Newbie to Vegas Pro 9!

I have completed an edit which contains several audio clips in addition to sound recorded through the camera - essentially voice-overs to clips and stills.

The problem is the levels, on running the finished edit the audio levels go up and down a fair amount, so I wonder what is the best, easiest, quickest, most correct method of levelling the audio so the viewer isn't straining to hear or being blown out of their chair!

there are many ways to fix flucuating levels in Vegas. The first thing is to set a top level, probably about minus 12db on the master bus. I use the track EQ in the track header and set it to minus 3db then set my audio track to a bus (A) and set that bus to minus 6db using the audio FX Track Compression. On the Master bus I set that to minus 6db as well (nothing can "slip thru") and use an envelope to adjust the levels as needed. If possible use mulitple audio tracks for the different parts of the audio and set each track to a seperate bus. A,B,C etc and use the envelopes to adjust. If you only have 1 audio track then you only need one bus and that gets routed to the master.
You could also use the "normalization" but you'll need to play with that a bit and keep in mind that normalizing the track might not work as well since any higher peaks will throw it off.

Thanks for the answer...... I guess I need to do a lot more reading, it all sounds rather complicated

naw, it really isn't complicated just gotta play a bit. Oh I forgot to mention the FIRT thing to do to help balance levels. In the audio track header on the lower slider, right click on it and there are levels there. IOW, you can set it to; ADD, -3, -6, Film Levels, and Constant. I generally start at -6 so that will lower the track level to that. By setting the Track EQ to -3 and the bus level to -6 things can be kept pretty much in control and using the envelope setting the points where needed you can really control the highs and lows. Before setting the envelope set all the limiters and then play the audio to see where your levels are really at.
If you goto Edward Troxels site which is all things Vegas and go to the newsletter archives, one of them, I'm sorry I don't remember which one it is, has an article about setting audio levels. Good reading.
If you have anymore questions fire away.

Hi Philip

Great advice from Don!! If your levels are varying quite a lot from clip to clip then it's probably a good start to drop a volume envelope onto the audio track to start with!! (Insert on the top menu and you will find the audio and video envelopes there) With weddings I can have audio from loud applause right down to a nervous bride speaking in barely a whisper so sometimes my audio volume envelope line is all over the place and I have to drop the level for loud bits and boost them for quiet ones!! Take a look at help and how volume envelopes work and that should get you started...I usually aim for around the -6db mark on the master level!!

Chris

Chris, I'm sure you are correct regarding Don's advice..... I just didn't realise how much of a novice I am with Vegas!! Buses? envelopes? I haven't got my head around those concepts yet.

I see Douglas Spotted Eagle has just released Vegas Pro 9 editing workshop, in th UK, which I have just ordered to help me get to grips with all this terminology

Phillip,
Spot is a top notch guru with Vegas. You can't go wrong with any of his stuff. Also check the Vegas help menu (F1) and read away. Lots of stuff there about busses, envelopes, levels correction and such. You might also go thru the Vegas orum here and read up all that pertains to your question regardless of which version is being talked about as many if not most of the basics of Vegas are still the same as they were when I started with Vegas 2.

Thanks Don, I've been reading the help file about buses and envelopes and my copy of Spotted Eagles book arrived this morning (good old Amazon!)..... looks like this weekend is going to be with books!

Wow Don, u r a mine of information.....
Hope you understand that a lot of people like us never uses those settings and the most try to play with envelopes...
for example i'm editing now an audio of a press conference that seems very low, what i did is to insert an envelope and try to adjust the volumes. Waht about the bus?Never used em...
and i'd like also to know when u record with the internal mic of a camera , what are the levels limit on the volume?I mean u don't have to reach 20 on the status check of an fx1 for example?
Gracias

