Will Vegas ever support sidechaining VSTs?

Lowtaxico wrote on 4/29/2014, 8:55 AM
I work on a lot of videos where ducking / sidechaining is necessary for making sure the voiceover work stands out from the background music. Since no version of Vegas supports sidechaining, I'm currently using the hacky Wave Hammer routing workaround, which doesn't offer much control and doesn't sound very wonderful either.

Does anybody out there have any clue as to if Vegas will ever support proper sidechaining? I'm assuming 13 doesn't support it because it would require them to totally rewrite how all their VSTs operate, but considering the number of crashes I already have from using specific VSTs, I wouldn't chalk that up to a huge loss.

Comments

Geoff_Wood wrote on 4/29/2014, 4:04 PM
I don't think most (any ?) of the SCS FX are VST- mostly DX !

geoff
Steve Mann wrote on 4/29/2014, 4:04 PM
What NLE programs support sidechaining? This must be a really popular need because it's the second time someone has requested it on the forum in what, 3 years? </sarcasm>

Enerjex wrote on 4/30/2014, 7:32 AM
It's certainly a feature I'd also like to see. It's omission is surprising given vegas's audio roots. Anyone with an audio background understands how useful it can be in certain scenarios. No need for sarcasm here, it's a valid request. If you've ever had to sit down and manually duck a wall of guitars so a snare can peek through 150 times in a song you'll know why it's handy. Same goes for kicks with bass guitars, and of course voiceovers!
CJB wrote on 4/30/2014, 9:34 AM
I agree, true sidechaining would be useful on many fronts, including auto-ducking soundtrack when there is dialogue etc.

FYI I believe there was a discussion only a few months ago. Being that Vegas and this particular forum slot is about Video and most seem to ignore the audio aspects it makes sense that it is not talked about daily....

Go on to any DAW forum and you will get regular comments about sidechaining.
larry-peter wrote on 4/30/2014, 10:06 AM
Agreed. I think this would be one of the truly worthwhile "new features" SCS could tout with a release. Vegas was a late adopter of VST, and even some of the Windows DAW programs that were originally DX based (Sonar, I believe, was one) implemented a clunky "track order" provision early on that would allow VST side chaining.

If you haven't used it, you wouldn't know how powerful it can be. Once you have, you will always want it available.
rraud wrote on 4/30/2014, 10:29 AM
Side-chaining has been discussed (and requested) since audio-only Vegas 1.
Vegas does not support a side-chains per se, but they are some (clunky) workarounds and some plug-ins will work w/o the traditional architecture. As I recall, the Wave Arts comp/limiter worked as did the free VST Slim Slo Slider. I haven't used either in a while so they may not currently work.
larry-peter wrote on 4/30/2014, 11:34 AM
I don't know for sure, but Vegas probably is using some sort of DX bridge for VST plug ins. The DAWs that were built around a VST core (my experience is with Cubase and Nuendo) expose all plugins' inputs and outputs globally. Pretty much anything can be routed to anything. Vegas' audio core may not allow this.
K-Decisive wrote on 4/30/2014, 1:56 PM
In the past I made a couple plugins for myself with Synth edit

http://www.synthedit.com/

One was to randomly trigger snare samples, another was my version of a dimension-D chorus. I may have also created a ducking plug in also, I know I at least though about it.

It required that you pre-rendered a stereo track with the track to do ducked to one side and the ducking track to the other so the plug in would have access to both signals using the left and right track inputs. After that it's a basic VCA setup with some attack and decay controls.

Might be worth a try.
Geoff_Wood wrote on 4/30/2014, 4:37 PM
... and is one particularly relevant for use in many of Vegas's video editing scenarios !

geoff
Byron K wrote on 5/2/2014, 2:07 PM
Yes, to be taken as a serious audio platform side chaining is a an elementary essential to any audio application. Especially for video where there is more narratives and monologue tracks.

I personally could also use a side chain feature in Vegas but have not raised any concern because I do most of my audio work in Cubase 6. I've been working w/ audio many years before getting into video and tho Vegas' audio is very good, I just prefer to use a DAW app for most audio work. To purchase an audio app is, imho, not economical option for many of the members here. (:
Spectralis wrote on 5/2/2014, 8:01 PM
I also do most of the audio work outside of VP in Reaper where side-chaining is possible. It's an essential tool for voice overs and other FX.
paul_w wrote on 5/3/2014, 8:06 AM
I would reserve more pro features like side chaining to a proper DAW environment. At that point you can do much more than just audio ducking. Would be nice to see this in Vegas i agree, but not necessarily needed. You could use a free DAW like Audacity to do this, ranging up to a paid for solution. I use CuBase for all my audio productions. Then import the result into Vegas where any final adjustments are made to mix with any existing audio tracks.
Vegas has one of the best (if not THE best) audio abilities in any NLE out there, remember it started out life as a DAW not as an NLE. video came later, so its about as good as it gets in terms of audio handling. Probably one of the reasons i still use it, even after dumping it in favor of Premiere Pro for a while which also has good audio handling these days. But side chaining is on another level. They'd need to redesign the the way audio plugins are connected. Sounds like a lot of work.

Paul.