I was miffed by the whole Cinescore Debackle, I considered Smart Sound, but I liked the idea of being able to use the Cinescore Plugin within Vegas. Although I might understand when Sony said it wasn't going to support Cinescore anymore they simply did not sell the program any longer, but the fact that they pulled all the Cinescore content was rather a slap in the face to all of us who had purchased Cinescore. If they didn't want to manufacture the CDs anymore, they could have at least let us continue to buy content via download.

What irks me even more is that they pulled the plug before compiling a 64 bit compatible version. I hate that.

My suspicion is that pulling the plug on Cinescore on Dec 31, 2009 was a legal obligation due to some kind of settlement with SmartSound. It was probably not something SCS wanted to do, but rather had to do. And it's likely the kind of thing that neither side will ever talk about.

Somewhere on the web you can find a news item about Sony settling a patent infringement lawsuit brought against them by SmartSound. The settlement details were not disclosed, of course...

But... Sony has been absolutely silent about what their replacement will be...


EDIT: Well, maybe my hunch is wrong. I found this link on the SmartSound website:

http://www.smartsound.com/press/readarticle.html?id=13

The problem with Cinescore was the lack of content. Smartsound manage something like one album per month. SCS were managing around one tune per year.
On top of that if you've got the budget Smartsound do custom music. Why in the world SCS expended resources re-inventing the wheel escapes me. Smartsound seems to work in the competitors NLEs, I bought it before Cinescore was thought of based on recommendation from everyone here at the time. Sure it'd be nice if SS worked in Vegas like it does elsewhere but it's never been much of an issue to me.

Bob.

I actually bought Cinescore, but ended up ditching it because I found it too much work for the results. For custom work that's in the budget, you just pay for someone to do it (or I do it myself) and it's always better than the alternative (though it does crank up the budget a lot...there are people willing to pay for it). I also tend to use drop-needle content from istockphoto.com or create custom tracks in ACID Pro.

I suspect that SCS managed one disc per year of Cinescore content because it was probably a bear to manage. On top of the demands of Vegas (and the 64-bit / win7 launch), DVDA, Sound Forge, Acid etc, creating content probably wasn't their priority.

Ultimately, SCS is a software company, and they probably had to make a decision about core business and what they were going to support. We all have our bugbears about various pieces of software....if pulling the plug on Cinescore made it more viable to focus on VPx or any other product, then I'm all for it.

I know the economics make it tough for a lot of smaller producers to get custom sounding music in their projects, but Smartsound, ACID Pro, and drop-needle content from istockphoto and the like are good options.

Smartsound looks attractive. I'm suspecting that their mutual animosity will prevent a Vegas plugin from being marketed, unfortunately. The standalone product looks useful though. I'll likely buy it when I need to score an animation.

For me, the price of royalty free music is jaw dropping, since this is a hobby and I am not a professional just a Video Enthusiast. I liked the way Cinescore integrated into Vegas and that I didn't have to enter a separate application in order to use it. Although Smart Sound does have sales, paying $20 for one piece of music or $99 for an album also makes me gag. I think I might buy Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Production Suite 10 just for the 400 royalty free music tracks they are offering with it and install the application on my laptop. Movie Studio has improved so much, had I known they were going to allow 10 video tracks and other improvements I would have foregone the upgrade to Vegas Pro.

I guess I need to check out free public domain music too.

Check the SmartSound website regularly or sign up for their emails and you will find that they have sales -- sometimes on just a few discs, sometimes on a lot of discs -- and sometimes the price drops as low as $25 or $30 per disc for certain discs. (Or at least that's how I bought several of mine.)

You can also find some good deals on Royalty Free music on eBay. Just search for "royalty free music". The Impact Music Collection is pretty decent for home hobbyist use (like me). PBTM discs are also pretty good quality.

Note: Somebody reselling used RF discs they bought is generally not legal -- music rights generally are granted only to the original purchaser and are not transferrable.

