Карта сони Вегаса

Sony Vegas 7

 

Multitrack Audio & Video Editing Software [Windows]

Reviews : Software: ALL

 

If your needs tend more towards looping and video editing than MIDI, Sony's distinctive multitrack recording package could be just what you're looking for.

Alan Tubbs

It has been a while since Sound On Sound reviewed Vegas. In fact, it was in the last millennium, when boutique-sized Sonic Foundry still owned the software. Since 1999, Vegas has grown from audio-only software to include video editing and Sonic Foundry have been bought by the anything-but-boutique Sony. With the release of Vegas 7, it is time to take a fresh look at this audio/video multitracker and its accompanying DVD Architect burning program.

Something that should be pointed out straight away is that Vegas doesn't include MIDI. This approach yields a clean and simple interface, yet is not as limiting as one would suppose — it is not too many years ago that Pro Tools was audio-only, and that didn't hinder its acceptance. Vegas was my first audio program that would record at over 16-bit or 48kHz, so even though I do mostly MIDI work, I would finish my MIDI composition in other programs and then dump those tracks as audio into Vegas. Upsampling to 24-bit didn't improve the sound quality of the synth tracks, but I could hear the benefits of recording acoustic tracks with the extra headroom, and though this was not the most elegant or flexible way of working, it was a natural progression from using tape and Vegas served as my digital replacement for analogue machines.

Vegas remains an elegant recording package for those who don't need MIDI, but it also handles loops very well, no doubt thanks to its shared origins with Sony's Acid. If I know I'm starting a project with loops instead of MIDI synths, I begin in Vegas instead of Sonar or Project 5, since the stretching implementation seems a tad better to my ear and is simpler for me to work with. Like Acid, though, it's Windows-only.

Viva Las Vegas

Vegas comes in the traditional box via the mail, or you can save a little money and download it. Once you've paid for either version, you get a serial number and then you have 30 days to go on-line and register the program. This process is painless and, unlike downloading the program, easily accomplished with an old-fashioned dial-up service.

When you open Vegas up the first time, there are some necessary housekeeping tasks to do before you get to the fun stuff. First stop is the Properties Page, under File in the traditional Windows drop-down menu. Here you can set your Video and Audio Properties, among other settings. As well as sample rate and bit depth, the latter include Resample and Stretch quality, which defaults to Good — change it to Best unless you like artifacts (this also applies to the video tab). You can also set a master Recorded Files folder for clips you don't put into their own folders, decide whether you want to work in stereo or 5.1 Master Buss modes, and set a number of stereo busses.

Next stop is View, where you can save and organise favourite layouts, so that once you learn the program you can personalise it: at a large studio, different engineers can have their favourite setups ready to go at the touch of a mouse. The third stop is the Options and the Preferences page. There are 12 sub-pages and a host of choices within them, but you will have to choose your Audio Device before you do any sound work. Setting your VST Effects folder now wouldn't hurt, either. Like Acid and Sound Forge, Vegas can use VST plug-ins as well as Direct X ones. The bad part is that Vegas seems to do a VST folder search every time it opens, which can be somewhat time-consuming. I haven't found a workaround for this yet.

If you are doing video, there are a similar number of little items to check off, but after that, you can actually start doing some work!

Vegas & Video Although Vegas doesn't do MIDI editing, it is an excellent video editor. Vegas treats video just like audio on the timeline. Still shots from the video are displayed on the timeline, while the final video output can be displayed in the Video Preview window. You can float this and make it as large as you want, throw it up on a TV or play it back in your video camera. While Peter Jackson might not ask you to do all the special effects for his next blockbuster at home, almost anything you've seen on TV lately can be done within Vegas. Just as you don't need Pro Tools to make a hit, you don't need Avid to cut your music video to go with it, and Vegas is the PC equivalent of Apple's Final Cut Pro. Transitions, effects and Media Generators are all available, and most of them work like equivalent features in audio editors, so it is very easy for audio engineers and musicians to get into a whole new area. I'm no video expert, but a music video I did got into the juried part of a large video festival. Not that my editing is so good, but the video pros who judged the event found Vegas's effects fine when applied en masse to '60s home movie clips. I've also done music videos that simply have shapes and words flying around in 3D, all generated from within Vegas. And, of course, plain old editing and conventional titling, three-camera moves, dissolves, compositing and green-screen replacement are all available in high definition. Try that in your DAW.

