How come no realtime audio fx?

[Josh Bass]

So you have your video clips in the timeline to which you can add an effect, and then watch it play with the effect, but not have to render until you output.

I KNOW you can do audio fx the same way at the track level, so I'm not asking how, I just asking WHY they don't have the same type of fx for individual audio events/clips in the timeline? Why do you have to render a clip to put an effect on it? Just curious. Layman's terms please.

[Brian Standing]

Audio FX work in real time if applied at the track, bus or project level, but not at the event level. Click the little green box in the upper right-hand corner of the track header.

I find this works quite well, since I can designate a track for "Dialog 1" and make sure all the events on that track get exactly the same treatment. You can also apply FX at the "Media" level, although I don't recall if those are real-time or not.

[Josh Bass]

Right, I wanted to know why the program was designed this way?

[Glenn Chan]

There was an explanation of this in the official sony forum. Not sure which thread it is.

Part of it is because some effects like reverb can extend past a clip/event.

Part of it is because implementing effects that way isn't compatible with the TC powercore cards.

2- You can right click clips and apply non-real-time FX.

[Jarrod Whaley]

Glenn, I'm glad to hear that there's at least some rationale for this, because it has always seemed overwhelmingly silly to me. However, I just don't see that this rationale makes any sense (I know you're just reporting what you've heard and that your memory is a little fuzzy--I'm not shooting the messenger).

I can't figure out why, if we continue to use reverb as an example, the reverb couldn't simply be played back on the fly regardless of the length of the clip. That's how the track-level effects work.

As for TC Powercore cards not being compatible with it... I guess that makes some degree of sense, but why rule out a very helpful bit of functionality simply because one type of hardware doesn't like it? At the very least, Sony could allow users of this hardware to elect into the non-real-time model and eliminate what I consider to be a huge pain in the rump for the rest of us.

This particular aspect of Vegas has always annoyed the pants off of me. It's completely absurd that complex effects can be applied non-destructively to video--obviously a much more complex type of file--while audio has to be rendered on an event-by-event basis. An analogy: imagine if you had a lawnmower that could easily cut tall grass in one pass, but that required three passes for each patch of clover on the same lawn. It's completely nuts.

What happens is that you end up with a folder full of hundreds or thousands of little .wav files that you're afraid to ever get rid of on the off-chance that you'll accidentally delete something that's used in a project you'll need to open again someday. Apart from that, it just slows down the entire editing process quite a bit in certain cases. If you want to add differing levels of reverb (thereby making track-level reverb a non-option, since all events on that track would have the same level of reverb applied) to 47 clips, and then you change your mind later and want to remove the reverb, you're screwed--you have to manually go back through and dig up the original .wavs. If you try to use track-level reverb for each of these 47 events, you end up with 47 unwanted extra tracks. Granted, this is a somewhat exceptional scenario here, but I personally run into these kinds of issues far more often than I'd like to.

I wish with all my being that Sony would do something about this. That might be putting it a bit strongly, but my annoyance with this is very strong. If there's a good reason for it, I guess I'd begrudgingly accept it. I'm just not so sure that there is a good reason--or even a mediocre reason. As things are, I find this situation to be an extremely bone-headed bug in an otherwise amazingly well-designed app, all things considered.

Please excuse the rant. I'm just frustrated with this.

[Marcus Marchesseault]

I'm new to Vegas, so ignore me if I sound crazy.

Is there a way to set markers and then have sort of "keyframes" for the level of the reverb on the audio track? Event-level effects would be better, but at least some sort of tweaking on-the-fly would make things tolerable.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Actually event-level isn't preferable, because if the event ends, the reverb can't continue.
You can insert a reverb as an FX bus, then right click the track header for which you'd like to apply reverb. A line will appear/envelope will appear. Double click that envelope to set nodes/envelope points.

[Kris Bird]

I agree, track level effects make perfect sense ... this is very much in keeping with audio workflow. if you want specific treatment for an event, then create a new track and name it accordingly- you can easily slip any subsequent events into this track and it will receive the same effects, very useful. tracks might be- "char a dialogue", "char b dialogue", "char a reverb matching", "char a lf cut", "ambience", "distant / lf cut" .. etc .. your tracks become your presets, events get slipped accordingly .. I can't see in what circumstance you'd end up with "a folder full of hundreds or thousands of little .wav files" .. if you're doing anything dozens (let alone hundreds) of times, then surely they should be on a track (or obviously several tracks).

[Glenn Chan]

As other people point out, just use trackFX and use extra tracks if need be. Vegas will support a lot of tracks. Some people will use like 40+ tracks (at least from what I've seen in other audio apps; I don't do such detailed audio mixing ever, though I believe Vegas shouldn't have a problem there).

