SmartSound

by Robin Liss
Published on Jun 22, 2004 12:00 AM



Almost every video can use music, but not all pre-recorded music can simply be used in your videos. This dilemma can be solved in several ways. You can try to secure the permission of all the copyright holders involved (good luck!); you can buy pre-recorded royalty-free music; you can hire the job out to skilled musicians; you can write and record your own music. In the real world though, buying recorded music or hiring out to have it written and performed can be unrealistically expensive, and the idea learning to write and perform your own is (for most people) just plain unrealistic. Sonic Desktop offers another solution, and it is relatively inexpensive and easy to use. It's called SmartSound and it offers anybody who can click a mouse button the ability to create music with just the right mood and just the right length to perfectly complete any video project.

First Looks

SmartSound's operation involves the assembly of music from "SmartBlocks," which are short musical phrases that have organized by style into libraries or "Audio Palettes." The right combination of SmartBlocks creates a musical masterpiece. The standard package includes the SmartSound application and a starter Audio Palette of SmartBlocks with a wide variety of musical styles. SmartSound is available in 22KHz and CD quality, 44Khz versions. We tested out the 44KHz version. You can purchase additional Audio Palette CD's arranged into categories such as Documentaries, Film Scoring, Action, Narration, Romance, and Commercials. Currently, a total of 20 palettes are available. The music quality is truly superb. It sounds just as good as any music you will hear on broadcast television. The copy of SmartSound we received also included two expansion Audio Palettes, one titled Narration Backdrops and the other, Positive Outlook. Both sounded great, and each offered a host of different musical flavors.

We ran SmartSound on a Pentium 266 with 64MB of RAM with no problems. The installation went smoothly.

Maestro

SmartSound offers two methods of music creation. The first is the Maestro, which is essentially a wizard for making music. The Maestro automatically steps you through a series of dialogs where you select the length of your piece, indicate the category of use (i.e., whether opening, narration, background, etc.), pick a style, and finally preview and select from a numerous minor variations on the theme that you arrive at. The interface is extremely easy and is perfect for any one who wants to create music fast.

Editor

If you want to work in detail on your soundtrack, the Editor allows you to do so. In the Editor, you work directly with SmartBlocks in a sequence window. You can start with a pre-assembled piece from the Maestro, or you can put one together yourself. It allows you to move blocks around, repeat them, alter their length, and add custom blocks while maintaining a smooth audio track. With the piece that we made, we wanted to increase the length of a certain part of the music so we could fit in more talking, by simply dragging a few blocks from the block window to the sequence window, we were able to increase its length. The sequence window is styled as a timeline, perfect for video makers familiar with timeline editors, and blocks that are not in use but will work well in the piece are held in a bin type window (the Block window). A great feature of SmartSound is that when you click on a block in the timeline window, blocks that would go well with it are highlighted in the block window. The SmartSound Editor is great for people who want to do more in-depth audio editing with their video's and still do not want to go into the daunting task of trying to learn how to write music.

Verdict

SmartSound is a superior product that make it easy for anyone to create music tracks for a low price; much lower than many high quality royalty free music libraries. I was so impressed with SmartSound that I had to award it the camcorderinfo.com Editors Choice Award, given to only truly outstanding products. The interface that SmartSound utilizes will be familiar to many video editors, and makes creating music as easy as 1,2,3. The most significant advantages of SmartSound are that it allows you to create audio tracks of any length, in any style, and any mood that you want. SmartSound is a must buy for the video producers who want first class music tailored to precisely fit their needs.