Another Cinescore user here. It really is a wonderful program. I use it as a plugin from within Vegas.

you can also download the demo of cinescore to test. Infact, you can BUY a content pack & it includes the demo to use the contant pack with.

You can test Cinescore themes in the content section of the this forum

What I would like to see, is some samples of finished products. I.e finished videos where Cinescore has been used. When it comes to themes, Sonicfire seems to be way better. I have not listened to all Cinescore themes, but so far Sonicfire seems to be much better at what I am after. Sonicfire has a lot of what I would call "real" cinema music, overtoures, dramatic fanfares, intros, "sinister" music and so on. Cinescore seems to mostly have rock/pop music with a standard band setup with drums, guitars etc. Having visited both web sites I also have the impression that with Sonicfire I can easily find what I am after, whereas with Cinescore I must try all sounds to find out if it suits me.

ingvarai

I'm posting this just to show you what it can do. I'm planning on using this for a game related project.

http://sterlingshield.net/home/steve/music/music_MP3_01.mp3
http://sterlingshield.net/home/steve/music/music_MP3_02.mp3

The good thing about Cinescore is that it is integrated with Vegas so can be added during editing without having to render the video. I do find searching for the "right" theme track and arrangement fairly tedious and often don't find what I'm wanting. Nevertheless I've also generated some very good background with it, so I think it very useful but with limitations (compared to having a composer and musicians on hand). SonicFire appears (watching the tutorials) that it might be a little more friendly.
Incidentally, Cinescore stand-alone has spot track that doesn't come up when called within Vegas -- is there a means of bringing it in?

I have both Cinescore and Sonicfire Pro. I think that Sonicfire Pro is better value for money, especially when they run their specials. As such, I have not purchased the newer Cinescore Themes as I think they are overpriced. I also have Digital Juice Backtraxx / Stacktraxx.

I like both Sonicfire Pro and Stacktraxx as they can be used to produce 5.1 mixes and will use they as my first preference. Sonicfire also tends to use more real instruments versus synthesized instruments.

At the end of the day, I will use whatever music best fits the project.

I have both. I've used SmartSound music for the past few years as a plugin to Avid Liquid 7 before I bought Vegas Pro 8 in March. I bought Cinescore the same time as Vegas thanks to the discount being offered. I liked that Cinescore included a fairly generous (I thought) set of music themes and I've used a couple of them already.

Both SmartSound's Sonicfire and Cinescore have nice features. But from what I've seen, it seems that all of Cineform's music is fully adjustable while SmartSound's is fully adjustable only in their multi-layered titles (fully adjustable = being able to change the tempo, mood, add/remove instruments).

Sonicfire is supposed to be able to load & play a video to make it easier to match the music to the video. They say it will work with .avi's (but not all types), WMV's, mpeg-1's, and Quicktime files. I have their latest version (5) and so far the only type of video file I can get to work in it is a Quicktime file.

It seems that SmartSound has a greater variety of music and if you buy the pro versions they sound really nice. Even the lower bit rate home music sounds pretty good. They give you the Sonicfire app for free when you buy their music.

SmartSound full albums cost $10 more than Cinescore's and Cinescore's single downloads are $5 less. But SmartSound does frequently have stuff on sale.

I think they both have great sounding music so I plan on using whichever one has the music I need for a given project.

Steve

Where can I find videos like:
"Look here what we made using Cinescore!"
or
"Cinescore tips and tricks, videos teaching you how to (and how to not) use Cinescore to add background music to your productions!

ingvarai

I threw this together using Cinescore in about 5 minutes. Nothing very fancy.

I like that you can download individual theme elements from a theme pack. Normally $10, I got a few for less than $7 each, but they were just the ones I wanted.

Thanks, nice video!

What I would like to know is to what extent the music will fit the video, and to what extent I will have to adjust the video to fit the Cinescore music. I know I can change the pitch of the audio using Sound Forge, which I have, so I guess this is no real issue, if Cinescore can't do it.
Whe the red flower appears, I would like the next sound clip to start immediately, and have the previous music already faded out.

All right, I can download the demo and try :-)

ingvarai

I have used Sonicfire for years and to answer your question on Fit sonicfire fits what ever lenght that your video is creating a start middle and end of the piece I think cinescore will do the same thing. One advantage to Sonicfire is the much larger and deeper selection of music. (been around longer) the big downside is you have to render your movie to use it to score. but if you render a qt or mpeg2 file it is fast.