A Map Of Vegas

The entire Vegas main page is very easy to understand at a glance, and everything seems to be where it should be if you read up to down and right to left. If you've grappled with some other programs, this is a very charming aspect of Vegas. There are three main areas under the Windows toolbar: the Track List, the Timeline and the Window Docking Area (WDA), which you can see in the screen on the left. The WDA is a strip along the bottom consisting of a series of tabs for exploring, video editing, mixing and so on, each of which can be pulled out to become a floating window. The Track List lives on the left-hand side and contains all the track controls such as record arm, phase, FX, automation mode, mute and solo, plus horizontal faders for volume and pan. The pan fader also performs other functions, chosen from a drop-down menu, such as controlling auxiliary send levels. When you arm a track for recording, a level meter and input channel appear.

Insert effects on a track are accessed through the FX Chainer. By default, each track is loaded with a noise gate, EQ and compressor. Insert effects on a track are accessed through the FX Chainer. By default, each track is loaded with a noise gate, EQ and compressor.

Each track has a minimise/maximise button so you can open it to full height for editing, then squeeze it down again: when you minimise a track, you lose the name but keep the volume fader and the rest of the top-line buttons. This makes it easier to squeeze a lot of tracks into limited screen space and still have access to the most important controls for mixing. It would be nice to have something like Sonar's Track Inspector so that you could select any track and see all its parameters, but a workaround is just to maximise the track to its editing state. Right-clicking on any open area within the Track List allows you to carry out functions such as adding and deleting tracks, and to visit yet another Properties page. Channel-specific items such as file names, envelopes, switches, inputs and individual track colours are also called up here.

Clicking on a track's FX button opens an FX Chainer tab in the WDA, displaying all the plug-ins that are active on that track and allowing you to make changes and re-order them. This tab, of course, can also turn into a floating window (see screen, right). Since I have two monitors, I usually float this over the right-hand screen and the part of the Timeline that stretches across the left monitor. When I finish working on effects settings or want to work across the entire Timeline, I simply close the FX section by clicking the 'X' in the top right-hand corner. However, it is very easy to work with and doesn't feel too cramped even on a single-screen system.

A separate FX Chooser is used to add plug-ins to a track or channel. A separate FX Chooser is used to add plug-ins to a track or channel.

Directly above the Track List is a floatable, resizable Time Display showing the 'now' time, and a ruler that runs above the timeline. Right-clicking on either one of them brings up a drop-down menu that you can use to change their respective time formats. SMPTE is the default for video, but you can switch to MIDI Time Code, Samples, Measure and Beats, and so on, depending upon how you work. Under Options / Preferences / Sync, you can choose to generate MIDI Timecode and Clock messages, or have Vegas sync'd from an external device (using your MIDI interface); alternatively, you can use a video device for sync under Video Preview. Hitting 'M' inserts Markers in the Marker Bar area above the ruler. Markers are automatically numbered, and you can name them and delete or rename them by right-clicking.

Directly below the Track List and Timeline frame are the Scrub control and Transport bar. There's nothing too exciting about the transport, but the Scrub control is great. It works like a video deck scrub wheel, even though it is a bar: you can grab it and scrub forwards and backwards at a rate controlled by the bar, with a read-out to the left. The audio follows in lock-step. This provides a very tactile method of searching through the timeline. The Scroll bar (between the Timeline and Transport bar) also has a fun function, too, other than operating as a handle for moving along the timeline: grab one end and you can zoom in and out on the Timeline and Events, rather than using the incremental '+' and '—' buttons. Something I don't like about the ergonomics is the fact that the scroll button on the mouse doesn't move tracks up or down but zooms in and out. Sonar works the other way, and my fingers get confused between the programs. Using Ctrl with the mouse wheel will scroll the tracks up and down, but it always takes me a few mistakes before my fingers remember.