Well there are lots of ways to tackle the problem of low level audio so let's start with a bus first. It allows you to do more finelining of each audio track instead of just running everything to the master straight out. So if you don't have a shortcut on the toolbar over the master audio bus, goto INSERT>AUDIO BUS and drop one in there. Now go to the track header where the audio is and you'll see the square button by the space to name the track. Click on that and you get the choice of master or A. Highlight A and now play the audio. YOu should see the levels in both the A and Master busses. The next thing I do and it's just my preference is to go back to the track header and on the lower slider right click and I choose minus 6 as my level set for that track but in this case you might want to use -3 but don't use ADD as that will build levels on top of each other if there is more than 1 track. To build the ,levels go to the Audio FX and find the Volume FX. I use it at event (clip level) and I build the level from there and then once it gets close to where I want it then I use an envelope to fine line it OR if it's one big clip I can use the levels slider on the bus (not the master bus). Most times for voice I try to keep my average to -12db.
If you get started with this I think it'll come together for you pretty quick and easy.
HTHs

don i m trying 2 follow you;thanks buddy!U r awesome
when u say:"To build the ,levels go to the Audio FX and find the Volume " what do you mean?Where are audio fx?
I'm stucked here...

Other question:
when i go to the lower slider and i right click, what does Film stand for?
thx buddy, u can't imagine how happy i am to discover all these functions

OK first right click on the audio clip or event and in there is 'non-real time fx'-thats audio, sorry I should have said that before. When you open that up there is a whole bunch of audio effects and Volume is way down at the end of the list. It's all alphabetical. Actually I would suggest you play around with all of them at one time or another to get to know what they all can and can't do. You'd be surprised how a little tweak here and there can make a hugh difference in the sound quality.
IIRC film level is a louder overall effect and raises the levels across the whole track but it's been so long since I looked at it I can't swear to it. I pretty much have a "preset" of which FX I apply and how much of them I apply to each track depending on what the job is and what the levels are to start with.
When I first switched to Vegas version 2 a long time ago I learned by trial and error and really played and played with everything both audio and video to try to figure everything out. I still don't know 1/4 of what guys like Edward T, Mike K, Spot and Seth B. know.
Play around don't be afraid it won't bite or at least not too hard!
O|O
\--/

...and i'd like also to know when u record with the internal mic of a camera , what are the levels limit on the volume?I mean u don't have to reach 20 on the status check of an fx1 for example?
Gracias

Unless the sound source is really peaky, you probably want to peak at -12db on the status check for most dialog.

Guys for example:
what about i have wind that crashes on my microphone, which fx do u sugget to cut this bad sound?
OH MY, how many fx over there....

Guys for example:
what about i have wind that crashes on my microphone, which fx do u sugget to cut this bad sound?
OH MY, how many fx over there....

There's a standing comment you hear about this; "Use the 'retake' filter." The rationale behind this is that it is virtually impossible to fix seriously damaged audio. You may have limited success with noise filters such as Izotope but the problem is that when you remove the offending sound, the spectral sound damage to the parts that you want to keep is often significant. It winds up sounding hollow, unnatural and chirpy. It's worth giving sound serious thought and planning before the shoot to insure good audio. There are times when you're stuck and you have no choice but try to fix bad audio but don't expect miracles.

Jim i know but i have a record that my son took a few years ago when the wind crashes for 2 times on the mic....I was just wondering if there's something particular to decrease the WHOURHHHHHHHH of the spanish wind LOL

thx guys this thread is very useful

Izotope and other noise filters will help. The unnatural sound that you will wind up with will probably be better than too much wind noise. Just guard your expectations.

Thanks Jim and sorry if sometimes theese seem to be dummy question but i'm just new @ this audio Vegas world.
Can i ask you the last thing?
Since i've discovered this fx (6 hours) i'm playing around with it, but i can't tell the difference between the envelope line on the audio track and the Volume that u can find on the FX as u showed me before.
Is there on the last choice any kind of DB limit that can't be over?
thx

The Volume FX will raise or lower the overall level of the track where the envelope will do that also BUT can best be used to adjust levels in a particular area of the clip. Example, you've raised the overall level with the Volume FX but need to LOWER a certain part of the audio, so you use an ENVELOPE with 4 point to adjust that part of the audio.

