How to Make Audio CD from Vegas surround project

dvdmike wrote on 7/13/2003, 11:18 AM
This is my first project with Vegas. I have been using Premiere for years. So, I'm a new-B to Vegas and already have a LOT of questions. I'll post a host of video questions in another topic later. But for now I'm trying to make an audio CD from a video project and need some help...

My project is set up for 5.1 surround since it will be output to a DVD with DD5.1. But also making an audio CD. I've got 24bit 96khz audio tracks mixed for surround sound the way I want them for the DVD. I've also got one video track in the timeline with its corresponding stereo audio track muted (I do not want to use the camera's audio). I've got CD tracks marked in the timeline.

Questions:

1) What is the (easy) procedure given my current setup to mix down to stereo before making a CD? Will Vegas automatically mix down the 5.1 to 2-channel stereo for me as part of the CD rendering process? Or, do I have to change my project settings to stereo?

I have tried 3 times to do a disk at once CD burn with the above configuration and Vegas bombs each time. I am using a dual Xeon 2.8 system. The length of my audio tracks is about 33 minutes.

2) When I click burn disk at once, I get a waning stating: "Red Book Warning, Track 1 has a pause greater than 3 seconds." What does this mean?

3) I click write-cd (anyway) and the prerendering process starts. This takes about 13 minutes and uses 100% of both CPU's. It raises my CPU temperatures higher than I have ever seen before. After 13 minutes the progress meter gets to 100% and then Vegas either halts without an W XP error or bombs with a W XP error. Why does it bomb each time?

4) If I restart Vegas and try gain without powering down, after I click "write-cd (anyway)" as part of the red book warning dialog, I get the following error immediately: "this drive cannot write the current PQ list correctly" and it will not let me proceed. What does this indicate?

5) Will muted tracks be part of the render?

6) When Playing the timeline, why doesn't the <CNTRL> right-arrow go top the next marker? How can one easily advance to the next CD track while playing?

7) Will vegars (how to) write CD-Text onto an audio CD?

Comments

mikkie wrote on 7/13/2003, 12:55 PM
OK, if I understand correctly, you want a downmix of your 5.1 proj to stereo, retaining the positional info as possible...

Changing the proj to stereo as far as I've been able to determine just reverts the audio tracks back to normal behavior - you get a right and left track active with others below ignored... As 5.1 you can render to wmv, separate mono, or ac3 (with the plugin). You also have the option of stereo wav from all busses, which might be what you're looking for, though I haven't ever played with it much to judge quality of positioning info that's retained, assuming it is. [I guess it would work to set a recognizable tone or sound to each position and see what's in the 2 channel render]

Generally what I have done after completeing the 5.1 mix for DVD or whatever, is use graphedit & cyberlink filters to downmix to stereo wav - this allows use of their dbx and other processors. Conversion to 44.1 can happen there too at the same time if nec.

Not a huge amount of info avail on 5.1 stuff, but in case it's of use experimenting... Cooledit pro can read/write wav files containing all 6 channels - might help getting all 6 channels into whatever app... MS has a couple of tools, one stores your mono wav files in an avi container, and the other takes the lossless 5.1 wma file you create in Vegas 4c, giving you a wav file with all 6 channels.
dvdmike wrote on 7/13/2003, 1:13 PM
Are you saying that I can't go right from the timeline to burn an Audio CD? If so, what is the "disk at once" option? I really don't have a huge deal mixing the audio to stereo myself if I have to. That much I know how to do in vegas. I can simply make my project settings stereo. If fact, I've made a copy of my project in stereo and still I have the same problems. What I cannot do is burn a CD from the timeline. I want to set track points in the timeline (done) and make a music CD using the timeline audio and track markers. My main problem that Vegas Bombs off every time I try to make a disk. So I really need some procedures on using Vegas to create an audio CD. The manual is very skimpy on this task.
videoman69 wrote on 7/13/2003, 5:17 PM
Off-topic, I was interested in trying some 5.1, I have ordered spots book but who knows when that will ship. What is your system set-up. How can I get more info on this subject?

