VCA vs Grouping. Grouping used to be used to keep fader relationships intact, but having the ability to adjust overall volume. Not all parameters follow grouping laws however. Grouping at this point would be beneficial in editing (drums) multiple tracks.

VCA faders really only address volume changes, maintaining relative fader levels within the VCA group, but you lose routing and effects capabilities when using a VCA over bussing.

No, no secret decoder ring. Best thing to do is ask questions here. We are here to help.

bomckenzie wroteHi
I Sonarite crossover here. I've been reading manuals and watching videos trying to get up to speed on the differences in Sonar and SO3. Before I pose my question, I want to high five the community here for the vast number of helpful videos.

On to SO3. I stumble across some things that just befuddle me. One that comes to mind is the VCA fader. Is it any different than a group? If so, how? I see a few distinct differences from a bus.

Thanks.

BTW - if there is a secret decoder ring, or a website of a SO3 dictionary, I would sincerely appreciate any direction as to their locations. It took me a while to realize that I wanted to Render when I was done with a Melodyne edit. And (at work now so I might miss this) the render button was hidden in the inspector.

So far, I think SO3 is great. It is not fair for me to compare to Sonar as I used that DAW so long that I almost never had to look up how to do things. I know I am still on the learning curve side of SO3.

Thanks in advance for any help.

VCA Voltage Control Amp is a mixer term for a remote control for faders. You are controlling all fader in their relative position to the gain of the VCA. It is a control mechanism and no audio passes through it. It has advantages over buses that can be Googled.
Very nice for gain stage groups ort the entire mix.


I started a decoder ring in the Welcome post sticky. viewtopic.php?f=151&t=27570

I shared your confusion. I "got" it, but I initially didn't really see what the benefits were.

The group fader is summing all the faders going into it.

The VCA isn't summing anything. It's moving all the source faders when you move the VCA fader.

Biggest benefit - you can change the levels of parts of your mix without wrecking the relative balance. To explain:

When you change the level of a group fader, it only affects the summed level of the channels going into it. The channel sends are not affected. If you have reverb on all the source channels, and turn down the group fader all the way, you'll still hear the reverb (assuming the reverb isn't also going into the group). With a VCA, since you're turning down the source channels, the signal into the sends will be reduced, and your reverb will stay in proportion.

Some other reasons:

The source channels can have entirely different signal paths, and you can still control them. Imagine you had 5 vocal tracks, but you were running direct channel outs for each track into an SSL. You can still ride the related channels with the VCA fader, but have them come up on their individual channels on the board.

VCA automation can be merged with the automation of the individual channels under control. If you have all your main levels on your VCAs, when you've got your mix how you like it, merge the automation. This will put all your VCAs back at 0 db. Then, if you decide you want to bring up a part by 1 db, you're moving from the 0 reference. rather than -21.2 db...

There's other applications, but hopefully this will get you on the right track.

Hi and Happy New Year....

I use VCA's to control my group/ed buses and I was following until the 'merge the automation' paragraph - what do you mean by that and how would you do it?

Regards....