A, B, C) to a secondary buss. Yea! - but it's no longer going to your main buss!!
2) add a 'pan' plug-in to each track and don't use the 'multipurpose slider' as your pan.

It seems this used to work correctly but changed somewhere after V4.
I'm hoping I'm missing something.
Any help appreciated.

Jesse

Comments

ultrafinriz wrote on 11/29/2006, 4:12 PM
Quiet here...
I heard back from tech support:
My initial question first:

It seems the only buss I can pan a track to is the master buss. If I make a new buss and send a track to it that is panned hard left it is mono at the input of the group.
Reading the forum the only work-around seems to be to add the PAN plugin to each track.
Thanks for your help.
Jesse Olley


>>>
Greetings Jesse,

Thank you for contacting Sony Media Software Support. What exactly are you trying to do? Are you unable to record properly? Please update the incident providing some more information and we will be glad to assist you.

If you have follow up questions or need further assistance with this issue, please update this incident.

Sincerely,

Kunal B.
Technical Support
Sony Media Software
1617 Sherman Ave
Madison, WI 53704
>>>

I hate this kind of response. If they would have read my question they know I'm doing audio - can you pan video?
Have you ever gone into Radio Shack and asked for a specific cable or adapter and the next thing they say is, "whatcha tryin' to do with it?" I want to respond, "who cares, give me my cable."

Jesse
Ben  wrote on 11/29/2006, 5:55 PM
Useless. Either they're being deliberately obtuse (very possible) or the support guy's just plain ignorant of audio and this long standing problem (very possible).

Either way, sadly it increasingly feels like the audio side of Vegas is dead.

You tried REAPER?

Ben
adowrx wrote on 11/30/2006, 6:45 AM
Essentially, that function (a very basic, necessary function) is broken.
SonyMLogan wrote on 11/30/2006, 8:28 AM
ultrafinriz,

As of Vegas 7.0 the Track pan is only applied to the main routing. Sends do not listen to the pan, whether or not the send fader is set to pre or post volume.

Another possible workaround in your situation would be to send the track through one bus, which applies a pan and routes to another bus. That way, you get your pan, and the ability to copy pan envelopes easily

We are evaluating our routing architecture – if you have a recommendation for what you would like to see changed, I’d love to hear it. The more detail you can provide, the better.

- Matt Logan
ultrafinriz wrote on 11/30/2006, 5:28 PM
Matt,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. It's unfortunate tech support isn't as involved.

Interesting you mentioned this behavior changed for V7. I'm still on V6. I thought I read elsewhere on the forum that this happened around V4 or 5.

I would expect the pan to affect the aux send - or as you say the sends should listen to the pans. I believe currently the sends don't listen to the pan envelopes either. This should change as well. This is all true for buss sends and FX sends. Perhaps there could be a pre/post pan toggle as there is now a pre/post level toggle.

Other features that would help head Vegas back in the pro audio world would be track grouping for mute groups and/or fader groups. This currently works by ctrl-clicking multiple tracks and making your change but it would be nice if these groupings could be 'stored' for recall by hotkey or toolbar icons.

Thanks again for your reply and interest Matt (& everyone.) Not to be rude but why what this change made (to the current behavior)? I'm just wondering if I'm missing something here... others are calling it broken. I'm assuming it was more of an oversight.

Jesse Olley

Ben  wrote on 11/30/2006, 8:01 PM
Thanks for the explanation Jesse - hopefully this will help Matt and the team.

As far as I remember, this change happened with Vegas 5. It was talked about a lot on this forum at the time and none of us could fathom why it had occurred; we never received an explanation from Sony. To anyone working seriously with audio, the current pan>auxes/busses behaviour makes no sense. It should ideally work as you state.

While we're talking routing, the ability to send from busses (rather than just assign) to assignable/aux FX and other busses is sorely needed. When you need to apply reverb to your drum buss, for example. This could work the same as normal track sends, with the send faders available on the bus tracks view in the trackpane window, perhaps. Folder tracks, but preferable with a fader, unlike in ACID, would also be great.

I also think your other suggestions would be great Jesse.