As for the top limit I generally try for -12db. That's why I set a number of limiters (compression) on the TRACK, BUS and MASTER BUS. -3 soft on the track, -6 hard on the bus and -6 on the master bus. Also why I set the slider on the track to -3 or -6 depending on the level of the overall raw track. I got these settings from DSE (Spot) a long time ago and while it may seem redundant it works for me.
HTHs

Hmmm....OK so Mr Dim here has created an envelop with 4 spots and I have lowered the centre blue line within the envelop right to the bottom of the audio track (so in theory should be mute) but the audio level on the play-back doesn't sound much different - if there is any difference at all???

if you brought the envelope allthe way down that's muting the sound and if you don't hear any difference then something's wrong, way wrong. The envelope all the way to the top is +12 and all the way to the bottom is off so yes there should be a hugh difference when you use an envelope.
Here's what I would do. Zero out or neutralize all audio effects (track header effects-drop in a new audio track and simply move the audio clips down to that track and delete the old empty track) and remove the all busses EXCEPT the MASTER. Play the audio and watch the levels on the master bus. Add effects and envelopes as needed to control the levels and sound.

BTW, howmany audio tracks do you have going? 1,2,3 or...?

Well, no sure what was going on but after closing down the computer and going back to it a while later I found the audio levels had muted within the envelop. Weird.

FYI I am using three audio tracks, one is camera audio, the second is voice-over and third music. As for buses..... I haven't got any as far as I know :-)

I still don't understand buses - what they do or why I need them Spots book might be very detailed but assumes (wrongly) that the reader isn't an idiot! I need to sit and play more but slightly frightened that I might end up with a mass of changes to the interface, that I don't know how to restore things!

just curious, as I have never seen it, is there a function in vegas similar to the "find peaks" in FCP? something that can go and find every spot on the timeline where you have any major peaks?

Ian, I've never found the "find peaks" option so I'll assume it's not there.

Phillip, Busses can be you friend especially with multiple tracks.
Example, you have 3 tracks so the levels could be and are probably quite different from 1 track to another right? OK so you need to even them out and then make adjustments on the fly so the VO isn't overpowered by the music bed and the camera audio doesn't get run over-etc.
So again, the first thing I do is to set up busses. Click insert bus and route the audio tracks to the individual bus A, B, C etc. The way you do that is the little square on the audio track header will have the letters listed as well as MASTER. now when you play the audio there should be levels showing in each bus of the mixer. OK so now what I do is set the header level to either -3 or -6 depending on the overall level of that particualr track. Generally the music bed will be loudest so I'll set that to -6. Oncamera might be -3 or perhaps 0 (but not ADD) because most often it seems to be the lowest level. Then the VO might be set to -3 or -6 depending on the overall level. I want the MASTER LEVEL (Master Bus) to be green about -12. NOw I can adjust each track thru various ways depending on what I need. So I can use the slider on the track or an enevelope or I can adjust the bus level or a combination of any of those. One thing I do on just about every audio track is in the track header I go into the track FX and set the Track Compression (standard FX on every audio track) to -3 soft limiter. That's not a preset so I set it up and made it one. Theneach bus gets the same treatment (Track Copression) except it's set to -6 soft limiter, again I set it up and saved it as a preset. Then the MAster bus gets set to -6db hard limiter and I also set the Wave HAmmer to "Master to 16 bit" audio. Those are presets. Once all of those are in there which takes about 30 seconds, I can now set the levels like I said above. The track compression thing came from Spot a long time ago and I have to say it really keeps control of the audio.
Busses really aren't hard to use they just take some time to get used to and can be very helpful in getting good quality audio.
HTHs

Don! I think I've got it!!!
Still not 100% on what the implications are regarding assigning a 'Track FX' but I have managed to equalise (if that's the right term) the levels so I seemly go from one audio track to another without jumping out of my seat or straining to hear.

