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Jul 24, 2006
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Are you in the mood?
Sonicfire Pro 4 offers new levels of music manipulation
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by Chuck Gloman
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SmartSound has created SonicFire Pro 4, a revolutionary music editing program that will definitely change the way you cut music in your videos. In a matter of minutes (after you review the demo) you will be editing custom moods of music for your videos.
SonicFire Pro 4 is comfortable on both PC and Mac platforms. When I first loaded the program, it took only a few minutes before I had the icon on my desktop. When I opened the program, however, I was immediately lost. It looked like any other NLE program, except I had no idea what function each menu item performed. Because the software was not supplied with any instructions, SmartSound suggested I look in the help menu -- and my problems were solved.
I highly recommend watching the overview or the tutorial. Both of these go into depth what SonicFire Pro 4 can do; without this instruction, you will waste a lot of time looking for stuff when you could be editing.
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| Compatible with PC and Mac, SonicFire Pro 4 is a revolutionary music and sound editing program. |
Do yourself a favor and install QuickTime 7 before you attempt to watch the overview. Without that program, once the Overview starts, there is no way to pause or stop it without closing the program. Not ideal, especially if you are interrupted as much as I am. Once I loaded QuickTime 7, I could pause the video when the phone rang. Much better.
Track Management
The software package I reviewed included one disc of music (there are dozens of additional CDs from which to choose) and one free download. SmartSound has an extensive library of music of all types, but you should especially consider its Strata Series Library selections, which allow you unfathomable options that I'll discuss later.
To start looking for music, click on the Maestro icon and begin your search. You can look into all music that you have -- what's on your computer, what's owned by you, favorites, tracks with user notes. To the immediate right, you can choose the style; do you want something that is light and airy, a classical feel, atmospheric?
Once you have made your style selection, the icon to the left of the track tells you if you have it on your computer, if you need to import it from a CD, or if you have to purchase it online. In case you aren't sure if you have the selection, click on it and you will be told nicely where to find it.
Once you have inserted the music, it appears on the timeline and the real magic begins. You can make your choice of music any length you like. Of course, you can do that anywhere. But if you need a 59-second cut for a commercial and the total running time of your track is four minutes, you might be in trouble.
Not with SonicFire Pro 4. Simply make the selection any time length you need and the music automatically fades out or ends at that point it time with no other editing involved. You no longer have to look for shortened versions, especially if you have an odd length of time, such as 79 seconds.
Beyond Basic Cuts
If that weren't enough, you can change the pitch, tempo, or even the mix of the music. You have seven choices to vary the style of the music. You can even vary the mood of the music with 13 selections (full, background, heavy, light, etc.).
Once you select a "mood," click on Mood Mapping and you are now in total control your SmartSound "Multi-Layer" music track (such as those in the Strata Series Library). Another box opens up and shows you the levels of up to eight different instruments, such as drums, bass, and guitar.
These levels are preset for a particular "mood," but each can easily be raised or lowered.
The fascinating thing about selecting "dialog" is that the presets will lower the lead instruments but keep the rhythm track going underneath your dialog. When using this feature under dialog, I had nothing to change -- the default was a perfect mix.
You can also vary your moods through your edit using the same piece of music. In my sound class at the university, this was a perfect tool for showing how music (or sound) changes the way the viewer perceives the video.
Video is easily imported into the little window and I illustrated to my class how changing the "mood" of the piece of music 10 times through the 60-second program helped accentuate the visuals. In the past I had used ProTools for this demonstration (which is excellent in its own right), but SonicFire Pro 4 did the same thing in faster and easier.
I then had the students try the same exercise with different cuts of music to learn the feel of the program. Now, none of my 14 students wants to use our current music library because it is not "adaptable enough" to suit their young minds. When you can customize your music to suit any program, why would you ever want to go back and edit the old fashioned way?
We spent far too much time changing the mixes of every piece of music we had at our disposal -- it's easy to get lost in the possibilities. When you are satisfied with the mix, the program can be exported as a complete soundtrack or in individual elements. Export as a WAV file for Adobe, Apple, Avid, or many NLE options and you're in business.
Editing a document for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, I was able to change the "mood" and mix of the music to suit the image on the screen. Never underestimate the power you have to create emotion with music. I believe the future of music libraries will have to move to this style of editing.
I have very little formal music training, but I do know what sounds good. You can probably tell by now that I like the software program. It hasn't made me a better editor, but rather a more refined editor. I have advanced from drinking Ripple to enjoying fine wine.
It's easy to take a cut from a music library and drop it into your NLE timeline. But with minimal effort, now you can create a superior piece that will have your clients screaming (quietly) for more.
The standard edition of SonicFire Pro 4 is priced at $199, though SmartSound offers a variety of bundles that include the software and music choices. If you intend on editing any style of video in any environment or business, you owe it to your select to look at SonicFire Pro4. Once up to speed, and that only takes a short period of time, you will be amazed at what you can do.
Chuck Gloman is an awarding-winning producer/director of photography with more than 800 commercials to his credit, and is a member of the faculty of DeSales University. Contact him at chuck.gloman@desales.edu.
MORE INFO
SmartSound www.smartsound.com
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