Control surface support- open support with midi implementation so I can use my 02r, Red his 03d and everyone else can use there surface of choice.

Tempo Control track- so the metronome can be set with tepo changes and the bars/beats will line up with the parts.

Grouping fade envelopes- change the style/ length of fade without having to change each one individually.

Rewire support

Network system support- lan networks are becoming common place, use this for extra cpu power for plugins etc


Clean up the current clunkiness- projects that ran smoothly under vegas 3 gasp and stutter under vegas 4

Better method for cleaning old takes off the hard drive- such as clean media pool and erase these files from the drive.

More as I think about it.
Steve S

multi-threading

RiRo

1. buss to buss for mixing
2. ability to group and hide tracks
3. working metronome and ability to program tempo changes a la Acid
4. Shoot, just combine Acid/Vegas like JoeD has asked for years and we're closer to perfection already

5. the kitchen sink

Control Surface support would be my first choice. A strict midi learn implementation would make me happy, right click, hit midi learn and tweak my control, like in Live, works well.

Second, more of a video request though, nested groups/timelines like in fcp and premiere pro. Makes organizing stuff much more easier.

Here are my suggestion for Vegas 5...

Some of these suggestions are pretty standard but some of them are not.
Mostly what i do is music recording/mixing as well as sound design and im always striving for creative ways of manipulating audio and personally i think that the DAW of the future is the CREATIVE daw and not just a workhorse so my suggestions will be in that direction.

I will be disregarding the tecnical implications and simply write down the "ideas i have in my head" while working .

In no particular order.....

Buss to Buss routing...

Buss to FX routing...!

Inverse Buss Volume Linking....Well , maybe very specific to my needs but i would like to be able to link two or more busses where one is the master and when i raise the master the other busses in the group will lower their volume respectivly.
Excellent for dynamic manipulation and very useful when it comes to working on choruses and such.

Change order of busses...often the busses get created on the run so being able to tidy up a bit would be nice, especially important for the automation/volume envelope window.

minimize all tracks in the automation window..

Ability to group busses, i know you can for as long as you have them selected but i mean groups that stick, or even somthing similar to VCA groups where the Group is represented by one slider that will move all the other ones !?!?I.e Folder Busses where you could zoom out so to speak and have one visible slider that controls the Busses.

Ability to group tracks and make it stick and maybe a small window where you can select the groups and their attributes.

Sidechaining for the purpose of ducking/compressing a section when another section reaches a certain threshold, can be done with volume envelopes to acertain extent but there´s an obvious sound difference when you could use a compressor.

Internal routing where you could assign the output of any audio application you are using into Vegas a la "Virtual audio cable"

Ability to record/route "what you hear" into tracks in Vegas, as i often solo a few tracks,send them to a buss, set up a filter on the buss and play with it and record the output.
Often when im on a science session and creating stuff i like to set up a few bussess loaded with fx and switch between them and record the output
Could be done via automation and render to new track but it is different (try it!)

Control surface...Long overdue.

Play meters...Contrary to some statements made on this board you will not hear minor clipping and i like to know that my audio is safe.

Freeze FX...nice EH?

Tempo track....Where you could change tempo in the middlesection or whatever.

tempo Sync on Fx would be nice but its workable as it is.

Mono Button on master...loads of TV work done in vegas and therefore an essential function.

Rewire...for sure..

Reverse Event.

Remove Silence from project.

Better/quicker access to the tempo as well as an tempo indicator.

Ability to select between several programs when "open in editor"

A solo function where muted track will mute their input to FX.

Being able to view more then one plug-in at a time.

Higher resolution on the grid spacing 32nd note triplets isnt enough ...

Import projects from ACID, not being able to do that is just plain silly .

Ability to export track by track where you have the ability to include Envelopes or not as well as being able to export FX as seperate track and being able to render per buss etc...

Working with a long selection of volume curves is cumbersome at best as the envelope edit tool depends on you making a selection which will mess up your current time selection that you might be playing, maybe i dont get this tool but this is how it looks to me.

Ability to use sine /cosine/saw envelopes which would snap to grid i.e they would be in tempo and you could select the snap value or "speed" of the envelope.Could simply work as an LFO to pan LFO to Volume Etc.

Better access to the timestretching and pitch change dialogs , its annoying to always having to open this dialog, close , listen, open again etc.
Just give us a + for pich up and a - for pitch down.

