Frame by frame audio scrub (advance on frame at a time and hear the audio)

[John Rofrano]

[Robby Huang] “So is it possible to press the left and right arrow keys to advance one frame at a time and hear the audio ala Premiere and Final Cut Pro?”

No, you can only scrub the audio by dragging the timeline cursor with your mouse.

[Robby Huang] “This is a ridiculously simple and useful feature and with every new version of Sony Vegas I’m amazed that it’s not in there. Is there just some setting I’m missing.”

Actually, I’ve never missed it and I don’t know if I’d ever use it. I sync all of my audio up by watching the waveforms. I’m not saying it’s not needed… only that I’ve never needed it.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Jasio Iwaszkiewicz]

i love to learn new things, that is why i am here. i wonder what might be the use of scrubbing by frames with audible audio?
anyway – i thought to myself – if one so desperately needs that, i would advise: set on the system function in which you can use cursor buttons to move your arrow. have no idea what it is called but i know there is a feature like that. next if you work on a laptop – use a touchpad button to catch the cursor and you are free to use your arrows (i think it must be arrows on numeric part) to move like you usually use your mouse. when you zoom to the timeline you will be able to scrub with audio by frames. on a big workstation you could probably address somehow a key of your choice for mouse left-click. i know it looks very weird. it is as weird to me as the need of srubbing by frames with audio. please, please, tell me what is the use of that function in fcp and premiere?

[Robby Huang]

Thanks for the responses guys. I’m probably as surprised that people don’t use it as you guys are surprised that people do.

I do a lot of subtitle work and we are pretty anal about getting the subtitle to start right when they start talking. I also do a lot of music video type stuff and using the waveform to sync works well enough most of the time, there are plenty of times where the music doesn’t show on the waveform at certain points in the song because of how quiet it is. It would just be nice to have some assurance that I’ve got it synced properly.

[Bob Peterson]

I must confess that I do not see how hearing 1/30th of a second of audio is in any way useful. I do look at the audio waveform all the time to precisely position events when I want the events to illustrate the audio. That is, of course, also how I synchronize a/v tracks.

[Aleksey Tarasov]

Press Numeric Keypad 0
You can specify the length of the time that is previewed using the Cursor preview duration box on the Editing tab of the Preferences dialog

JKL for scrub playback…

[Robby Huang]

The lowest you can go unfortunately is 3 frames, but thanks, that is helpful!

[Kevin Richards]

Here is the secret to the universe for frame by frame advance in Sony Vegas. Are you ready? It’s sooo easy.

Above your project timeline on the upper left there is a display of some numbers. Right click that, and change the “Time Format” to “Time & Frames”. Now, the finicky mess that is Sony Vegas will let you advance frame by frame.

I’m sure it all made perfect sense in some coder’s mind, but for us professional editors, scrubbing frame by frame is vital, ever for things as simple as putting an Academy Leader on your footage, you must park on a single frame to accomplish this.

Most people that use Vegas are making wedding videos, etc. and would never understand why someone might want to advance a single frame at a time, or why audio scrubbing would be necessary.

[John Rofrano]

[Kevin Richards] “Above your project timeline on the upper left there is a display of some numbers. Right click that, and change the “Time Format” to “Time & Frames”. Now, the finicky mess that is Sony Vegas will let you advance frame by frame.”

Actually that’s a just a readout and has no bearing on how many frames you advance on the timeline other than to show you how far you have moved. Vegas Pro jumps frames in relation to the timeline zoom. If you zoom in you will move less frames, if you zoom out you will zoom more frames. If you are working on broadcast media you definitely do not want to set your time format to “Time & Frames” since broadcast mostly uses “SMTPE Drop Frame” and if you want your program material to start and stop on time you need to be measuring in SMPTE Drop. For Internet video it’s OK to use Time & Frames if that makes more sense to you.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Robby Huang]

Haha, well first, advancing one frame at a time was not what I was talking about. To do that, you just hold Alt and then press left or right. Very simple.

What I am talking about is advancing one frame at a time, and then Sony Vegas plays back an audio scrub of what that ONE FRAME sounds like. As it is, if you advance one frame at a time, there is NO audio.

[John Rofrano]

Sorry I misunderstood what you meant.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com