Music Creation Software: Recommendations?

wywso0 · Post by **wywso0** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:29 am

Apologies if this is a bit off-topic.

I have been looking into music creation software and have looked at demos of both SonicFire Pro from Smartsound and Sony's Cinescore.

SonicFire seems an excellent product but it isn't cheap (about $199). Also, as I understand it , you don't get many Smartsound tracks to work with in the basic package - extra tracks have to be bought separately at a price of up to $99 per CD (of 10 to 12 tracks typically). Cinescore doesn't seem quite so good but is also pricey.

I think these products are aimed at the professional or semi-professional market and priced accordingly. As an amateur, these costs are getting beyond what I am prepared to pay for music for what are - ultimately - home movies.

Does anyone know of any cheaper options? I suppose I could just about run to getting SonicFire Pro (Christmas is coming and all that) if I felt I wouldn't then have to buy more tarcks, or at least not for a long time. Are there any free/cheap sources of SmartSound tracks I could access?

(I realise that I could use tracks from ordinary CDs which I could copy into VS10+ as .mp3 files. Passing over the copyright issues for a moment - I doubt there's much chance that I would be caught, one of the features that impressed me about SonicFire was its ability to adapt the music to any length of time and to change its "mood" setting to match the video track. Can anything else do this?)

regards,
Bill S

GeorgeW · Post by **GeorgeW** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 12:24 pm

Have you used the music creation software that comes with VS10 Plus

It's a Smartsound product, and has a nice variety of music styles (imho)

Regards,
George

Post by **Ken Berry** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 1:00 pm

Great to be back on-line!!!

And sad to start on a slightly negative note, but I am afraid I don't really agree with George. Sure, the SmartSound tracks that come with VS are OK, but they are quite limited in number and I find that more often than not, you require a greater variety of styles to match any one project. This in turn means you require a much bigger collection of songs to choose between.

And as wywso0 has already identified, to get a bigger variety of SmartSound tracks costs big money... even when they are on a 'special' sale price.

And, wywso0, I am afraid to say that I don't know of any source of free SmartSound tracks or look-alikes... It is, after all, quite clever technology involved in it, and thus quite expensive...

I have just finished a project, though, and have 'made do' using Nero's wave editor to trim my own captured music from my own CDs. While it can't match Sonicfire's ability to match music beat to video tone, you can still do a pretty professional job of timing a clip to the exact second by using a wave editing program and fade-in or fade-out and a variety of other functions. And a there are a number of quite excellent audio editing programs out there which are completely free...

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 1:14 pm

Sorry George but I have to agree with Ken, the Smartsound is excellent at what it does but simply costs too much for Mr Joe Average who wants to spruce up his family holiday videos etc.

I have included some links to Free Music in our
Links to free stuff.

GeorgeW · Post by **GeorgeW** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 1:26 pm

sjj1805 wrote:Sorry George but I have to agree with Ken, the Smartsound is excellent at what it does but simply costs too much for Mr Joe Average who wants to spruce up his family holiday videos etc.

I have included some links to Free Music in our
Links to free stuff.

Wow guys, thanks for the warm welcome back (to get blasted on my first try out

)

Steve, I didn't say go get Smartsound. I was just mentioning that VS10 Plus comes with its own music-creation (Smartsound plugin -- that will cut tracks to your desired length). The cost -- well, it's included with VS10 Plus, so I did not think it was too costly for Mr. Joe Average (in fact, I thought it was a nice variety for Mr. Joe Average).

Ken and Steve, is it because I have MSP 8 installed that there are 26 different varieties to select from? I'm not sure what the default for VS10 Plus is, but I see 26 "styles" (and each one has a number of different variations within it), and thought that could cover the average user just getting started. But perhaps my VS10 Plus is picking up other "styles" from my MSP8 installation

Regards,
George

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 1:38 pm

George
Sorry if I sounded as if I ws blasting you - not my intention.
The 26 included tracks are common to all of the Ulead Programs that contain Smartsound.

Yes smartsound IS an excellent piece of software and I have purchased more libraries to increase my collection. It is however too expensive for the ordinary man in the street to purchase these packs.

Those that wish to do so would be advised to consider the 22k bundles.
These work out cheaper and although 22k is not so good as 44k for someone wishing to get more at less cost it may be considered that bulk is better than quality.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 1:39 pm

Sorry George. No personal attack was intended. But no. I think VS10+ also has only those 26 basic songs (as does Pinnacle as far as I can recall), the same as MSP. SmartSound even has a disc with all (or most) of the same tracks on it (Vol. 1 of the Audio Palette series, entitled 'Full Spectrum'). And yes, I agree that you can try the varying ways of playing each track which provides a bit more variety.

But my point essentially was that if you are aiming to produce a DVD which runs for around an hour or more (which most Mr or Ms Joe or Josefa Average are trying to do), and do so multiple times, you are quickly going to run out of choices -- or risk a lot of repetition -- if you are limited to only using the 26 available Full Spectrum tracks.

Granted they try to give a broad idea of what the whole SmartSound collection is about ('full spectrum'), but inevitably, not every video made by Mr Joe Average (or Ms etc) is going to go well with an electronic version of the entry of the Queen of Sheba or one or two or five more of the available tracks!

Don't get me wrong. SmartSound's a truly great and useful tool if you can afford it in its full version. And the 26 tracks provided free are a great boon. But in a sense, what is provided is no more than a teaser to induce people to part with big bucks for the full Sonicfire Pro program and/or more of the SmartSound discs...