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The Videoguys' Insider Vol 2 Issue 4
Videoguy: Kevin it's great to get the chance to talk to you for the Insider. As you and most of our customers already know, I love the SmartSound technology. Before I found SmartSound I used audio loop products to create background soundtracks for my videos. They all sounded great for the first 10 seconds. After that, it was all down hill. Now that I use SmartSound as my audio creation tool, my videos sound much better. |
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Videoguy: And it is so easy to use!! I'm constantly getting compliments on my sound tracks. I've even been asked on several occasions on my music background and what if any instruments I can play. Imagine my delight and my viewers surprise when I tell them I have no musical training at all. Kevin: The software takes music that is broken up into its component phrases – most decidedly NOT loops – and then, as per the users simple inputs into the Maestro, which is just a simple Wizard process, will construct a soundtrack to fit their scene or video sequence with a perfect musical beginning, middle and end. This sounds a bit esoteric, but the truth is any one in Hollywood will tell – all the impact and emotion in a scene not only comes from the music, but from the fact that the music is fit to the scene precisely. This is actually much more important to the process of making music work in a scene than a lot of novice video editors understand. Videoguy: Now that we've covered the basic SmartSound technology, lets talk about the various products you offer. I think one of the best kept secrets in the industry is that SmartSound Quicktracks comes FREE with premiere 6. Tell us a little about Quicktracks Kevin: That's right Gary. Adobe Premiere 6.5 not only includes the SmartSound Quicktracks plug-in, but it includes a bunch of new cool tunes as well. These are some great tunes from our 46-disk library that really show off the quality of our add-ion music CDs. For those who don't know, Quicktracks is a specially designed plug-in that ships as its own separate CD right in the Premiere jewel case that gives the user the SmartSound soundtrack creation process right from there time line. It comes with a starter set of about 27 tunes and you can add an almost limitless variety of new cuts from our Audio Palette, Edge Series and Sound Palette CDs. Also, we release a new music and sound CD every month. Videoguy: Quicktracks is really great and super easy to use. It's also a great marketing tool ;-) Once you get a taste of what the technology can give you, you end up craving more. Tell us about Sonicfire Pro and what additional features it brings to the table for video editors:
Kevin: One of the things I'm most proud about, Gary, is that our library has become widely known as one of the best royalty-free music libraries available. The reason is simple. Unlike most royalty free libraries that work with the same hand full of composers over and over – we work with all the top libraries and pick and choose the best cuts from those libraries, giving the user more useable cuts per CD than many, if not most, other libraries. We also have arranged our growing library into a variety of 3 packs. These 3-packs can get people who are new to the SmartSound process started in the best music from our library in a particular style, right away. We've just added several new ones too and there are now 13 3-packs covering almost every imaginable style. There's pretty much one for every type of video creator. And, as I said before, we release a new one every month. Some of my personal favorites from very recent releases include "Just Blues" - which I love, "Midnight Moves" a very sexy and romantic CD, and our latest, "Contemporary Insights" which is a great CD and very acoustic. Videoguy: What are the most popular palettes: Kevin: That's a tough one Gary! First, let me say that people buy the palettes not necessarily based on popularity but on the styles that are appropriate for the kinds of videos they make. That said, some of these really stand out for quality and customer response that is on a par not only with royalty-free CDs, which these are, but also with the best in needle drop and subscription music. These would include Maximum Action, Scoring Essentials, Drama & Documentary, Cinematic Excellence, Edge 3, Techno/Action, Edge 2 Rap, Hip-Hop and Rock, Just Blues, Suspense & Action, Global Voyage and Mozart & Rossini – but that does a disservice to a great many other CDs that may be perfect for the types of projects you do. Videoguy: Back at DV Expo we got together and put together a really super bundle deal for our customers. We included the full version of Sonicfire Pro with our top 2 selling palettes Power Surge and Contemporary Insights for only $199.95.
Videoguy: That 's great! From today through November 30th anyone reading this article can purchase Sonic Fire Pro, Power Surge, & Contemporary Insights for only $199.95. You have to use coupon code # SFPWSM09 when you order. Kevin: Thanks, Gary! I enjoyed it! |
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The Sonic Fire Pro interface
Kevin: Well Sonicfire Pro is the ideal environment in which to make soundtracks. It has several key features not even contained in the Quicktracks plug-in. One of these is the work flow process. While in Premiere it is convenient to call the SmartSound process without ever leaving the app, in Sonicfire, you can actually see the soundtracks and try different music ideas as you watch the video, which you can't do in premiere with the plug-in. This allows you to be able to tell right away if what you're doing is working – if it isn't a simple click of a button brings up a whole different set of choices to try and watch against the video – its really effective. This is facilitated of course by our video import feature, which has been upgraded with better support for Direct X in version 2.1. Additionally SFP allows you to edit any music, even non-SmartSound music by simply dragging it and dropping it to the time line with the markers set to the length you want –a 2 minute song suddenly becomes a well edited pieces of music that is, say 23 seconds and 8 frames long. It's amazing stuff really, when you think about it..
Kevin: That's right Gary. We did put one limitation on this offer, this special bundle can only be sold with an NLE or DVD purchase. But I know you like to end each interview with a special offer to your customers, so how about we do this. For a limited time we'll open up this special bundle to everyone who reads this article!!