What exactly is a VCA group in ProTools?

[FMiguelez]

Hello.
I've been watching an engineer mix a song, and he uses VCA groups (PT). But I fail to understand what exactly they do, and how they are different from regular DP aux tracks.

I notice they seem to have less "stuff" (no output or input, apparently... Obviously I'm not familiar with PT's GUI anymore), and are being used basically as Stem auxs or subgroup channels. Is there something special about them?

Thank you for any insight.

[Alfred Zigoma]

it is called as vca groups. it not absolutely aux, they have no insert and sends
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep08/a ... groups.htm
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co ... s-9-a.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cALPW8kK4Pw

[Phil O]

I didn't know PT had anything like this. I've been using something similar in DP but would never have thought to call it a VCA. I call them my control tracks. To create a control track, simply create an audio track without any soundbites and group it to what you wish to control. For example, a group of drum tracks would have an extra track, Drum(control), without any data that's grouped with the drum tracks. In the mixer window hold down G (to temporarily un-group) and deselect all other drum tracks in the track selector window. Now all you have showing in the mixer is your drum control track. If you want to increase all faders by 1dB simply move the control track fader to +1. This is useful in terms of remembering what changes you've made (your control track is sitting at +1 as a visual reminder). You can easily set the control fader back to zero if you wish (without changing the other faders in the group by holding G and double clicking the fader. Works for sends, mute, solo, etc. And you can work with a very uncluttered mixer window. There are lots of other ways to use this, too.

This can probably do most of what PT's VCA can. As always, DP can do most anything with a little ingenuity.

Phil

[Prime Mover]

Curious that PT has a special track type for this. As far as I can tell, any kind of track can offer this functionality, it just keeps it designated differently and it's feature set low to distinguish it from normal tracks. Kinda cool, but completely useless.

[Phil O]

Well it ain't nothin' to write home about, but I wouldn't call it completely useless. There's also the possibility that PT has included some functionality that we're overlooking. Can it mix a good martini? Hmm?

Phil

[toodamnhip]

I didn't know about this feature. It is NOT useless at all and the video shows exactly why. I wish DP had this, it is s very cool option.

[Dan Worley]

I didn't know about this feature. It is NOT useless at all and the video shows exactly why. I wish DP had this, it is s very cool option.

As Phil said, you can accomplish the same thing in DP with Groups.

There is one extremely important and annoying glitch with Groups, however. If you lower an audio fader by, say, 2 dB, all the others faders in that group will lower by the same amount (yay!), but if you raise a fader by 2 dB (or any amount), you don't know what you're going to get on the other faders in the group.

For instance, the faders are grouped in the screenshots below. To help keep track of the numbers, the starting values are the names of the tracks. I will first move the CTRL fader down 2 dB and then up 2dB.

Starting values


Down 2dB from starting values, we get what we expect.


Up 2dB from starting values. Oops!


It's been this way forever, I believe. Temporary Groups do the same.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

It certainly wouldn't hurt to have this VCA type feature in DP. We might call them chunkettes, or chunkets, or even chuckles.

[Phil O]

It's been this way forever, I believe. Temporary Groups do the same.

Yes, I recall having this discussion a while back. I had forgotten about this. It deserves further investigation, me thinks.

Phil

[Dan Worley]

It's been this way forever, I believe. Temporary Groups do the same.

Yes, I recall having this discussion a while back. I had forgotten about this. It deserves further investigation, me thinks.

Phil

Yeah, I do remember that, Phil. I used to think it had something to do with the faders going over unity, but that's not the case. I've done tests with all faders under unity and the problem remains.

So if I have to raise a bunch of tracks, I write automation and use Change Continuous Data.

[toodamnhip]

I didn't know about this feature. It is NOT useless at all and the video shows exactly why. I wish DP had this, it is s very cool option.

As Phil said, you can accomplish the same thing in DP with Groups.

