This
past month, I found myself involved in a project that
required an all PC workflow. Due to a number of considerations,
we chose to go with Sony's Vegas 6 as our
primary editing software for this project. As this was
the first large project that a couple of the editors had
attempted with Vegas, I found that there
ended up being a lot of explaining of Vegas
quirks to editors that were far more familiar with Final
Cut Pro.
As
we ran into this issue a number of times, I decided to
search the internet to see if there were any articles
written on Vegas for Final Cut Pro
users and found absolutely nothing. I found articles on
Final Cut Profor Avid users and
Premiere Pro for Final Cut users (showing that
cross-platforms are no barrier to articles!), but no conversion
for Vegas for Final Cut users. As I thought
about it afterwards, I realized that this made a certain
amount of sense. To convertFinal Cut Pro
to the understanding of Avid users, it's like converting
a Southern Drawl to West-Coast English--you're speaking
the same language, you're just using a few different words
and concepts. It's the same with Premiere Pro for
Final Cut users, as Premiere Pro has grown
to mirror Final Cut Pro in recent years.
(This too makes sense, as both Premiere and
Final Cut were originally created by the same people,
although they are now run by completely different teams.)
However,
converting Vegas for Final Cut Prousers is like converting English to French--virtually
everything is different except for the words English stole
straight from French. This is due to the fact that, unlike
Final Cut Pro or Avid Xpress which
have always been video editing programs, Vegas
started out as a multi-track audio editing program created
by Sonic Foundry. It added on the video element as more
of an expansion and then grew into a fully capable video
editing program, which was later purchased by Sony. In
the end, you have a powerful video editing program that
still thinks it's an audio program, which is not bad--it's
just different.
As
such, once you learn to understand the differences, you
can appreciate the strengths Vegas offers, as opposed
to simply suffering a mental infarction due to those differences.
Since there was no article like this that I could find,
I decided to write one on the subject. While I am an old
school FCP user, I am still pretty new to Vegas,
so I teamed up with Vegas scripting guru, Edward
Troxel, to complete this article. (If you want to get
some really cool ideas for Vegas and read his free
newsletter on getting the most out of this software, you
can go to http://www.jetdv.com)
While
this article will not cover every term in Vegas
and convert it to FCP understanding, it will convert
some of the most common questions and terms. To go back
to the French analogy, this is like a 'phrase' book that
converts common and useful phrases into French so that
you can get around, find good restaurants, and locate
a bathroom when necessary!
Clips
vs. Events
After the initial shock most FCP users feel at
seeing an interface that allows audio and video to intermingle
in the same area of the timeline, flips the docking setup
they're used to upside down, and doesn't have a clip view-screen
next to the timeline viewer, most users wonder what the
'Events' are that are referenced all over the program.
Well, quite simply, 'Events' are anything that's on the
timeline-video clips, audio clips, special effect overlays,
still images, or text. If it's on the timeline, it's an
event.
Blades
vs. Splits
The next thing that tends to confuses FCP users
in Vegas is the lack of any sort of razor blade
for cutting segments out of clips. If you try to press
the 'B' key like you're used to in FCP, rather
than a razor blade appearing, you'll see that an audio
bus track called the 'Master Track' appears on your timeline.
(Again, the evolution from an audio program is why Vegas
considers the audio bus to be the Master Track.) Instead,
the way to split tracks is to place your playhead where
you want a cut to be placed and press the 'S' key to 'Split'
the clip. If you have a clip selected, then this will
split only that clip. (Much like pressing 'B' once to
create a single razor blade in Final Cut Pro.)
If you have nothing selected on the timeline, then the
playhead will cut through every track it is currently
intersecting. (Much like pressing 'B' twice to create
double razor blades in Final Cut Pro.)