Thanks
dvdmike wrote on 7/14/2003, 7:03 AM
Videoman69,

I do live video and audio recordings. I usually use mics to record the audio of acoustic instruments. I record the audio separately from the video using a Motu 896 firewire audio card (box). This allows me to record up to 24bit and 96khz in real time to hard drive. I often use a microphone placement technique so that mixing to 5.1 is fairly simple if the hall's acoustics lend itself to such. Using the mic placement method, I have very little digital trickery that I would need to do to otherwise obtain a good surround sound mix. I use Sonar XL 2 to record the live audio.

In post, I use the same Motu box hooked up to a surround sound receiver with 6 channel RCA inputs. I cable from 6 of the 8 channels of output that the motu has to my receiver's 6 inputs. The receiver has 5.1 quality speakers (well, not quite "Studio" quality yet). As I mix and play back the audio in Vegas or Acid or Sonar, I can hear the 6 channel mix and use my ears mostly to create the mix. My biggest problem is that my computer system is in the same room as the my audio system and the computer system makes noise. Eventually, I’ll have to put the computer setup, except monitors keyboard and mouse into another room to cut down on the ambient noise in audio mixing that I have today.


I still need help with my original post, however. I did not notice when I originally posted that there is a Vegas Audio section. If no one responds today, I'll repost my questions over there.
Bill Ravens wrote on 7/14/2003, 11:07 AM
Here's a link to how to burn 5.1 discreet .wav sound to a CDROM:
http://www.5dot1.com/the_cheapest_way.html
mikkie wrote on 7/14/2003, 1:34 PM
"Are you saying that I can't go right from the timeline to burn an Audio CD? If so, what is the "disk at once" option?"

Not at all... I started with what I understood your prob to be after reading your post. I thought the 5.1 downmix was the bottleneck, but if you've got that handled...

With a stereo mix should have no prob. burning an audio CD. Likely more info in the audio vegas forum, but to my understanding fairly straightforward as you'd expect. The Vegas help file has some info on the indexing end of it under audio CD in the help file index. To get more info, click the index heading *burning*. Should give you all you need to know.

It is possible of course that there's some problem, conflict with other CD burning software on your system, and that's what's causing the prog to crash. If a test project with just a couple of CD compliant wav files or whatever won't burn to a cdr/rw, I'd take a look at that end of things. Could search the web or post here with whatever OS you're using, what CD burning apps are installed, if you've got the latest ASPI stuff from Adaptec etc., if of course that's where there's a problem.
mikkie wrote on 7/14/2003, 1:51 PM
"Here's a link to how to burn 5.1 discreet .wav sound to a CDROM:
http://www.5dot1.com/the_cheapest_way.html "

Thanks!

"My biggest problem is that my computer system is in the same room as the my audio system and the computer system makes noise. Eventually, I’ll have to put the computer setup, except monitors keyboard and mouse into another room to cut down on the ambient noise in audio mixing that I have today."

FWIW, check dplay.com - kind of neat cupboard/closet arrangment if I recall. At any rate, some folks make an enclosure in the wall, use a closet, buy a special enclosure for the PC that's on wheels and readily avail... Also, there are panels one can install into a front bay to control fans when recording, reduced noise fans, that sort of thing if your location is cool enough, water cooling might provide a viable option as the cpu fan is often the noisiest. Also, Antec makes a quiet case with drive bays insulated, or drive bay insulators can be purchased separately.

"I was interested in trying some 5.1, I have ordered spots book but who knows when that will ship. What is your system set-up. How can I get more info on this subject?"

Not a huge amount of info on this, though with persistance you can dig up some some on the web. The home page for m-audio.net has a pdf file talking about mic placement that'll get you started I think. Otherwise to experiment with any current project, import your (finished) audio track into Vegas 4c 6 times, so you have the same clip on 6 tracks. Set the project to 5.1, then set the panners per track, one for each channel, clicking the icon on the 6th for LFE only. Setting the panners is pretty straightforward - only prob might be previewing if you have audio driver prob., and in that case no big deal to render short tests. Probably the easiest format to test with is wma/wmv, but the finished project can be whatever depending on your proj destination.