Trying to solve this audio problem, got a solution?
 

Here's the deal. I have one video clip with the audio track loud and the other video clip audio track very soft and quiet. The solution I did was MAX out the MAIN VOLUME (left side panel) for the WHOLE audio track, then turn down the gain for the audio/video clip that's loud, and turn up the gain to max on the other clip that's soft. I was wondering is there another way? I think theres also another way in which you can use the volume envelopes to minimize the volume at certain points, but all these solutions require the main volume to be maxxed out -- therefore, the intial volume is maxed out super loud, and you must then dub down the rest of the clips that have "above normal" loudness in order to compensate and equivocate the softer clips, right? I guess the ONLY way to do this would be raising the volume manually of the softer audio clip on another audio editor such as SoundForge or something?

There are several places to control volume. Check the sticky at the top of this forum for most of them.

From the top of my head, there are:
-the aster volume toolbar
-each clip has its own volume when you mouse over the top edge of them
-volume envelopes (see sticky)
-track volume
-right click each clip and switches --> normalize. DSE has a script for this on the Sundance site. I think this is what you want.

Awesome... normalize is pretty good, but what does it do exactly? I'm a little confused and what is the normalize peak level? I don't know how to set or what to set that for, also

Is there anyway to do, within Vegas, like a noise filter to remove hiss or unwanted background noise/anything of that nature or do you need another program?

Because now the thing is that the two audio clips are of equal volume, but not necessarily of equal clarity. It seems that I was bad at a few shots where the voice wasn't loud enough and if I raise two or more clips to the same volume, the original-softer-clip will now have tremendous background hiss noise to compensate for the voice... is there anyway to fix the problem as a whole... like perhaps after you're done with the final editing, anyway to make it so the whole track will be equal or some sort of audio effects to do this?

Also, you may want to consider using multiple audio tracks. Then you could turn up the track volume for the one clip without affecting the other clip (you wouldn't have to "turn it down").

Normalize will look for the loudest point in your audio, make it the level you specify in preferences, and adjust the rest to match. That's why normalize sometimes doesn't work - there will be on small spike in the audio that will prevent the rest from increasing. So, normalize can be very handy IF you understand you need to look for abnormally loud spots in the audio.

Ok, I downloaded Noise Reduction. Now my question is, is there anyway to apply noise reduction to only one section of the clip or one audio clip? It seems that I have to click the plugins, but that changes the plugins for the WHOLE TRACK ... if I want to do it for a single clip on that track, how do I do it?

You can also add plug-ins to individual events. If you want it to apply to a small portion of that event, just split it and apply it to the split section.

How? I can only seem to do this with the video tracks, but can't do it with the audio tracks.

Event level audio effects are not as flexible as track level. The are applied immediately by creating a new audio file.

Here's what I would recommend. Find the segments of audio you want adjusted, move those to a separate audio track, and apply the noise reduction to that track instead. Remember you can have as many tracks as you need.

Ok, how do I copy and paste audio tracks to the other or slide them up/down? When I click and drag and try copying and pastying, they drag EVERYTHING on all the tracks.... it seems it only works left to right. (if you know what I mean)

Yeah it always struck me as strange that Vegas doesn't allow the same clip effects for audio as it does for video. Even though you can apply track effects for realtime processing..

Aaron

Any event can be moved to a different track by itself. First of all, add a new audio track to your project. Make sure the event is split as needed. Now select the event you want on the new track. The easiest way to move it is by pressing "2" on the numeric keypad.

I'm a little confused when you say that "everything" moves. This will happen only in the following cases (excepting that audio and video will generally move together)

1) All events are grouped
2) All events are selected
3) you only have one clip

<<<-- Originally posted by Aaron Koolen : Yeah it always struck me as strange that Vegas doesn't allow the same clip effects for audio as it does for video. Even though you can apply track effects for realtime processing..

Aaron -->>>


It DOES allow clip level effects. Just click on the effect button on the right end of the clip and add any effect. However, it will render a new audio clip which will be added as a take.

Nevermind, I figured it out... what I was doing wrong was dragging the whole thing left to right, so when I click copy, it copied also the video + all the tracks that my mouse highlighted... I just clicked on the audio clips and click copied, then pasted on the new track. Thanks.

Hey, Edward... do you also know if placing the soundclips on different tracks matter? I mean, is there a noticable sound quality difference? I don't know how Vegas handles the sounds or maybe it's your own personal sound card... like perhaps if you have 5 audio tracks, would it matter if a soundclip was either first on the (meaning above) on the first track, or a soundclip on the second track? I was thinking that maybe Vegas handles the audio differently or the way DV tape is handled, maybe the audio channels split providing different sounds... so if you have 5 audio tracks, it would sound but placed in random order it would sound different than any other order?

Ok, my version of Vegas must have some option off because for audio events I've never had the clip button on the right end of the clip like I do for video events. I have to "Apply Non-Realtime Event FX". I've looked for an option to no avail, so have just lived with it.

That said, even if you use "Apply Non-Realtime Event FX" it is, as the name suggests, non realtime which is a shame. It would be good if it attempted it, for at least events that it made sense for and if you had a processor fast enough, you'd be happy. It does it for Track FX.

Aaron