Folder tracks ...Where you could fold down a number of tracks to free up work space.Add the ability to "freeze" the folder tracks so a user would be able to edit a folder track like one track even though it would contain a number of tracks.
A bitch to program im sure but lovely to work with..

A playlist ...where you could try out alternative methods of arrangement at a glance.And then rearrange to playlist if you decide its good.
Working on a full tune where the tune has yet to be arranged is hard to do properly in Vegas and this would help, as moving big sections is not too good.

Being able to insert a blank section in the middle of a project for the purpose of pasting a new section would be nice ...maybe it can be done but i havent found it.?

Quantise...This could be done in the tried and tested Cubase way or even in the Vegas way which could be that the groove would actually be apparent on the GRID...now that would be lovely.(i.e you would actually space the grid lines according to the groove)..Otions /Ruler Format /Groove...yep ..nice!

Some sort of beat detective where you could open a audio clip and set markers to transients (a la Recycle) the split according to markers and then being able to groove quantise from the created markers as well as being able to extract the groove of a clip and apply it to the project.

Then i would like to propose a new way ( i think ) of timestretching where you could after splitting a audio clip with the beat detective, timestretch individual chunks.(Manually or used to force the beat into the new groove.)
This you would do by moving the markers within the audio clip and stretch accordingly.
Its hard to explain but it would look like this (where the * represents a marker)
(Before)*boom*tsss*boom*tsss* and then you could open in the trimmer and drag the markers like this
(After) *bom*ts*booooooom*tsssssss*...get it!?

This feature could be used in conjunction with the beat detective and groove quantise where you could choose between this method of groove quantising and the method where the chunks are split and moved to fit the groove.

In addition to this i would like to see a function that allows you to select a portion of a sound file and "Split to grid" especially if the grid is now set to a groove, this would be useful for non tempo related material where the beats slicer would be of no help.

Also the groove quantise would have to be able to work on "Start of audio event" or "Snap Offset" as well as the "embedded groove markers"
Maybe a "rearrange" function/toy where you could randomly rearrange the events you select.

Drum Replacer...Now this would be killer stuff if implemented as im sure Sofo could come up with a great way of doing this.Should be easy to implement as soon as the transient detector is working for the groove functions,.
OR....
Open up some drums in the trimmer and there you would find an "volume envelope" similar to the one inherent to all audio events except that this envelope would be a threshold.... dragged from the top down until the transients exceed the "threshold" and voila you have a trigger for drum
replacement.

I would like to see a function where you could math timing between two seperate channels (similar to Vocalign) for the purpose of fixing timing between two vocalists or for having fun!?

"Create takes from markers"
Dragging several file from the explorer and adding as one take is an brilliant function but it could need some improvement.
I would like to be able to drag a 2 min recording that was recorded as a loop and therefore was several takes in to the project as several takes again, should be easy to do as the markers are there.

Ability to select a number of audio chunks (lets say snare hits) and open up the media pool and replace these *selected" events with new sounds.
This can be done at the moment but it replaces every sound in the same event.Take this a bit further and allow a user to replace a sound with multiple sounds that would now act as takes.
Or even further where you could select a number of events , media pool replace and select a number of new audio bits and they would randomly or according to some rules replace the old ones.

Logical editor of some sorts..Where you could say select all of your replaced snare hits and vary the velocities randomly within set boundaries, this would be a huge timesaver and essential to successfull drum replacement.

The logical editor should be able to do simple tasks like "remove all events shorter then X"that would help with all the tiny events left all over the place when cutting and moving big sections around.
I have literally spent hours getting rid of these click inducing bastards:)
It could be a fun toy as well..."reverse all events" according to a set criteria.

Maybe this logical editor could extract info from the Drum replacer ??
i.e it could use the triggers made by the drum replacer to do something else ??Like....Convert trigger to volume envelope ?? where you could make the bass duck a bit on every kik drum.

All i have time to write down at the moment but i will be writing another lengthy post like this when i get the time.

I´ll be adding to this post below when new suggestions come to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Half time recording.

Also...

I have managed to find interesting variations on a tune by messing with the speed, please allow "render all tracks at new speed" as there is no practical way to go " yep thats it will do it in this tempo"

A Semitone/cent indicator on the "Speed" indicator.

I would also like to elaborate on the folder tracks.

