Is Vegas Pro 12 a sufficient Platform for Sound Mixing a Feature Film (Sony VS Cubase)

[Steve Rhoden]

Yes, Vegas is a sufficient platform for such a tasks Debbie.
Its what i use for all my Sound mixes, layering, Dubs etc.
And no, there are no limitations in using it from my point of view.

Steve Rhoden
(Cow Leader)
Film Editor & Compositor.
Filmex Creative Media.
https://www.facebook.com/FilmexCreativeMedia
1-876-461-9019

[John Rofrano]

[Debbie King] “Does anyone know the best sound editing software to use for mixing a feature film?”

Pro Tools.

[Debbie King] “I used Sony Vegas 12 to mix my trailer, and felt that there were limitations. So I added audacity for certain things. I have Cubase and am still learning how to use it. “

What limits did you encounter? Vegas Pro is an extremely capable multi-track audio editor / mixer.

[Debbie King] “Which platform do you think of best of the three I mentioned?”

It depends on what your needs are. The biggest difference is that Cubase supports MIDI Instruments and Vegas Pro does not. If you don’t need to add MIDI instruments to your mix then both are very capable. Audacity is more like Sound Forge. It’s an audio editor not a multi-track mixer.

Of Cubase and Vegas Pro I’d have to pick Vegas Pro because you are already using it for video. Using Cubase would require a way to export an audio session from Vegas to Cubase and back again. Any tool you can eliminate will make your workflow go smoother.

What couldn’t you do in Vegas Pro?

~jr

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

[Scott Francis]

I use both and Cubase is lightyears ahead of Vegas with audio handsdown. We usually mix everything in Cubase and then export “stems” to import into Vegas for the final mix. I have had issue with FX’s, audio (ASIO)drivers, buffer setting, yada, yada, yada with Vegas….
Pro tools is not as easy either, being in the game since ’97 I have used Cubase since ’99 and have tried others…In my experience, Vegas falls short, especially when you add a lot of FX’s and also a fair amount of video tracks. Audio looses sync and video preview suffers.

Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions

[Colin Morris]

Hi Debbie,
I have used SVP in projects for sound and picture. Pro Tools is the standard for audio mixing but we have had to work with different composers who all seem to have their own favorite software(Logic, Cubase, Reaper, Sibelius, Finale) With SVP and Cubase you really have everything covered. Cubase is great for midi, soft synths, samples as well as audio. For editing dialog you should use Sound Forge or Audacity from within SVP. We usually provide the client wave files that all start at the same point. That way they can import to any software they want. It really depends on how much of the project is your responsibility. Are you mixing the final dialogue and music? Just the music? Any Midi? Just dialogue? Surround Sound? Just make sure you can accept and deliver the required audio and video formats for your part of the project.

Colin Mendez Morris
ArsMusica
http://www.arsmusica.ca

[Debbie King]

Hi Colin:

Thank you for your response. I am responsible for all of it. The entire video, dialogue and sound editing. In the past I have used Audacity to clean up the background noise. Is it comparable to Sound Forge?

[Debbie King]

Scott:

Thank you for your response. Just want to be clear, when you refer to stems, you are referring to instrumentations recorded on different tracks. For example, a track for strings, a track for drums, etc. In music we just say tracks, but I am hearing stems a lot and am a little confused by what it means exactly.

So what you are saying is that if the music is recorded in Cubase, I can mix it in Cubase, save the file and drop it in the Sony timeline. I have not yet had any experiences with dialogue losing sync in Vegas. All have been working quite well so far.

[John Rofrano]

[Debbie King] “I the past I have used Audacity to clean up the background noise. Is it comparable to Sound Forge?”

Yes, Audacity and Sound Forge are competitors. Both are surgical tools that get down to the sample level of editing.

~jr

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

[Scott Francis]

Stems are more like sub-groups. When doing plays I record the entire pit, so for example, I may record brass as individual tracks, or woodwinds and “stem” them out as a group instead of individual tracks. Keep the number of tracks in Vegas down. I also process dialog and singing differently and will split that out in Cubase as well.

In small audio mixes, Vegas is fine, HOWEVER, when I have like 5 HD video tracks and 20 or more audio tracks with processing on them, Vegas tends to get janky, crashes and audio buffers constantly have to be adjusted to get decent preview and/or to keep audio in sync with the video.
If you only have like a music bed track, dialog, ADR, and special effects or so, Vegas should be fine, a pit mix with dialog, backups, pit and overheads and stage mics, (20+ tracks), Cubase is my goto first…OR if the score is recorded and needs to be mixed as well…
Good luck!

Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions

[Debbie King]

Hi John.

Thank you for your response.

1. The limitation that I experienced was the cleaning up the background noise. It was an easier process with Audacity.

2. I would like to keep the workflow smoother. The reason I asked about Cubase, is because my composer will be using Cubase to created the music. He will be sending me the audio files to drop onto the Sony Vegas tracks (stems, I believe); still trying to understand what Stems actually mean. When I used to record years ago, we saved the recording on 16 tracks on a DAT and when we mixed, we would be able to mix the tracks separately. Is this what stems are?

3. Thank you. I was wishing to be able to use Sony to mix everything, since I already have Foley, ADR and some music on the timeline.

Many thanks,

Debbie

[John Rofrano]

[Debbie King] “Just want to be clear, when you refer to stems, you are referring to instrumentations recorded on different tracks. For example, a track for strings, a track for drums, etc. In music we just say tracks, but I am hearing stems a lot and am a little confused by what it means exactly. “

No, stems are not the same as tracks. Stems are a submix of multiple tracks. So if you had 8 drum tracks and you sub mixed them to a bus and rendered the bus, that would be the drum stem. If you routed all of your dialog tracks to a single bus that would be the dialog stem. Likewise sub mixing 10 tracks of sound fx would be the sfx stem, etc. Stems are multiple tracks with a single purpose mixed into one. In Vegas Pro your buses could be considered stems. When I’m mixing for broadcast, I usually have a dialog bus, a music bus, and sound fx bus with the appropriate tracks routed to them. These would be three stems that could be output separately.

~jr

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