I've had Smart Sound since 2002 or so ... never regretted it. It came packaged with my Casablanca before I knew what I was getting. When I made the move to Vegas 4.0, I installed the Smart Sound as well. I've used it every since.
Please don't purchase full-price off the site... wait for sales and discount periods.
* * *
For those who complain about the price of a single song download, don't forget that you now have a single tune with 4 to 6 or 8 variations of the same song (more drums, less strings, etc.) along with the ability to preset the duration of the selection to match the video and have it end when you want. Addtionally, their new multi-track music permits you to choose less drums, louder brass, and others ... it builds the music in blocks - and now puts the blocks on tracks of their own so you can alter/modify them to your own desires.
* * *
Workflow is not interrupted - Smart Sound is part of the workflow for me. I just click to the end of the video to get the length of music I need; open Smart Sound (a quick launch icon); use the Maestro to find the song I want; place it on the Smart Sound timeline; pick the variation I want; set the length I want; export to .wav; close Smart Sound; import the audio; and stick it on the Vegas audio timeline. The bottlenecks are finding the right song and variation - they are so numerous!
Once on the timeline in Vegas, modification has all the functions available in Vegas - volume envelope for emphasis/ducking and adjusting the closing (control-drag) to end precisely when you want.
Of course, my productions seldom use volume envelopes, so viewing the video while adjusting the audio is never a priority in the Smart Sound program. I make all the audio adjustments in the Vegas timeline once I have the audio on its own track.

So, having the plug-in right in Vegas for Smart Sound is not a priority for me - since I have the Smart Sound icon in my quick launch tool bar, it'll really cost me a click - I only have one step now (click on Smart Sound quick launch bar icon) - if it was a plug-in, I'd need two clicks (tools>smart sound - unless I make a hotkey for it) ... I'm a satisfied Smart Sound customer who only purchases sale/discount disks.
If the prices are what is holding anyone back, I'd encourage you to get on their mailing list and wait for a sale/discount message from Martha Cassidy ... she is the email sales and publicity person, I imagine; all my emails from Smart Sound come from her desk.

For those who can afford to wait, I recently purchased an item that they were discontinuing for just a ... lol

Smart Sound is one of those programs that once you own it, you'll wonder why you waited so long ... of course, your mileage may vary... (wink) I think almost any Vegas user can use Smart Sound - if not for her/his primary music composition tool, at least as a backup program when time is of the essence and good stereo audio must be produced under a time crunch.

Audio/video sample 3 minutes

Until that time ... Earl J.

VASST sells Trakpaks http://www.vasst.com/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=11&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=66
They are still kinda spendy for the hobbies but not as much as others, and they have pretty good sound, and for us SCS product users they have media markers built in.

Also there is a FREE version of SmartSound called Express Track it is not nearly as advanced as the paid for version the Scoring edition.
but it allows you to search through the library and puchace tracks it also allows you to create custom length tracks. I believe it gives you 5 free tracks also a free trial of the scoring edition. http://www.smartsound.com/sonicfire/download.html if you have never tried it this is a way to try without spending money and you still get to have the free version and the 5 free tracks.

As Earl said always check for sales it's the only way to buy the disk's
another nice thing is that you directly download them after purchase so there is no waiting for disks in the mail, that is very convienient.



my 2c
Paul B

Isn't the Digital Juice Juicer, StackStaxx and Music Box collections another alternative to Cinescore. I don't have it, but based on the WEB site description it seems to be similar to Smartsound.

You missed out on the best part, layered music.
Unfortunately most of the sales don't include the multilayered music titles.
I use this feature quite a lot. By controlling the actual mix of the music one can avoid having to duck. The result is more acceptable. Smartsound now have new releases with vocals as well. Pretty good demo of what you can do here:




If you don't want to do all that work inside Sonicfire Pro then you can export each "layer" as a track and do the mix in Vegas.

Bob.

Hey Bob,
yes indeed ... most excellent ...
Well, actually, since I know I never pay full price for any music from Smart Sound and have the Urban Hustle album in multi-layer, I suspect (very strongly) that the multi-layer music does indeed go on sale from time to time... not to start any arguments, just saying... (grin)
* * *
Also, that Larry Jordan instructional video is certainly the convincer for me that perhaps I should tinker with mood mapping in SonicFire ... (grin) thanks for sharing ... I immediately realized I watched it a while back; and then immediately forgot it ... (sigh)
Of course, Larry Jordan makes everything he does look so easy ... (wink)

Until that time ... Earl J.

You are correct, the ML music is available at a discount from time to time. The older non ML disk though have been on sale at a very BIG discount.

For anyone on a tight budget Footagefirm have a have a collection of 10 CDs of production music for $84.10, that includes delivery world wide: http://www.footagefirm.com/freeproductionmusic.html

I haven't bought this so I cannot vouch for the quality. I've tried some of the DJ music and found it too muddy for my tastes. That's possibly because their proprietary encoding system appears to use mp3 compression :(

Bob.