A lot of the time when mixing i like to just bounce the drums down and work from there.
At that point in time i would like to be able to put my original drums into a folder and mute.....but i can still get to them and change something if i feel like it.Using busses on the originals could be a problem unless they pack away into the folder track as well when you actually mute the folder track.
Very often when bouncing i i need the work space and im tempted to throw the originals away or make a new save and decide i can always get them from the old save if i need to change anything but thats not too good.

So folder tracks could be tracks that are active as well as folder tracks that dont even have to be in the arrange window and are just kept on the side.

mute/bounce folders where you are just keeping them around for safekeeping!

Active folders wher you just want to take them out of sight for a moment.

1. MIDI Sequencing and VSTi

I am constantly rendering rough mixes from Vegas and bringing them into another application to record and edit parts using VSTi soft synths. I then render the MIDI/VSTi stuff to audio files and bring it into Vegas. This works, but when I get into editing and rearranging that requires MIDI rearranging or editing, it is a royal pain. I don't need anything too fancy here, I just want to stay inside of Vegas.

2. Rewire

I could get around the MIDI stuff if I could control a sequencing application from Vegas through Rewire, but that wouldn't be quite as good (because of the need to start up the applications in the right order, save multiple project files, etc.), but I'll take that if it is all I can get.

1. Surround panner with discreet center channel and divergence setting. Current limitations are well defined in "Surround thread.

2. 5.1 surround effects (reverbs, delays, eq, dynamics, etc.) like Waves 360° Surround ToolKit.

3. Multichannel (5.1) wav save and open support. This feature was once implemented in Sonic Foundry's SoftEncode.

4. Possibility to apply real-time effects to individual audio clips (Real-time event FX). Currently available for video clips only.

<bite tongue>...ok
1. H/W control surface support
2. Sine/saw/squarewave envelope draw tool, like Protools..great for autopan effects.
3. Reverse Event
4. Surround Encoder
5. DX VU/PEAK meter. I believe this would also help Arnar with his suggestion of meters on each channel, but gives more versitility for plugin chains also.
6. CD text support
7. Open Acid Project
8. Rewire Support
9. Mute also Mutes Pre Fader sends
10. OMF suuport

need one of these over on the video side as well. But audio wise - hmmm.

Overall -

EDL support for both audio and video. The ability to export and import and export EDL's that are readable by other programs is greatly missing.

The abilty to *not* export to *.w64 format in order to do a PTT. Firewire out with audio from works fine from other apps (Premiere, WinDV, etc) including the VV capture mod, so why are we forced to wait for audio to render to that format when doing a PTT off the timeline?

Real time/Automated mixing during output. Seems strange to me that with VV being an audio app that morphed into a video app there would be no real time mixing. Even Premiere 6/6.5 with it's limited audio ability offers this. And Studio 16 used to have this years ago - if I could do automated mixing on an Amiga 2000 running at 25 mhz with a whoping 4 megs of ram without missing anything why can't VV offer this as well?

SMPTE TC support such as the Studio 16 used to have. Direct SMPTE TC in, SMPTE TC out. No midi > SMPTE needed. I know with the Amiga it was a simple software mod that allowed SMPTE TC to output via the built in audio port. With D/Vision TC came in via the LPT.

- Auto Input Monitor!!!

- Multi-threading (with a good even load split between processors with SMP)

- Stability with UAD-1 (this may the more a fault of the UAD and not SF
though)

- Mono output of non-realtime FX processing of mono tracks

- pre/post insert option for track Aux sends (not just pre/post fader)

- ability to enable/disable ASIO ports individually- only want channels used to be active for better low latency operation with interfaces having large amounts of I/O

- sample accurate ASIO sync

- equivalent of Pro Tools beat detective

Broadcast Wave File Support PLEASE!!
Midi Scoring / Midi Automation Recording and Editing for H/W Mixers
Support for 3rd Party Encoders Such as DTS.
MLP support for DVD-Audio.
DSD support for SACD.
DVD-Audio Authoring Support in DVD Architect
Control for Film Printing Machines Frame By Frame.
Single Frame Export to and from Photoshop
Ability to Read/Write to a Cakewalk Bundle, (CWB) and other Cakewalk file formats, converting to and from this program.
Ability to Read/Write to the Steinberg Cubase Formats
Ability to Read/Write (import+export) ProTools formats
Bug Fixes for Synchronization of Audio.
Fix Stability Problems in Vegas 4.0
Included an instructional DVD for Vegas, included setting up of systems.
DVD-Ripping for NON Copywritten DVD's (Like from my Hitachi DVD camcorder)

A Film speed up / slow down for super 8/ 16mm movie films, both sound and silent -- from 16,18,24 FPS film adjustments from a telecine at 20FPS like a workprinter...
Support for the Workprinter h/w
HDTV encoding / Broadcast format.
Support for HDTV-DVD authoring.
Better Continuous AVI or MPEG recording over 4
hours without having to stop the tape+rewind.

