Audio EQ Automation

[Jerry Waters]

Could you not put the eq you want on a track below named “VO”, then use a device a man taught me to make a region, hit “s” to cut it and pull it down to the VO track? That’s the way it is done in Scotland.

JerryW

[Rick Mac]

Gordon,

Here is a workflow for you that will allow you to write automation envelpoes as you playback from the timeline.

1)Select your audio tracks “effect button”, then select the
“track eq button” Set the frequency for each band, such as
band 1 100hz band 2 250hz and so on.

2)Go up to Insert at the top of your screen and select
“Audio Envelopes” select “FX Automation” This opens the
Effect Chooser Box.

3)Put a check in EQ Gain for each band you want to adjust,
and click OK.

4)Now you are ready to play your project. Hopefully you still
have the EQ Effect Box open. If not re-open it and keep it
floating on your desktop. We will be making our adjustments
using the EQ Effect Box. Play your project, as you adjust
the gain on any band you put a check in, your gain
changes will write a gain envelope for you for as long as
you click and hold. As soon as you unclick your mouse the
gain envelope will go back to 0 gain. If you did not like
an envelope you wrote, just go back in the timeline before
the mistake and go back into play and write a new envelope.

5)After you have written all your eq envelopes you can just
put The timeline into play and watch it recreate all your
moves for you.

Hope this helps.

Regards, Rick.

Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377

[Gordon Nicol]

Rick,
Thanks so much for your detailed response. I tried it and it works really well.
However, what I’m really trying to do, is find a way to adjust eq, not while playing, but whilst “parked”. I want to just work on one small section until I have it eq’d just right, then go to another section.
But, to do this, I think I’d need some kind of set of automation envelope points after each new setting, otherwise, the automation envelopes curve from the beginning of the previous section and I want them start from the end of each section. I hope this makes sense.

[Gordon Nicol]

Well necessity is the mother of invention.
I was determined to get this to work and I have found a way:
1.With Automation off, set desired eq.
2.Add this eq as a preset
3.Set up the area to be eq

[Rick Mac]

OK, I think I understand what you are getting at (I think).
You can still use steps 1-3 from my previous post.
Just use the play feature to ruff in your envelopes, then go
back and manually fine tune them by adjusting your points on the timeline.

The reason I suggest this method is because if you pick more than one band to adjust, some of the bands get covered over by other bands. This makes it difficult to manually adjust the hidden bands. By using the play method you can adjust several bands by accessing them from the EQ Effect box rather than the line on the waveform. Then after roughing it in you should have some seperation between the lines on the waveform which you can then manually adjust on the waveform.

Somthing you could try is to manually adjust one band. After that band is adjusted you may be able to see the hidden bands. If so, you can now write in points for the others.

You do understand how to use points to create an envelop?
You create 4 points. The 2 on the ends stay at 0 level (no change). You then take the two inside points and either raise or lower them to the gain setting you prefer.

Do you have a audio editing program such as Soundforge or Audition. If you do there is a easy way to make a slection on the timeline for the section needing eq, and sending that out to your audio program. From there you can make your changes to the eq. After saving the file inside of your audio editor it will be updated on your Vegas timeline.
If you have such a program and would like the details on this let me know.

I hope I’m at least giving you some ideas here.

It is quite late now so I will close.
Regards, Rick.

Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377

[Gordon Nicol]

Thanks so much for your valuable time Rick.
As I mentioned, I think I’ve found my solution.

Appreciate it.

[Rick Mac]

Gordon,

Glad to hear you have a working solution.
I guess you posted your solution while I was
following up on your previous post.

Sounds like a good solution. In fact I am going to
print it out and keep it handy. Sounds like a very good
solution.

Regards, and happy editing.

Rick

[Gordon Nicol]

Yes Rick,
Doing it this way, you don’t really have to full with these pesky envelopes and, when you use more than one frequency & gain, that would get impossible to find the right envelope.
I’ve been using this method all morning and it works great.
I save the eq I like to a preset then have my mouse hover over that until the playback is right on the In marker and then I click the eq and just let it play that region. Once it’s done playing, the eq has changed for that region only. By the way, it does have to be the LATCH mode. Touch won’t work.
Happy automation !