Rick Mac
Forum Replies Created
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[Hollington Lee] “1) I see that some mic preamps go to USB or Firewire and some plug into a sound card. Does going to USB or Firewire avoid issues of sound card quality (in a $600 laptop)?”
Yes the quality of these devices is higher than built in laptop soundcard.
[Hollington Lee] “2) Instead of the laptop, is it better to buy a dedicated recorder like the Fostex FR2 le ($600) and run mics into that?”
They can both do the job. If using your laptop as a recorder it would be helpful to have a audio interface that has XLR Mic connectors and can supply phantom power to your mics.
[Hollington Lee] “what do you recomend for sub-$300 for 2 mics?”
I have no suggestions at that price point.
Purchase the best quality mics you can.
Don’t even think about wireless unless you are
willing to make a $500+ investment.Are you wanting to use lav mic’s?
Perhaps someone out there has come across a decent
sounding economy lav. If so, share your thoughts.Regards, Rick.
Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377 -
Here is some good reading on the subject.
Pay attention since 32bit Vista can handle more physical RAM than 32bit XP.If you want really large amounts of RAM you must go with
a 64bit Operating System and compatible hardware.Regards, Rick.
Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377 -
[Martin Cleaver] “I have no idea how to split an video on the timeline (to eg. chop out a bit.”
Place the cursor on the event where you want the split and hit the S Key. This will split the event. If you have the “Ignore Event group” button active your audio will be split and not the video, if it is not active both audio and video wil be split. You can place your cursor at the edge of any event and click and drag the event to trim it. Once again the event grouping button will come into play.
Regards, Rick.
Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377 -
[Candi Byrne] “Is this because V8 can’t or won’t open a project done in V6?”
Vegas 8 Pro will open projects created on Vegas 6.
However, a Vegas 8 project will not work on Vegas 6.
The problem may be that some type of plugin was used on the Vegas 6 machine that the Vegas 8 machine does not have installed. Could also be that the Vegas 8 machine may be missing a codec required to read some type of media in your project.Instead of trying to open the veg file using the open dialouge box, try dragging it from the Vegas file manager up into the timeline. Sometimes that will allow you to open the file.
Regards, Rick.
Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377 -
Larry,
Here is a very good article that explains how to
tame those rooms.https://www.vasst.com/article.aspx?id=89f15af5-8004-44fd-97a3-71f2c8418a6c&type=1
You may have to register to view it. It is free and there is a wealth of great tutorials here.
Regards, Rick.
Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377 -
Wayne,
Vegas is a much better program for mixing your audio tracks.
With Vegas you can not only write volume envelopes to each channel, you can use volume automation on each track to create the perfect mix.Have you checked to see if the Izotope plugins show up in Vegas?
Soundforge has some really good features and uses, however multichannel mixing is not one of them.
Regards, Rick.
Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377 -
[Larry Watts] “The meters in Vegas seem to differ enough from our betacam SP mastering decks that I still get surprised.”
In general meters read either Peak Level or Average Level.
Peak level meters respond very quickly and are good to keep you from getting digital overs. Average Level Meters respond slower and give you a better sense of loudness. Some equipment will display average and peak levels at the same time. Having both is very helpful.Your Vegas meters are peak reading, while your Beta Sp deck is more of an average level meter. This is why when Vegas is reading some pretty high peak levels your Beta Machine does not since it is looking at average levels.
So what is a guy to do? First off Since Vegas is digital audio we want to shoot for an average level of around -12, peaks can go higher just set your levels so that your Vegas meters are lit most of the time around -12. Now play your project and adjust your record levels on your Beta SP Machine for an average level of close to 0vu (which is nominal levels for an analog machine. Going a little over 0vu on your Beta SP Machine is OK since analog has some headroom and will not clip as digital recoders do. Just don’t let it live above 0vu.
[Larry Watts] “but I thought near field speakers would not have that much variation.”
Nope. Even though you are using the same model of nearfield monitors your room has a great deal to do with your preceiptions of your monitors. As an example, I recently brought a new mix room online. Using some very accurate Adams Nearfield Monitors. For a few weeks I had to mix without any acoustic treatment to the room. It was very difficult to judge exactly what was really there in the bass. The Mix position was a little lean while a few feet back it was well balanced then a few feet further back is was bass heavy. In addition the stereo image was not to good. After installing the bass traps and wall panels the bass became consistant throughout the room and the stereo image is much improved.
So that is a real world example of how much your room acoustics can color the sound and your perceptions even when using very good monitors at a close distance.My advice would be to look into a company called Ready Acoustics (I have no stock in this company). I used thier broad band bass traps and they are much better than foam solutions. The reason is that they absorb low frequency (bass) quite well, unlike foam products. The result is a much more accurate room. Thir pricing is good to.
Hope this helps you.
Happy Mixing and editing.Regards, Rick.
Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377 -
[Larry Brewer] “the vegas keyer recognizes the size and shape of the PSD lower 3rd bar and keys the bar over the video 720 x 80, but has no gradiated transparency.)”
Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377 -
[John Gregoriades] “but my VCR machine is monaural. This results in Vegas with one channel with the sound, and the second channel silent. I have no problem with monaural sound, but would like to end up with 2 channels of audio, even though they are identical. How in Vegas (or in DVD Architect) does one do that?”
Right click on the audio waveform, dialouge box opens
select channels, another dialouge box opens. If your audio is only on the left channel, select left only. If it is on the right, select right only. This will give you one waveform, a mono track that plays back on both left and right channels.Regards, Rick.
Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377 -
[Stuart Allman] “Audio: I use the Adobe Audition tools. Although I find their software to be incredibly buggy, they did a good job of providing a well rounded set of audio cleanup options.”
I to use Audition’s for audio sweetening and it works very well. It has not been buggy for me. It is very stable and a great tool.
Regards, Rick.
Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377