The next bit of fine tuning is tone.

If we accept that all audio will be affected to some degree by the surroundings in which it was recorded, my camera audio track has slight 'echo' qualities about it (when shot in a room) whereas the voice-over track is very 'dead'.

Am I opening up a huge can of worms here or can that be easily matched too?

glad you're getting to where you want.
As for the echo, you might try the Graphic EQ in the non realtime FX. You would want to do this at track level if it's thru out the whole track.
Try that and lets see how it works.
Keep in mind too that sometimes you need to do a little to one and a little of something else to another track to balance everything out.

The next bit of fine tuning is tone.

If we accept that all audio will be affected to some degree by the surroundings in which it was recorded, my camera audio track has slight 'echo' qualities about it (when shot in a room) whereas the voice-over track is very 'dead'.

Am I opening up a huge can of worms here or can that be easily matched too?

Easily matched? Unfortunately no.
Possible to do? All I can say is that there's the firm possibility of a definite maybe.
Is that vague enough for you?

Check out the How best to match eq for voice audio (http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=689917) thread on the Sony Vegas forum.
It deals with this exact issue and there were some excellent suggestions on techniques for trying to do this.
Please ignore the comments that go way off topic as there were a few of them.

Easily matched? Unfortunately no.
Possible to do? All I can say is that there's the firm possibility of a definite maybe.
Is that vague enough for you?

Mike you sound like a British technical support guy :-)
Nice answer, as I get to know video editing I appreciate the sentiment of your answer

First to anyone on this forum who answers an audio question - well done, because its very hard to express audio in words. So Philip you got some good advice here in this thread.

And even more so than video, working with audio is extremely flexible, on any application!

Right now, with very little audio knowledge, i would suggest you use just:
- track volume
- envelopes
- eq
- your ears

1. Set your track volume, to 8-12db lower than your highest peak
2. Adjust your envelopes as needed
3. adjust your eq as needed.
4. stop staring at the screen, close your eyes and listen...it makes big difference

Vague? You bet? I can't quantify what i can not hear.

________________________________________

You don't have read the rest but its good to know and people rarely tell you!

To throw a wrench in your into your audio excursion... Your SPEAKERS and YOUR ROOM are cheating you BIG TIME. Unless you have speakers made for audio engineering, they are cheating you. Unless you have a room treated for audio, it is cheating you!
Just as we need colour accurate TV monitors, we need accurate listening equipment, and yes your room is the last piece of equipment before the sound reaches your ears!

But the saving grace is:
- good speakers start at inexpensive prices, i think B+H has a great selection of monitors for around 150 - 300$ (don't use good hi-fi speakers, they are meant to make anything sound good - On the other hand, studio monitors will push you to make your audio sound good and true!)
- listening at lower volumes lessens the room effect
- rip your audio to your mp3 and listen on many different systems/locations so you can...
- learn your room/ sit in the same position, as even moving an inch or two can lessen/raise perceived loudness by dozens of db, especially the lower frequencies. So LEARN YOUR ROOM.

My room is treated, but not fully, its quite large, so I've learnt that the amount of reverb i hear is actually less than what it really is. My room is cheating me. If i didn't know my room, my audio would sound a little dry, because my room is a little wet. If your room is bassy, your mixes might be thin sounding. If your speakers have a mid range bump, as most computer monitors do, your mixes will seem mid shy.

Sorry, cest la vie

PS when i first moved here, my knowledge of professional audio stores was limited and i ended using a pair of AKG K240 headphones to mix audio... They will be better than ANY computer speaker, hifi speakers you are using now, BUT you still must learn them. (There's no room response in a headphone so you need to learn to compensate, so once again LEARN YOUR ROOM/HEADPHONES)