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Newbie questions
I’ve downloaded the ‘Pro’ demo – my first real taste of Vegas – and so far I like a lot of what I see.
My current clients have mostly Avid, FCP and (yes) linear, so apologies if my questions are worthy of RTM. I love the audio capabilities of Vegas (bussing, 5.1, track and clip based fx etc), but I can’t seem to get my head around the best way to use it as a picture editor.
I’d love to hear of the best ways you have of working with the timeline.
There is no source/record monitoring? – i.e. events are placed on the timeline then trimmed/slipped there? This seems a little clunky to me compared to the source/record mentality of other NLEs.
A major way I work with other NLEs is to make a selects sequence then use that sequence (loaded into the source monitor) to edit into my main sequence, so that the subclips within that main sequence refer directly to the original clips, rather than any nested sequence. This doesn’t seem possible in Vegas?
Is there any way of assymetric trimming? i.e. often times I want to pull the sync earlier on A1 while removing frames from the in on the video track – and to keep sync further down the timeline I would be removing frames from the filler after the music on tracks 7/8. This is cumbersome, but usable on the Avid and downright messy on FCP – but very quick way of tightening up edits whilst viewing them and keeping sync. I realise there are ripple modes and range moves available which would go some way to get me this functionality, but none that I can see that will enable me to do this sort of trimming all at the same time, whilst viewing the edit.
Thanks
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2 Replies
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There is no source/record monitoring? – i.e. events are placed on the timeline then trimmed/slipped there? This seems a little clunky to me compared to the source/record mentality of other NLEs.
Source/timeline monitoring is more or less a thing of the past. Many editors today don’t trim source footage in the source window at all; they merely drop the footage on the timeline. However, the Vegas preview window can be EITHER source or timeline preview.
A major way I work with other NLEs is to make a selects sequence then use that sequence (loaded into the source monitor) to edit into my main sequence, so that the subclips within that main sequence refer directly to the original clips, rather than any nested sequence. This doesn’t seem possible in Vegas?
Nesting is possible in Vegas. Do your selects cut, save the selects in a veg file, then drop that veg file on a new Vegas timeline, if that’s how you want to work. However, this isn’t the fastest workflow in Vegas, IMO.Is there any way of assymetric trimming? i.e. often times I want to pull the sync earlier on A1 while removing frames from the in on the video track – and to keep sync further down the timeline I would be removing frames from the filler after the music on tracks 7/8. This is cumbersome, but usable on the Avid and downright messy on FCP –
Sounds like you’re describing J and L cuts? Very easy, and one button-doable in Vegas 4-8. Or, you can disable event grouping, and do a slip edit between two files if that’s how you’d prefer to work. Hold ALT with the cursor at a cut point to perform a slip edit.
Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASSTCertified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor -
Many thanks for the prompt response… Please understand that where I am coming from here is not to knock Vegas – I love its audio capabilities and am trying to figure out if it is usable for me for video.
[DSE/Spot]
Source/timeline monitoring is more or less a thing of the past. Many editors today don’t trim source footage in the source window at all; they merely drop the footage on the timeline. However, the Vegas preview window can be EITHER source or timeline preview.Hmmm… Avid & FCP (not exactly underused in this market) both have source/record relationship.
I have since found the ‘trimmer’ which is, as you say, a way of toggling source/record viewing in preview window. I haven’t found it to be too user-friendly yet.[DSE/Spot]
Nesting is possible in Vegas. Do your selects cut, save the selects in a veg file, then drop that veg file on a new Vegas timeline, if that’s how you want to work. However, this isn’t the fastest workflow in Vegas, IMO.No it doesn’t seem that way to me either 😉
There is no other way of having more than one timeline in a project? (i.e. I guess a *project* is really one *sequence*?). Seems to me that nested projects are ‘flattened’ down to one video/two audio tracks?Here’s an example of why I want to edit from (uncollapsed) sequences:
Have cut multiple music montages of previous games with 8 audio tracks and 3 video tracks. Need to use material within those sequences in my current sequences – mostly from V1, sometimes all 3 V – sometimes from A1/2 (sync) sometimes from A3/4 (fx).In Avid/FCP I load sequence in source monitor – find in/outs and patch required tracks to timeline – then overwrite/insert This is a similar workflow as a tape suite really. Alternatively I can load those sequences in record monitor – mark ins/outs and make subsequences of just the elements I want.
I guess the best way in vegas is to load the sequence, select (or group) the required clips, then copy them to clipboard – load new sequence and paste, trim as necessary. This seems a convoluted workflow – is there an easier way?
[DSE/Spot]
Is there any way of assymetric trimming?“Sounds like you’re describing J and L cuts? Very easy, and one button-doable in Vegas 4-8. Or, you can disable event grouping, and do a slip edit between two files if that’s how you’d prefer to work. Hold ALT with the cursor at a cut point to perform a slip edit.”
This is trimming edits to create split edits (J and L-cuts) but the problem arises with lots of audio/video tracks and decisions later in the timeline that need to stay in sync. On my current systems I can do trimming in different directions on multiple tracks simultaneously – I realise there are ways of grouping clips and moving them but there is no way I have found of trimming different sides of edits on different tracks. But I’ll look a bit harder 😉
Here’s a link on it https://www.larryjordan.biz/articles/lj_asymmetric.html
but Larry doesn’t really ‘get’ assymetric trimming… the beauty is the ability to tighten an edit and *know* you are keeping everything else where you want it on the timeline.
Anyway, all in all I want to hear different ways of working – carry on telling me I’m wrong to want to work the way I do and I’ll be happy to change if you’re right!!
Cheers
Trevor
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