VCAs are always a tough one for people to understand because the audio does not pass through the fader. Just a way of layering automation for the assigned channels. Cheers!
Great video as ever Mike! Cool tip from Andy Wallace for VCA's: setting one VCA fader to control all the other VCA's as a means of controlling how hard audio hits the mix bus
+Ed Sokolowski Thanks Ed! Yes, this was a common technique on the SSL console because the VCA faders could actually be grouped to any other VCA fader as well. Many engineers would use the last VCA Fader as the master. I guess this is easy enough to set up if you create a mix group with the VCA faders. Hate to be the guy who has to write all the code for this one, yikes! The only issue here is that, if you bring down the master by a significant amount, you will also feed less signal into your effects which sometimes changes the sound of the mix. In that case, it is better to trim the signal at the stem faders or as a trim plugin on the master fader. Cheers! Mike
Great tut Mike. Would it affect the processing on the faders while reducing the level of VCA's, as it reduces the level of each associated fader to it, I mean, what about compression etc once peaks could not be reaching the same level. Hope this question is clear. Thanks as always for your great and generous job. Cheers!
HiJames, Not sure how i missed your comment here. Most of the processing will be pre fader so the effect on individual tracks that are members of the group are OK. It can sometimes effect parallel processing and stem compression but that depends how radical you get with the moves. Cheers! Mike
Hi, Mike! When I heard about VCA faders in Studio One 3 at the first time I think "Wow! This is exactly what I need!", but I then I found that this guys just useless for me... I just can't find the right place for this. I can't control level of the drums because there are bus compression applied and changing drum volume will change the compressor's response. I can't control the levels of all other tracks because it will change all the sound of my post-fader FX channels and bus dynamics that I carefully configure. VCA faders may be only using for automation purposes in this case and just for small level changes. Сorrect me if I'm wrong. Ilya
They are generally designed for smaller moves or a convenient way to fade out a group of tracks all at once. Does Studio One have a Coalesce feature? I mostly use them at the automation phase anyway, where the rides are evening things out. That should help make the parallel chains and effects sound more consistent, not less. Cheers! Mike
I'm not sure what you mean with the coalesce feature, so I just found some information about it feature in protools. If it mean that you can write automation line on the VCA fader and then applied this changes to the track's line separately and make VCA line clear - Studio One can do this. But why should it be need? To release the VCA fader? Does it make sense?
Yes, you have the right definition. The idea of VCA Fader is that it allows you to write in automation data for many channels at once. Once done, you can coalesce and then the fader becomes a static level control again. You can then shape the automation in a different way with the next layer and repeat the process as much as is necessary.
Hi Mike, thanks a lot for your effort, so far this gave me the best explanation of what VCAs are! However, I still don't understand one thing. You mentioned, that it was mainly designed for easy automation of several tracks at once back in the day, what is clear, but you can do just the same with an Aux track in PT even with more options (e.x. inserting plugings...), right? So is there any practical difference between automating a group of instruments through an Aux track and through a VCA fader? Does VCA have any benefit over the Aux track in PT? I appreciate your answer! Cheers!
Hi Viliam, Because the VCA Fader does not pass audio, it allows you to control any number of assigned faders with existing automation and move the new automation (coalesce) into the individual tracks. You cannot do this with an Aux channel. Further. the aux channel automation would be post insert processing and you would also have to add the effect returns fed from those individual tracks to that aux, otherwise the effect levels will not follow the automation of the aux fader. Hope this helps... Cheers! Mike
