Vegas Or Protools

[Jerry Waters]

One of my good friends is a professional audio guy and he uses Vegas pretty much exclusively — for years.

He recently added Sound Forge 9 because it added Noise Reduction as a built in tool. (I paid $200 for Noise Reduction earlier as a plugin.)

[Bill Ravens]

ProTools is a DAW(Digital Audio Workstation). As such, it’s designed for production of music, using loops, midi, and other enhancements for the production of digital music.
So, ProTools and Vegas are really two different tools. If you’re not a composer, you don’t really need proTools.

[Robert Browne]

The audio capabilities of Vegas are among the best you can find. I’ve produced a number of audio only projects using Vegas and the sound quality is excellent.

Don’t be seduced by the Pro Tools “industry standard” sales job. Pro Tools is essential a DAW — which is different than Vegas — and it’s not one of the best out there. It’s main focus is straight audio and it offers you little more than Vegas in that regard. It’s MIDI implementation is not the best.

If you’re interested in an audio program that can handle MIDI, VST instruments and plug-ins, samplers and the like, then you’re probably better off getting Cubase or Nuendo (Cubase’s big sister) for the PC, or —

Logic for the Mac. I recently switched from Nuendo on a PC to Logic Express 8 on a Mac for my DAW needs and can tell you, hands down, that Logic is far and away the best DAW I’ve ever worked with. And the program, out of the box for $150, is the best deal you’ll find anywhere for audio production. It includes an amazing amount of effects and samples instruments, as well as a ton of loops (if you’re into that kind of thing).

That, with an investment of about $600 for a Mac Mini and another $50 for a HarmonyAudio Firewire interface, has given me a killer audio workstation that is extremely easy to use. I’m saving a TON of time now, when working on music.

But if all you’re interested in is straight audio, you can’t go wrong with Vegas. I still use it along with Sound Forge and love them both.

[Tim Wilson]

When I worked at Avid, I went to visit a very high profile all-Avid entertainment company. You’ve definitely Heard of Them, and almost certainly even own several titles of theirs.

It’s a massive multi-building production campus, with a gift shop for their logo gear just inside the front door. Stuffed animals? Video games? Travel mugs? Golf umbrellas? Ties? All of the above. I didn’t see a waffle iron with their logo, but I admit, I was peeking through the windows after hours. Mighta been there.

So they’re showing me through the sweetest Avid HD suites you can imagine. It was maybe 10 PM, and the joint was absolutely jumping, cranking out some of the most lucrative, fastest selling titles in The History of The World.

Seriously, it’s impossible to overstate how big they are, how much money they generate, or how much money they’ve spent on Avid editing, storage, and collaboration infrastructure. All Avid, all the time, and will probably be until the sun goes nova.

And all of their award-winning music and sound design is done on a single seat of Vegas.

I’m not saying it’s ideal for everyone, or even for you. But it sure as poo is working for them.

And no, I won’t tell you who it is. 🙂

Tim

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

Rod Stewart has only won one Grammy from an album recorded/produced/mastered in Vegas.
Dio’s new album didn’t win any awards for being mixed in Vegas.
“Last Samurai,” “SWAT,” “Hidalgo,” “Black Hawk Down,” and a few others failed to win Oscars, but it wasn’t because portions of those films were recorded/mixed in Vegas.
Portions of National Treasure “Book of Secrets” probably won’t win an Oscar even though they were recorded in Vegas.
I don’t think “Evan Almighty” or “Barnyard Animals” fared well with the Academy in spite of being posted in Vegas.
Vegas is being used as an audio tool in a lot of places where you’d not expect to find it.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Rosh Kadri]

Thanks Spot, very inspiring. I wonder why sony wouldnt list these credits under their “showcase” on the sony creative software site. I believe it would give vegas more sales and credibility.