Not having audioFX on an event level is kind of unintuitive (since it's not analogous to video)... but not having it is not a huge deal esp. since you shouldn't need to go into non-real-time FX often (which itself is kind of a misnomer to me, since the effects in it are usually real-time).

[Jarrod Whaley]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

Actually event-level isn't preferable, because if the event ends, the reverb can't continue.

Why not? It continues past the end of an event when you apply it at the track level. Why couldn't a sound continue reverberating after the event ends in this case as well? Alternatively, why couldn't Vegas simply extend the length of the event by the requisite amount? If either of these scenarios is truly impossible, then that's that, but why would they be impossible? Look at velocity envelopes for video. When you use them to slow a clip down, the end of it gets chopped off when the end of the event comes along. Another possibility would be to make reverb work in that same way (which is how it used to work in Soundforge, by the way--you had to add silence at the end of your clip to allow for the reverb).

By the way, Spot, your suggestion to use envelopes (or automation) makes sense. However, it still strikes me as being much more of a pain to manage than real-time event effects would be. Then you end up having to be careful that your envelope nodes are staying in the right places when you move clips around and so on.

There are lots of workarounds and/or alternatives for this lack of functionality, but look at how much easier and simpler everything would be if audio effects could work like video effects work.

Originally Posted by Kris Bird

I can't see in what circumstance you'd end up with "a folder full of hundreds or thousands of little .wav files" .. if you're doing anything dozens (let alone hundreds) of times, then surely they should be on a track (or obviously several tracks).

Well, I do have a folder full of hundreds of little .wav files. Like I was saying before, using track-level is fine if everything is getting the same effects AND the same settings on those effects. I run into lots and lots of situations, though, where I use a particular effects configuration only once in an entire project. If I use track-level effects, on certain projects I end up with tons of single-event tracks and waste a lot of time trying to find everything when I go through again later making fine adjustments to my edit.

Originally Posted by Glenn Chan

but not having it is not a huge deal esp. since you shouldn't need to go into non-real-time FX often

But I do need to go into non-real-time effects often, because if I'm only using a particular effects configuration once, and I don't want an entire track added to my timeline for one event, I have no other choice. Many people may not have that same need, but I suspect that there are plenty who do. If all of this is not an issue for you, congratulations. For me, though, it can sometimes lead to very a sub-optimal workflow.

Originally Posted by Glenn Chan

(which itself is kind of a misnomer to me, since the effects in it are usually real-time).

But they aren't real-time; you have to render the event out to a new .wav file. Then if you change your mind about the effect or want to make a fine adjustment to it later, you have to go dig up the original file, re-cut it to sync, and apply the effects again. Yes, you could avoid all of this by using track-level effects, but then you're back at the point where you have an entire track with only one event on it again.

Don't get me wrong--the ability to apply effects to an entire track is very useful... but it is far from ideal for use with a single event.

[Peter J Alessandria]

I agree with Jarrod on this. Always been a pet peeve of mine that in Vegas you can apply real-time video fx but not audio. Other packages let you do this with great effect (pun intended). I suspect it's more of legacy mindset ("always been done this way") than a real implementation issue.

[Jarrod Whaley]

Originally Posted by Peter J Alessandria

I suspect it's more of legacy mindset ("always been done this way") than a real implementation issue.

I believe we have arrived at "Bingo!"

[Kris Bird]

Well, one point-- if an event-level effect can continue past the end of the event, what happens if you butt two of them together? (For example, event B starts before event A has finished it's reverb). Does the second event kill the first, or..? I would suspect that you'd want them to calculate separately and then mix, in which case internally vegas would need to put each event on a separate audio track. I guess that this is the complexity, as it would have to internally create and delete additional audio tracks for each event that had this type of effect, and mix that back into the track. Currently, event event just 'writes' directly into the track, with that summed result going into the track fx.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Peter J Alessandria

I agree with Jarrod on this. Always been a pet peeve of mine that in Vegas you can apply real-time video fx but not audio. Other packages let you do this with great effect (pun intended). I suspect it's more of legacy mindset ("always been done this way") than a real implementation issue.

It's an "audio" mindset that views tracks as not simply parallel data streams but as streams of effects. It would be like setting up a blue, red, green video track and tossing video in the track based upon how you want it tinted.
The problem is that "video" folks not only don't think this way -- although they could learn -- in many, if not most cases, the audio work that must be done involves cleaning-up sync audio which is event based. Not to have RT event based audio is not simply a mindset issue, it is a loss of productivity issue.
Adding reverb is red herring as in most cases the problem is too much reverb. It is probably the only FX that needs to continue past the event.

[Josh Bass]

So is there any chance a future Vegas would change this?