There is one extremely important and annoying glitch with Groups, however. If you lower an audio fader by, say, 2 dB, all the others faders in that group will lower by the same amount (yay!), but if you raise a fader by 2 dB (or any amount), you don't know what you're going to get on the other faders in the group.

For instance, the faders are grouped in the screenshots below. To help keep track of the numbers, the starting values are the names of the tracks. I will first move the CTRL fader down 2 dB and then up 2dB.

Starting values


Down 2dB from starting values, we get what we expect.


Up 2dB from starting values. Oops!


It's been this way forever, I believe. Temporary Groups do the same.

To me, your example does not accomplish the same thing, especially in light of the DP bug you have shown. I love how you can record the VCA group in pro tools. That is really cool.

[Dan Worley]

You can do the same in DP, TDH. It depends on what you activate in the Track Group. I think everything they did in that video you can do with Track Groups -- Record, Mute, Solo, Input Monitor, etc...

Track Groups

[toodamnhip]

You can do the same in DP, TDH. It depends on what you activate in the Track Group. I think everything they did in that video you can do with Track Groups -- Record, Mute, Solo, Input Monitor, etc...

Track Groups

There may be a confusion of function here. I thought the by hitting record with VCA groups, one can record everything in the group to a new stereo track. Not put every track in the group INTO record. Of course DP can do that. If VCA record didn;t record all the tracks into a new track then there is little benefit to it except to avoid DPs bug of grouped faders getting out of ratio when being boosted.

[Dan Worley]

You can do the same in DP, TDH. It depends on what you activate in the Track Group. I think everything they did in that video you can do with Track Groups -- Record, Mute, Solo, Input Monitor, etc...

Track Groups

There may be a confusion of function here. I thought that by hitting record with VCA groups, one can record everything in the group to a new stereo track. Not put every track in the group INTO record. ...

It's the latter. It puts all the tracks in the group into record.

[Shooshie]

I didn't know about this feature. It is NOT useless at all and the video shows exactly why. I wish DP had this, it is s very cool option.

As Phil said, you can accomplish the same thing in DP with Groups.

There is one extremely important and annoying glitch with Groups, however. If you lower an audio fader by, say, 2 dB, all the others faders in that group will lower by the same amount (yay!), but if you raise a fader by 2 dB (or any amount), you don't know what you're going to get on the other faders in the group.

For instance, the faders are grouped in the screenshots below. To help keep track of the numbers, the starting values are the names of the tracks. I will first move the CTRL fader down 2 dB and then up 2dB.

Starting values


Down 2dB from starting values, we get what we expect.


Up 2dB from starting values. Oops!


It's been this way forever, I believe. Temporary Groups do the same.

Gotta speak up again here. (I've said the same things in multiple bouts of this same argument) The ratio between the tracks is preserved. When you pass unity, you're basically closing in on the upper limit of the fader throw. Rather than allow each fader to reach its limit, then losing all its proportional relationship with the other faders, MOTU chose to compress that ratio until they have all reached the upper end. They reach that point together.

Once they are at that point, they all read the same value, but the ratio multiplier is still there. Pull down the fader that started off at 0.00, until it's back to 0.00. You'll find that all your tracks are at their identical starting points.

Likewise, as you approach infinity, the same thing happens: the ratio is compressed so that they all arrive at infinity at the same time. Again, raising them up brings back the exact same ratio at which they started.

It is the ratio which is preserved, relative to the limits of the faders' throw, not the literal distance between them. But when you take them back to their starting points, you will always find that the literal distance between them is exactly the same as it was when you started.

It's not a bug. This is by design, and it's a good design. If another DAW does it differently, that's by design, too. You're saying that because MOTU didn't choose the same algorithm that Digidesign chose, it's a bug. Why not the other way around? Or better still, let's quit saying that either is a bug, and recognize good design for what it is.

Try it. You'll see that it works. It's worked properly as far back as I can remember. If there was a version in which it didn't work properly, I don't remember, but in DP 8.05, I can attest to its proper functioning, just as I could in at least several other versions, because this isn't the first time we've been around this barrel of monkeys.

Shooshie