Topic: Need help with Matrix time-stretching using Sony Vegas

[su6oxone]

I was trying to do the time stretch thing as per StantheMan1976's excellent post, http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,101809.0.html, but when I hold down control and try to stretch out or in, I find the increments to be too large to precisely match up the SBD and AUD tracks.  I did uncheck the "quantize to frame" in the 'options' drop down menu, and also in the 'preferences' menu but not sure if I'm not doing it right. 

My understanding is that you do not want to 'quantize to frame' and therefore in the 'options' dropdown menu I leave the 'quantize to frame' unselected, and in the 'edit' submenu of the 'preferences' menu in the 'options' dropdown menu, I believe I should therefore select 'do not quantize to frames for audio only tracks' option (because we do not want the 'quantizing' to occur). 

I've tried all different permutations of the two 'quantize' selections (on/on, off/off, on/off, off/on) and it still only lets me time shift by one second intervals which is not precise enough to match the two tracks.  Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

edit: the time shifting is actually not by one second intervals at the minimum, but shows +0;12 as the shortest time shift I can stretch it to. 

[beatkilla]

Try zooming in really far,hover the mouse in the timeline and use the scroll wheel.Also this is a good test to tell if quantize to frame is on or off as you can't really tell by the drop down menu.Zoom in to the level where you can see each frame and when you trim the edge it will either pop to the next frame or you can drag anywhere inbetween frames.My guess is that quantize to frames is really on.

[su6oxone]

Try zooming in really far,hover the mouse in the timeline and use the scroll wheel.Also this is a good test to tell if quantize to frame is on or off as you can't really tell by the drop down menu.Zoom in to the level where you can see each frame and when you trim the edge it will either pop to the next frame or you can drag anywhere inbetween frames.My guess is that quantize to frames is really on.

Thanks for the info!  Only problem is, when I zoom in I can no longer see the end of the track and can't press 'control' to get the '~' to pop up and allow me to stretch.  I'm using Vegas for the first time so I'm very unfamiliar with how the interface and stuff works.  I'm not understanding what a 'frame' exactly is as well.  Is this each box separated by dotted lines?  I see each box is separated by ';10' (I guess that's .1 second?), for example, the distance between one line to the next shows as 01:33:11;06 to 01:33:11;16.  I'm totally confused, is there a way to zoom in and still get the '~' by hitting control to stretch?  Thanks!!

[beatkilla]

Yes zoom in andthenuse the bar directly below the timeline to move your media back in sight,hover your mouse over edge of clip and press control.There are 30 frames per second.for example 25:15.29 would be 25mins 15secs and 29 frames the next increment would be the same but at 30 frames would then change to 25mins16secs.01 frames.

[su6oxone]

Yes zoom in andthenuse the bar directly below the timeline to move your media back in sight,hover your mouse over edge of clip and press control.There are 30 frames per second.for example 25:15.29 would be 25mins 15secs and 29 frames the next increment would be the same but at 30 frames would then change to 25mins16secs.01 frames.

Still not able to get the '~' to pop up if the mouse cursor isn't hovering above the end of the track, but I was able to properly stretch the SBD track finally.  It was odd, but for some reason the 'first stretch' could only be ;12 long, but after that I could do it in ;01 increments, so I just stretched both tracks past that initial ;12 period and then I could fine tune it.  Strange and I'm sure it's because I have little to no idea of what I'm doing. 

Thanks again for the help!

[Teen Wolf Blitzer]

FWIW it's a ton easier to just open the untracked mic set and add the soundboard track by track.  You can do it with wavlab using the montage method or even audacity by just importing each track and sliding it to the desired location.

[beatkilla]

To clarify i've never had to stretch any digital recordings only analog and thats a nightmare,why can't your sources be synched?Is one analog and one digital?both analog?I've had to address drift with video dv recordings but never with minidisc audio sources no matter how long they were.

[stantheman1976]

Syncing up track by track is totally unnecessary with digital sources.  Any drift is constant and easily adjusted.  You won't see the "~" unless you are actually at the end of teh track.  Anywhere else on the track and it won't show up.  The amount you can stretch will also depend in a way on how far you are zoomed in.  If you are zoomed out very far you will see it go in larger increments.  You have to zoom in a good bit to get to finer adjustments. 

Here's a trick I use.  Once I get the beginning synced I go to the end and see how far and which way the new audio track is off.  I find a decent spot at the end that is distinct and zoom in all the way until I'm at the start of it.  Then I zoom out a bit and hold down Shift and use the left or right arrow key to get to the same event on the other track.  Let go of Shift when you get close and then zoom in and press Shift again until you've gotten to that same event on your other track.  Zoom in until you are at the same exact event on each track.  You'll now have a loop region created going from the beginning of the same event on each track adn you can see exactly how far the drift is.  Drag the loop region to the end of your new track and use it to stretch/shrink the exact amount.

I don't know if that all makes sense in words or not.  If anyone needs I can make a video showing what I'm talking about but it will be a few days before I can do that.

[Teen Wolf Blitzer]

Syncing up track by track is totally unnecessary with digital sources.  Any drift is constant and easily adjusted.

That's simply not true from my experience.  In fact just last week I pulled a board >744 for the Avett Bros while my buddy Ian ran the milabs>fr2le.  They were not even close.  I mixed them track by track.  Now if I had them both into a 744 then yes.  Just bump one a bit and they are synced.  YMMV though.

[su6oxone]

Thanks for the help everyone, it turned out to be quite simple using Vegas to time-stretch two sources.  Took about 5 minutes once I figured out what I was doing... never knew 'matrixing' would be so easy. 

[easy jim]

Syncing up track by track is totally unnecessary with digital sources.  Any drift is constant and easily adjusted.

That's simply not true from my experience.  In fact just last week I pulled a board >744 for the Avett Bros while my buddy Ian ran the milabs>fr2le.  They were not even close.  I mixed them track by track.  Now if I had them both into a 744 then yes.  Just bump one a bit and they are synced.  YMMV though.

Well, keep in mind - of course - that sync and drift are separate issues Mark. 

The different sources recorded with the same digital clock info. will be out of sync, but will not drift apart from each other over time, so all it takes is a slide of one source along the time ruler to bring them in sync.  Two different sources recorded with different digital clock info. (i.e., un-linked and separate recorders like the 744 and fr2le), however, will drift apart over the length of a recording due to the slight difference between the internal timekeeping of the two different clocks.

Re-syncing track by track, as an approach to deal with drift from two digital sources, is a huge waste of time IMO and much less accurate than stretching or shrinking one of the sources to correct the inevitable drift at the end once they're synced at the beginning.  When you do the chop and re-sync approach track by track, you still have drift occurring which may be audible at the end of longer tracks depending on the rate of drift.  When you stretch or shrink one source so the drift has been corrected, on the other hand, you only need to sync them up once and no longer leave open the possibility of audible drift at the end of long tracks.

[Teen Wolf Blitzer]

I see what you mean.  I've really never attempted the stretch thing.  Since I have the 744.     But for the Avetts,  Ian's Milabs were way up front while my Neumanns were at the board so I opted to use his.  It came out great though using my method.  I used Samplitude but did do it track by track.  Really didn't take too long though.  If it works it works.