SmartSound Sale on Music

[Bill Hunt]

Just got an e-mail from SmartSound (www.smartsound.com) and they are having a sale on almost all of their catalog. If you have been waiting to pick up some of their music, I doubt that you'll find a better price than now. Also, most of these are their multi-layer "Strata" series, that offers "Mood Mapping" in SonicFire Pro 4, or 5.

They also cut the price of the Backstage music by US$50, but it's still pretty expensive.

I saw that they were offering free shipping on the Backstage discs, in the US. Did not catch if that applied to their other libraries.

Just wanted to give everyone a H/U.

Hunt

[Briantho]

Hi Hunt,

Might I ask if you're a SmartSound fan? I used it with Pinnacle Studio 9 when I first started editing and it was the one feature that almost caused me to fall off my chair with amazement. The implementation was brilliant, I thought: just stretch the choice of music under the video clips involved, press play and there it was, starting and ending perfectly. Remove a clip or in any way alter the length of the clips involved and immediately the SmartSound music rewrote itself. It works the same way in Ulead's product as well. I even bought an additional four CDs.

I had so much hoped that Premiere 7 would offer a little bit in this one area but no, same clumsy implementation as in PE4 - such a shame. You have to work out how much music you want, generate it, but later, if a change in length is made it's back to the generator, respecify, try to remember to clear the unused music from the project in case that becomes an issue, etc. Or am I overlooking something here..?

[Bill Hunt]

Yes, I've also used SmartSound from its introduction in Pinnacle. Do not recall if that was version 8, or 9. I used it most in Studio 9.

When I moved to Premiere Pro some years back, I immediately got the plug-in. Yes, it's not quite as easy, as it was in Pinnacle. There were also some problems with the Waveform display in SmartSound files. That was fixed by SmartSound with a patch. About then, I picked up SonicFire Pro 3, upgraded to 4 and now to 5. For simple music soundtracks, I use QuickTracks, but for any scoring, then SonicFire Pro 5 is a sweet program. Only drawback is that I have to Export a reference AV to get the full benefit from it. Still, that is worth the effort and time if using their Strata series music. As the QuickTracks plug-in is the same for P-Pro and Elements, I doubt there is any difference between use in either program. In PE, I've used a few SmartSound pieces, but not done much work with it.

As for being a "fan," I was blown away when I looked at the recent "Sale" page. There were 51 Strata Series discs at half-off. I got out my spreadsheet and looked down the list. I checked and re-checked. There was not one disc, that I wanted, that I did not already own!

Now, their sale on the Backstage music was tempting, but it is geared specifically for high-end pro use and is still too expensive for me to consider. There are probably 4 of those, that I could use, but until someone comes in the door with a project requiring it, and a budget for me to acquire them, I will just haunt those "Sales," and keep my fingers crossed.

Back to the Pinnacle vs Premiere implementation, I do not know what the hangups are, but feel that if it were easy, SmartSound would have updated their plug-in to allow for 100% Duration editability. Gotta' be something difficult to do. Still, I can live with differences. I only do music, once I've done all of my cutting, so Duration change hardly ever comes up. If it does, then I use the multiple steps required to do it. However, i just crashed P-Pro doing this, about 3 hours before I typed this. First PP crash, and it was due to changing the Duration of a SmartSound piece!

Hunt