* Reverse-switch for audio events
* Pitch envelope for audio tracks
* Finer incremental steps for the jog-feature
* FX on non-standard playback speeds
* "play" button in region / marker list (or the necessary scripting tools to write a "region player")

I second Rednrolls DX peak meter, seems like it would be pretty versatile, even for helping set levels in internal fx chains

The biggies seem to have been mentioned, but I guess Ill just emphasize mine

Auto Input, FOR REAL

Punch on the fly

Acid and Vegas together, like the other guy said, this will need to be used creatively as well as the line between engineer and producer is getting smaller and smaller.

Tempo changes, even if for no other purpose than visual ease

Grid spacing fixes! As you zoom in if you are doing measures and beats, it oughtta go by halves, like whole notes, half notes, quarter etc...as it is now it goes like 4.0112 or some such and then it doesnt even have the grid marks fall on the grid!, please fix this

Buss to buss, fx to buss, buss to fx routing

Sidechaining

Fix the clunkiness

The apply non realtime fx, "feels gross " it just seems weird to use.

These have been mentioned, but they're important for me, so I'll second them:

1. Control surface support - with the ability to use a Generic controller as long as the user's willing to map the controls. I'm willing.

2. MIDI/VSTi support - it doesn't have to be Cakewalk, but it could at least be as extensive as Nuendo without much trouble.

If I could have these I wouldn't use Nuendo at all.

3. Please don't EVER sacrifice the fabulous interface and usability you've put into the program. It's loads easier than any other DAW, as many others have said. Theyre right, and it's the biggest thing Vegas has going for it. Thank you for following Windows conventions for Windows users. No one else seems to get it.

Peter:

Since Vegas meets my rudimentary hobbiest uses for audio, I can only think of thing which needs to be implemented into V5:

World Peace ;)

Frenchy

MIDI support, doesn't have to be much more complex than what you have implemented in Acid, just add Staff View for entering notes and *.mid files split channels to separate tracks. This would also address the tempo request.

Or at a minimum slave/chase to MIDI Clock so I don't have to pay for and load a giant DAW just for basic MIDI editing.

The option to save to at a minimum *.pca when using the Save as...(Copy and trim all media) function. This would make archiving to CD much easier.

MJ

1. Channel grouping to allow contracting/expanding track views easily.
2. A method to get Acid projects into Vegas (even if I still have to render the loops in Acid, if Vegas could read the track and fx settings and mimic them that would be a big help).
3. Sample accurate delay compensation for ASIO.
4. Hardware interface support.
5. Multiple FX windows up at once.
6. Reverse event switch
7. Multichannel file support (open a 5.1 wav or interleaved PCM file)
8. If you include track meters, please let there be an option to not show them.

>>3. Sample accurate delay compensation for ASIO.
I didn't intend on asking questions, but this makes no sense. What do you mean?

Sorry, Peter, not very clear on that. The current hardware latency compensation slider (when you choose not to have it automatically compensated for) is in milliseconds. Millisecond resolution gets me within 20 samples, if it was in samples I could get it closer.

Auto Input:

For those of us with Microsoft Word, Here's a .doc file that explains it all

Hello,

My list:

-Punch in/out on fly.
-Tempo track for the metronome, for change the tempo and beat in the same project.
-Basic Midi.
-Pro meters, with selection of the numbers of samples for mark the over (Between 1 to 10 samples).
-Hardware control support.
-Better sincronization with externall devices (Like ADAT's etc.)
-VST support.
-VST instruments support.
-AES31 support.
-OMF support.
-Broadcast Wave support.
-DTS encoder.

Cheers

1 Administrative tools to customize menues, i.e. graying out options.
2 When deleting tracks from media pool delete the .sfk files.
3 Automatic default crossfade upon cutting, instead of V shape cut. Like SADIE.
4 Punch in on the fly.
5 Naming tracks before recordind.