Whether we're ever actually going to see any further audio improvements in Vegas, however, unfortunately remains to be seen. I do hope so.

Ben
ultrafinriz wrote on 11/30/2006, 9:03 PM
Ben,
I thought about that. When you hit "B" to display busses as tracks it would be nice if they behaved like the tracks with FX and buss sends (& envelopes.) I often use a drum group but don't mind sending to a reverb from the tracks.
I put kick into the snare reverb on purpose yesterday for the first time in my 10 years of engineering - I had to stick the drums in the small room and couldn't get good room mic tracks. But I digress. Back to improving Vegas. I don't want to have to learn a 3rd editing system...

Jesse
randygo wrote on 12/1/2006, 11:37 AM

>I don't want to have to learn a 3rd editing system...

Give Reaper a try, its everything Vegas should have been for audio, and the workflow and keystrokes are very similar, if not identical in most cases. The routing architecture is extremely advanced and does not have any of the limitations described here.

Cheers,

Randy
ultrafinriz wrote on 12/2/2006, 7:41 AM
Thanks Randy,
Reaper looks like it's headed in the right direction. Reading their forum it seems a little young still. I'll check it out again when my current project is wrapped up.

For those tracking my tech support thread I've gone back and forth another time - still trying to explain the problem. Now we're swapping screenshots. I'm getting tired of typing "mulitpurpose slider" All of you seem to understand the problem and when it was 'broken' much better than tech support.

Sony is trying to understand the issue and is open to changing it in the future - I'm gonna keep trying to explain it to them.

Jesse
SonyMLogan wrote on 12/4/2006, 8:23 AM
Not to be rude but why what this change made (to the current behavior)? I'm just wondering if I'm missing something here... others are calling it broken. I'm assuming it was more of an oversight.




You are correct, vegas 7.0 did not introduce the change - it was made earlier - I was clarifying what the existing behavior in vegas 7.0 is.

It has been a few years since we made the change, but if my memory serves, it was because at the time we had just added surround to the feature list, and given the time we had left in the project cycle, we couldn't come up with a satisfying solution to the problem of handling the surround case (when the master is a surround master). So, it was not “broken” or an oversight – it was what happens when you are running short on time and you have to find an interim workable solution.

We are obviously at the point of exceeding “interim” so we are reviewing the signal flow and now is the time to suggest the ideal way this needs to work for you. The best input we can get is not just a “how” it should work, but a “what” are you using it for that would work better, and “why”. I would be especially interested in what your expectations are for how to handle panning when the primary route is to a surround Master, and there is a send to a bus.

- Matt Logan
ultrafinriz wrote on 12/4/2006, 9:12 AM
Matt,
Thanks for the clarifications.
I'm not sure I get the "what" question but here we go:

How it should work:
1) multipurpose slider should have new option for pre/post pan.
2) busses should have properties - they should be either mono, stereo, or 5.1.
3) if the master buss is 5.1 (and the track pans become 5.1) but a secondary buss is stereo or surround (by its properties) an automatic downmix should occur. In the case of surround to stereo downmix there is already L R data in the surround matrix - ignore center and front to back info.
OR a right click on the track's buss send would pop up a "details" menu that would include pre/post fader, pre/post pan and mono, stereo, or surround.

What I'm using it for:
1) Trying desperately generate multiple different mixes with independent solos, mutes and levels such as: a) control room b) headphone for the drummer c) headphone for the banjo player d) DAT machine
2) sending multiple instruments into the same FX & utilizing the stereo input of the plug in - 3 people in a room & I want reverb. I don't want to run 3 plug ins, I want one that recognizes the stereo relationship of the 3 players/tracks.

Why should it work this way:
So we can still use Vegas for audio and not sneeze at the notion that it's for professionals. Seriously - this is the way it was in the analog days - why should routing be less functional now? Other products are being developed from scratch that have these capabilities.

Thank you for finally reviewing this issue. Thank you for asking how, what, why. Please fix it so I can consider Sony Media products in the future, not just the past.

Best,
Jesse Olley
UltraFinRiz Productions






PS. Busses and FX auxes seem to behave exactly the same way - I'm treating them as one in these discussions.