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

I’d imagine in most cases, it’s because they can’t without clearance from the producer or studio.
I can tell a story where a senior producer of one of the top broadcast shows in the world was fired for saying in public, that he used Vegas to produce parts of the show. The broadcast company, owned by an even larger conglomerate that Tim mentions without name in another thread, has seen to it that he is having a very difficult time finding a job. There is a company out there that if their product is mentioned in any negative public light, will do anything they can to destroy the author of that information. Seen it happen on multiple occasions.
In other words, there is tremendous incentive to keep your mouth shut and almost no incentive to say anything if you’re working on a big-name title.
Marketing gets away with so much bullsh$$ anyway, not sure that it matters.
For example….one company advertised very publically that they were the first to shoot HD of a certain event in the far north of the world. They were indeed the first, that week, but two years late to the party.
It’s the nature of the beast.
Counting in my head, I can think of at least 31 Emmy Awards that have either been posted entirely in, or at least recorded with, Sony Vegas, and I believe there are more. My credits sheet alone is virtually *entirely* Vegas, even though I was one of the first artists in the world to record on ProTools (Windham Hill artists very tightly involved with the development of ProTools in the early days).
My opinion is this:
If you’re working in a network environment, you *need* to know ProTools. Not because it’s the best, it’s the worst, IMO. Nuendo, SONAR, Vegas, Logic…all much better tools, IMO. But…ProTools is a standard. Like most standards, it’s slow to reach the same level of functionality as the more nimble, smaller-group tools.
Look at the Army….slow as hell to adopt change and flexibility. Merceneries can kick butt over what the Army can (and will) do. They’re more nimble.
‘Nother small example…
Vegas was the first audio tool to do HD audio. Four years before ProTools could, and without specific hardware. You only needed hardware capable of 192/24bit, and there was a lot of hardware from Echo, MOTU, Apogee, etc long before ProTools could manage it. Turns out it didn’t matter much, but point is, others follow, but in so many cases, Vegas leads. Particularly in Audio. BTW, *many* of the functions you find standard in various audio apps spawned from Curtis Palmer and Monte Schmidt’s Sound Forge in the first days. They set the standard for DAW work.
Gawd, the day I left Sonic and Turtle Beach 56K for Sound Forge….wow.Some folks here weren’t even borned back then. We had to edit audio uphill and downhill both ways, usually in heavy snow, otherwise known as sample timing errors. 🙂 not like how you kids gots it today.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Tim Wilson]

I’d imagine in most cases, it’s because they can’t without clearance from the producer or studio.

Or the actor. You’d be surprised how often that happens. I got shot down at Boris by an actor who, the only part of him used was a full-screen close-up of his eye to show off a hue-shift filter with built-in apply modes. Didn’t mention him by name, didn’t show his face….but there you go.

The fact is that there are rules about these things. Say, This Movie uses Vegas, and to want to show it off. But The Movie Star isn’t involved in this transaction, and isn’t interested in lending their face — even their eyeball — to an endorsement that they don’t endorse.

It might seem trivial to you, but as you might have seen in the news lately, it’s hard enough to get studios to honor their word that voluntarily waiving rights just isn’t a good idea.

(Of course I’m not talking about YOUR movie studio. I’m talking about those OTHER studios.)

At Avid, there were two additional issues. Because their primary market is big-time Hollywood production, almost nobody gets anything for free. (I only saw it once.) Those folks feel — absolutely rightly, I think — that if they have to pay full price for their gear, why should they help Avid sell their wares for free? Even when they want to, there are a thousand hoops to jump through, including multiple layers of lawyers. That it happens at all is a testament to how strongly they feel about the product.

Which is the other additional issue. I’ve heard rumors that the strong feelings people have sometimes are NEGATIVE feelings. Wow, who knew? Needless to say, those folks aren’t inclined to do testimonials.

Never the case with Vegas of course. I’m just saying that even if parts of the production are jumping for joy at the prospect of talking about what they love, there are lots of other obstacles.

Did I mention lawyers?

Gawd, the day I left Sonic and Turtle Beach 56K for Sound Forge….wow.

I was going to say me and Spot, but using his math I’ll say MORE than 31 of you, are old enough to remember when there might be one or two computers in a whole town, and you had to ask it questions by poking holes in a piece of cardboard, and had to wait overnight for the answer.

The irony being of course that the more accessible these tools become, the less free time I seem to have….

[Rosh Kadri]

wow, what a wealth of info. Thanks everyone, thank you spot.
You made me realize what marketing can do to a person using the tools, i decided to spend more time discovering the power of vegas and sound forge and forgetting those bulls%$#@rs. I’m looking to doing some high end mixes in vegas and you’ve been an
inspiration spot. thank you

[Andrew Bower]

Can’t add much here. I have both Vegas and Pro Tools and get pretty frustrated when I think about how much I have been using Vegas for Audio. When I compare the dollar investment between the two, I get even MORE frustrated.
As mentioned already, with the MIDI limitations in Pro Tools, there are other DAWs that are probably a better choice for pure music production (although the new ‘Time-stretch’ feature in 7.4 is truly amazing). For basic audio only processing, I find myself using Vegas more and more…
And also mentioned here – Sound Forge now includes the Noise Reduction plug-in (which works in Vegas) for just slightly more than the cost of the plug-in itself. Once you watch the VASST Vegas DVD on Noise Reduction, you will want to run out and buy it ASAP and use it for all of your productions.

ps – Speaking of age…don’t get me started on the Timex Sinclair I built (membrane keyboard and 1k Space Invaders), Being the North American Product Specialist for the Yamaha MSX computer, or Showing the NEW Sequential 600 with Passport Designs 4 channel MIDI software on an Apple II at Moscone Center Computer Shows in SF…

Andrew Bower
Red Dog Records and Multimedia
http://www.reddogrecords.com