External Control & Automation Tab

Use the External Control & Automation tab to set up and customize control surfaces and adjust settings for automation envelopes. To display this tab, choose Preferences from the Options menu, then click the External Control & Automation tab.

NOTE You can connect one Mackie Control Universal (with up to four Mackie Control Universal Extenders), one Frontier TranzPort, on PreSonus FaderPort, and up to five generic MIDI controllers.

TIP The selected device isn't enabled until you select the External Control command from the Options menu.

Item

Description

Smooth and thin automation data after recording

When recording automation, VEGAS Pro creates as many envelope points or keyframes as possible to represent your control movements.

Select this checkbox if you want to reduce the number of envelope points/keyframes after recording is finished. For more information, see Recording track envelope and keyframe automation

Set controls to default values when automation is turned off

Select this checkbox if you want controls to return to their default values when set the track's automation recording mode to Automation Off. Automated effect parameters do not have default settings and will retain their last-set values when you turn automation off.

When the checkbox is cleared, controls will retain their last-set values when you turn automation off.

For more information, see Recording track envelope and keyframe automation

Available devices

Choose a device from each drop-down list, and then click Add to choose the control surfaces that will be available to VEGAS Pro. Adding a device loads its default profile.

 

Active control devices

Lists the control devices that you've added. If you want to customize the behavior of the controller, double-click the device name.

New audio envelopes

Choose a setting from the drop-down list to set the default fade type that will be used when you add volume and panning envelopes.

For more information, see Audio track automation

This setting is used only when you create new envelopes. When you add a point to an existing envelope, the new point always uses the same fade type as the preceding envelope point.

New audio event gain

Choose a setting from the drop-down list to set the default fade type for the fade-in and fade-out curves on audio event gain envelopes.

For more information, see Event envelopes

This setting is used only for events that you place on the timeline after changing the setting. Existing events will use the default fade type that was active when they were added to the timeline.

New audio FX automation envelopes

Choose a setting from the drop-down list to set the default fade type that will be used when you add audio effect automation envelopes.

For more information, see Automating audio effect parameters

This setting is used only when you create new envelopes. When you add a point to an existing envelope, the new point always uses the same fade type as the preceding envelope point.

New video envelopes

Choose a setting from the drop-down list to set the default fade type that will be used when you add fade-to-color, composite level, transition progress, motion blur, supersampling, and event velocity envelopes.

This setting is used only when you create new envelopes. When you add a point to an existing envelope, the new point always uses the same fade type as the preceding envelope point.

New video event opacity

Choose a setting from the drop-down list to set the default fade type for the fade-in and fade-out curves on video event opacity envelopes.

For more information, see Event envelopes

This setting is used only for events that you place on the timeline after changing the setting. Existing events will use the default fade type that was active when they were added to the timeline.

New video FX keyframes

Choose a setting from the drop-down list to set the default keyframe type that will be used when you add video track effect keyframes.

For more information, see Adding video effects

This setting is used only when you add new effects. When you add a keyframe to an existing effect, the new keyframe is created as the same type as the preceding keyframe.

New video motion keyframes

Choose a setting from the drop-down list to set the default keyframe type that will be used when you add track motion, parent track motion, 3D track motion, or pan/crop keyframes.

For more information, see Editing track motion3D compositing and Panning and cropping video events

This setting is used only when you add new effects. When you add a keyframe to an existing effect, the new keyframe is created as the same type as the preceding keyframe.

Track Motion default smoothness

Type a value in the box (or use the spin control) to set the default Smoothness value for track motion and 3D track motion keyframes.

Pan/Crop default smoothness

Type a value in the box (or use the spin control) to set the default Smoothness value for event pan/crop keyframes. For more information, see Panning and cropping video events

Default All

Restores all External Control & Automation preferences to their default settings.