>One advantage to Sonicfire is the much larger and deeper selection of music
This is my impression too

>the big downside is you have to render your movie to use it to score
How stupid!

ingvarai

Cinescore lets you use the pre-determined duration for the music or you can have it auto-fit to an area you selected on the TL.

Seriously, just try the demo. It's fully working. I had to install Acid 7 demo to get it working though, no clue why. I made a support ticket & mentioned that, hopefully it will be fixed.

Here's some images:
choosing a theme:
http://img23.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cinescore01.jpg[/link]
how it looks after you choose the theme:
http://img22.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cinescore02.jpg[/link]
After putting in hints (change how the music plays/etc)
http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cinescore03.jpg[/link]
While editing the generated music you can play back your video & it where you click in the generated music window is synced with the video track:
http://img18.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cinescore04.jpg[/link]

Many thanks, HappyFriar!!
I am glad you helped me with this. I see what I see and I like what I see. Seems like it can do way more that what I had imagined. I will definitely download the trial and give it a run.

ingvarai

Cinescore is abolutely brilliant in what it does and how easy it does it. Keep in mind it is not the Rolling Stones or Diana Krall.
JJK

That clip was all one single Cinescore build file for the exact length of the clip. I faded out early for the Niagra Falls section.. There are about three separate sections of style. I believe someone recommended on a thread (maybe this one, ha!) to make longer audio clips, and several of them, and put together how you like them to fade/transition. I might try that.

That was my first attempt at a clip, and it took me an embarrassingly short amount of time. I am ramping up to use a lot more of Cinescore in the near future.

Yes, and you can do way more with Cinescore than what initially appears in the specs and overviews.

yeah, the specs/overview don't really help with what it can do.

Only complaint I have is that hints only apply apply @ the new section mark. :( I'd like to have things changed right where I put the hint in, but Vegas can do that with editing.

]

(This plays much better/bigger on Youtube than here on the forum)

Here's my HD version of a Kayak Surfing Contest I just uploaded to Youtube (Teaktart channel) using just one theme of Cinescore. Several of my other videos on Youtube are all Cinescore music. I've become codependent! And the more I work with it the more I learn how to 'drive' it with well timed scene/music changes.

In this months' Sony Newsletter I picked up a new clue in their article on Cinescore about generating about 4 times as long a piece as you actually need and be willing to cut and paste sections according to the pacing of your video clips.
I had already learned that I could easily 'split' the sections of Cinescore music and move them around to suit the images. But, the suggestion to generate a big long track so I could have more variety of that theme was really a more expansive way to think about it. I also experimented with generating a couple of versions of the songs and found the 'energy' of the different versions could be quite different and that came in handy for where I wanted something more calm in one scene, but something more stimulating in the next. By cutting the different segments of a generated piece and moving them around it usually only took a little bit of edge trimming to line up my scene changes exactly to the music changes.
So scoring this video with Cinescore was at a whole new level of sophistication for me and it just gets more fun (and easy) to work with the more I use it with my short videos.

CS is great. Once I got into deconstructing the riffs and sets and NAMING my own and recalling my own "blends" I feel I have more flexibility. CS takes a little time to befriend. Once done then it has provided me with touches of musical emphasis that has helped to move the video motion along. I WOULD like more flexible search, recall and grouping options and MORE Themes too.

Grazie

The video is great! Fantastic it is.

Firstly, how on earth can you persuade You Tube to publish video with this quality and with this large view-port? What format did you upload? I would like to know all, fps, aspect ratio, progressive/interlaced and so on, if you don't mind.

Secondly, the music you have chosen somehow confirms my impression of what music Cinescore has "focused" on, if I may use this expression. Personal preferences vary, and for this video it would also be interesting to try a "cinematic" music, more in the classic direction. Like a synth/classic orchestra (no drums, no "band sound"). Would this be possible?

ingvarai

Well, I can choose to remove all sorts of things FROM CS themes. Sometimes drums and just keep the "tune". The emphasise is on the "sometimes". It would appear we are at the mercies of the creators of the Music.

OK . .. . CS does have some Cinematic type music you can sample on thew CS site. See what you think? And yes, I would like to have more orchestral work options too. I DO understand where you are coming from.

Grazie