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How to organize and backup a Sony Vegas project

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Updated 6/29/2011 with notes about the “Remove from Project and Delete Files” command

As I prepare and edit a video in Sony Vegas Pro, I tend to get a bit disorganized, bringing in source pictures, video and animations from various places on my hard disk.  I’m especially bad about saving pictures temporarily on my desktop.

Sometimes, I do a bazillion takes of voiceover audio, and end up with countless unused wave files in the project.

So, in order to eliminate those unused takes, and to consolidate the files into a single location, ready to be backed up, here’s what I do.More

Crazy Tone Thing 2: The Sequel

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Well, part 2 of the tone video took waaaay longer than I anticipated!  I spent a ridiculous amount of time editing, and animating illustrations of the tone circuit.

Here I present a tutorial on how to read cap values, an explanation of how the capacitance and resistance work together as an RC filter in the tone circuit, and some audio examples to help in selecting a useful cap value for a tone circuit. More

Crazy Tone Thing

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After much deliberation, experimentation, determination, and the inevitable procrastination and distraction… I’ve finally completed this comparison of tone capacitor material types and capacitance values.  In part 1, I’ll evaluate a bunch of different dialectric material types to see how they change the character of the sound.  In part 2, I’ll cover how different capacitance values affect the range and usefulness of the tone pot.

The Tone Thing Back of the Tone Thing

First, I built this Tone Thing 🙂  It’s a piece of cardboard on which I mounted 7 different capacitor material types, and 7 Orange Drops of different capacitance values, and one Bourns 500k audio taper pot.  This is connected up with alligator clips to my Epiphone Riviera P93, in parallel with the signal at the output jack (the same place as the master tone in a regular guitar circuit).

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Birth of a Guitar, part 3

Building an Acoustic Guitar, part 3

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Marc at The Wood Whisperer has posted the final part in the video series Birth of a Guitar, documenting Rick Urschel’s classical guitar project.   If you’ve been watching, part 2 ended on a cliffhanger, Rick having mistakenly glued on the fretboard before tapering it.  Disaster!  This video starts with Ricks laborious fix with Japanese saw, chisel, scraper and sandpaper.  Then Rick goes on to shaping the neck with a spokeshave, installing fret wire, and positioning the bridge.  The finish starts with pore-filling with pumice, then applying 5 coats of shellac and 5 coats of satin polyurethane.   Finally, Rick installs the nut, tuning machines, and uses a fancy vacuum press to glue down the bridge – how cool is that!?  You can also see Rick’s homemade walnut guitar stand.

The final result is beautiful, and a testament to Rick’s persistence, patience and determination!  This really makes me appreciate how much effort goes into building a handmade guitar.  Even after all that effort, there’s some kind of “rogue” harmonic thing going on with the open G string that he was unable to figure out.  If you have any ideas, contact him!

Take a look:

Birth of a Guitar, part 3

New Vox Guitars

New Guitars From Vox

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New Vox Guitars At this year’s NAMM, Vox announced a series of new guitars.  These things look beautiful.  They’ll be available in April 2010, pricing TBA.

VOX Series 55 Specifications

  • Scale Length: 638mm (25.125″)
  • No. Of Frets: 22
  • Nut Width: 43mm (1.7″)
  • Bridge Pickup: Coaxe
  • Neck Pickup: Coaxe
  • Body: Mahogany
  • Top: Ash or Maple (depending on finish)

Update May 18, 2011:  Also see my in-depth review of the SSC-33, and for more about the CoAxe pickup system, see my interview with Vox R&D’s Eric Kirkland.

I recorded a short NAMM demo of Freddy DeMarco playing the vintage cream SSC-55 single cutaway through a Vox AC-30 amp.  The pickups sound really versatile, the build quality feels superb, and the styling is understated and excellent.  Take a look:

New Digitech JamMan Loopers

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I’ve long been a fan of looping with guitars.   I had the original Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro, before it was co-opted by Gibson.  Great looper, but mono and always frustrating that after creating a great composition, there was no way to save it other than just recording the combined analog audio composite.  I sold the EDP when I started using Native Instruments Guitar Rig, but was never quite satisfied with the experience of being bound to the computer.

The previous edition of the Digitech Jam Man was nice, but also mono.  The Looperlative LP1 and the Boss RC-50 are both stereo but are pretty expensive.  I saw a new Looperlative LP2 prototype at NAMM which is much cheaper than the LP1, but it’s mono.

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Guitar Building Video

Building an Acoustic Guitar, part 2

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Marc over at The Wood Whisperer has posted part 2 in the video series Birth of a Guitar, documenting Rick Urschel’s classical guitar project.   This time, Rick makes the kerfing, builds the back and the sound board with rosette, all the bracing, bindings, the bridge, fretboard.   If you thought from part 1 that it was gonna be all power tools, you’ll find a lot more hand tool and finesse work in this video.  Really inspiring stuff.  We get to see some of Rick’s clever jigs – like one to produce a raised curve in the top, a diy tilt-base for the trim router, a fret-slot cutting sled, and again the hot lightbulb-in-a-pipe wood bending jig.  Warning, massive amounts of blue tape will be consumed 🙂

One of the most interesting parts of the video is how Rick recovers from a couple big mistakes.  Every woodworker, from beginner to expert, makes mistakes, in every project.  I’ve heard said that the measure of a fine woodworker is how well they hide their mistakes.

There’s a huge amount of material here, and Marc has sped up a lot of of the video to almost comical speeds.   And best of all, it ends on a cliffhanger!  Take a look:

Guitar Building Video

Guitar Electronics Comparisons

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In this video, I finally bring together the results of the last 20 or so videos, and demo the results of my Epiphone Riviera P93 electronics overhaul.  I first demonstrate the original Epi setup, then swap in my new electronics, and then replace the pickups with a matched set of new Vintage Vibe Guitars P-90’s.

The new electronics include CTS 500k audio taper pots, no-load mod on the tone pot, an Orange Drop .01uF tone cap, all new shielded wire, and a new Switchraft L12A jack.  So, if you’re wondering what it might sound like if you change out your pots and caps in your guitar, this should be a good example.   (Note, I’m changing the jack for mechanical reasons, not to improve the sound). More

Choosing an HD Camcorder

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After experimenting with a couple of HD webcams – the Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 and Microsoft Cinema HD – I was ultimately frustrated by them.  They suffered from generally poor quality, especially fuzzy at the edges of the frame, weird color saturation and white balance issues, auto-focus inconsistency, etc.  The built-in microphones were both terrible, the Logitech prone to massive distorted glitching, and the Microsoft with a consistent high-pitched whine.

So, finally I decided to take the plunge and get a real HD camcorder.  I can attempt to justify the huge difference in price by saying that I’ll also be using it for recording family and school events, etc.   🙂

I wanted a well built small camera, high resolution, and no tape.  Also, I require an external stereo microphone in (to allow me to record guitar and voice with two separate microphones).  With so many brands and models to choose from out there, it helps to narrow the playing field.   I’ve always been a big fan of Canon digital cameras, and their HD camcorders are extremely well priced, and well reviewed.   To get the equivalent features from a Sony or Panasonic, you need to spend almost twice as much.  I decided to restrict my search to the Canon HF11 (last year’s model), the current model HF20/200 and HG20/21 cameras.    The HF11/20/200 are flash based, while the HG series have built-in hard disks.More

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