I've been using SmartSound on occasion for years. Unfortunately, the large, lush sounds of these specific collections do not always fit a given project, such as a corporate training video.

When dealing with royalty free music, it seems the choices, more often than not, boil down to "cheezy" or "overly cinematic."

Wish someone would come up with something more like what is used on NatGeo or the Discovery Channel docs (which are usually original scores).

When dealing with royalty free music, it seems the choices, more often than not, boil down to "cheezy" or "overly cinematic."

As a matter of fact, I dislike background music in general :-)
I think it is overdone, almost always there is almost too much music. When watching the LOTR trilogy, I noticed that there was no silent part in the movie whatsoever. Not even at Elrond's council, where they were engaged in long talks. I was begging for a little pause, a little contemplate silence, in wain. For me, music is important to put emphasize on certain elements, to generate a certain mood, a certain feeling. So far, so good. But nowadays it is has become ubiquitous to an extent it is annoying. Imagine, nature programs on TV with background music!!! And the nature is full of beautiful music itself, isn't it?!

For my hobby projects, I want background music that actually is a little "overdone", to put emphasizes on various elements, to generate feelings and to compensate for amateur video takes and amateur actors' efforts ;-) I find that Sonicfire wins here.

Some directors want noise all the time. You're right it gets annoying. Most of my favorite movies don't have music in important parts.

"Some directors want noise all the time. You're right it gets annoying. Most of my favorite movies don't have music in important parts."

May I change "directors" to "clients"?

The only movie I can think of, right off the bat, that doesn't have any music whatsoever is Hitchcock's The Birds. Worked for me!

"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."

ingvarai --> Thanks for the comments!
This if probably worth another thread but I've been experimenting with resolution/bit rate qualities vs. playback ability. I can't play the HD version without waiting for it to buffer almost the whole video or else it will keep stopping and starting - I have basic DSL service. Its worth the wait IMO to see it in a much bigger size and clarity vs. a small screen. But a lot of folks with slower connections and computers will find it easier to just play an SD version in HQ (high quality) anything to get a clearer image. So I'm experimenting with offering both resolutions.

The HD you viewed was rendered as:
1280 x 720 .wmv 1.0 PAR 2 pass VBR 3-5mb 44.1/96k audio
It ended up being 93mb to upload for just under the 10 min. time limit for Youtube videos.

The SD version is (use the Custom tab)
872 x 480 .wmv 1.0 PAR 2 pass VBR 3-5mb 44.1/96k audio

I tried making mp4 versions but I saw a lot of blocking and fuzzy stuff due to the compression and chose to go with the larger and clearer .wmv format - which is about 40% larger file size> 61mb v. 93mb for the same 1280x720 size

It would be fun to try a completely different music bed, its amazing how that can totally change the feeling of a video. In this case, these guys were so good and so energetic in their surfing that I was going for the same feeling in the music. Also, the tempo of the music needed to time with their movements on the waves, and this fit without much adjustment.

Hey, at least I didn't use the typical "surf music" ! Athough there is one CS theme that sounds like that.... ;-)

Also, the tempo of the music needed to time with their movements on the waves, and this fit without much adjustment

Which works well! I noticed how close the music follows the action. I love paddling myself, and although I paddle in flatwater (touring), I like this video a lot. Thanks for the data, I will try to use them when uploading myself. Interesting that mp4 did not work well for you.

its amazing how that can totally change the feeling of a video
Definitely. I once watched a TV program where they, using the same footages, made four totally different movies by changing the order of the takes, and by splitting them differently, and by using totally different music for each "movie".

ingvarai

I spent the last 2 months going through the trials with both softwares.

I went with Sonicfire as I thought the over all sound was more professional and natural (there are suppose to be made with real instruments) and it does everything one needs. The ability to fit, alter, and use or save individual tracks is plenty most work. I also have one copy on my PC desktop and the other on my MacPro laptop and they both share the same library on a shared network drive.

One suggestion if you buy Sonicfire. I spent hours listening to their music and came up with a wish list of albums that I couldn't afford. I bought a few to get started. Thankfully I kept my list because within a week, they had a huge sale and I bought my whole wish list and expanded my library significantly for what I thought was a small amount.

From others on this list, it seems they do this on occasion so it's worth paying attention to their sales as the savings were HUGE.

Good luck

Hello ingvarai, and our favorite Latin lurker, et al.,
I use Sonicfire Pro exclusively. I'm not sure what the others are talking about rendering the video before adding the music. . . I might have a different workflow, but it works for me.

I create the video. Determine the length of music I need. Go to SFP, build the music, export it to .wav, and save it in the folder with the video. Close SFP. Go to Vegas project and bring in the .wav file to the project media folder. Place the music where I want it and tweak it for length and volume. Then I render the whole project once the music is in there.

I love the sales that SF posts at times. . . I've only accumulated about a dozen or so of their packaged themes, but the variety is superb. I'd recommend it highly. It appears that the comments here confirm my choice to stick with it in spite of the CineScore competitiveness and integration with Vegas.

Take a peek here for a little demo of SFP variety. . . all SFP music ...

http://www.viddler.com/explore/EarlJMoniz/videos/43/

I wish I was smart enough to embed viddler video here. . .
I tried the embed code from viddler, but nothing shows up here - just the code in text format...
Anyone have a few tips for me?

My two cents. . . until that time. . . Earl J.

To avoid rendering video in order to use it for a best fit with sonicfire, I make a selection in Vegas of the duration of where I want music. Then I can "guesstimate" pretty closely the length of music I need.

In sonicfire, you can just specify the length of music you want to the minutes/seconds you need. Render out the music and put it in Vegas where your selection is...it's usually very, very close and can be easily adjusted to fit exactly.

Doc

"I'm not sure what the others are talking about rendering the video before adding the music. . . I might have a different workflow, but it works for me."
You should watch the tutorials!
If you render out a quick reference video then you can 'mood map' the music to the vision. With the latest libraries and SFPro 5 you can also add "hits" and map tempo to get beats to align with the vision.

I should also add that SFPro has a 'render for vegas' option. It renders a set of wave files, one per instrument or group. You can bring those files back into Vegas and mix to your own tastes.

Bob.

One more thing. . .
For every SFP theme audio clip you hear, once it is pulled up into the SFP timeline, there is normally an option of 4 - 8 variations of each selection - so it can be adjusted for more strings, less drums, more brass, and the like ... not a wide variation since it is using the same blocks of audio to build the sound you want, but it does have more dramatic entry and ending points... with a bit of variation for the entire clip.

I didn't find that sort of thing in CS ... it was supposed to have the ability to vary the tempo and pitch within the same clip, but I've never seen it used or created; not that I'm an expert or even listen to a lot of CS pieces.
SFP does not have that sort of thing either, but if you use their impending doom sort of music, it does build toward a climax. . . scan the links they have on their site - although they only play little brief excerpts, you can get the idea of the increase of tension right from the start.

Now that grandbaby is a star of the home movie scene around the homestead, I'll have to go find a few kiddy and circus themes... grin

Until that time. . . Earl J.

" I should also add that SFPro has a 'render for vegas' option. It renders a set of wave files, one per instrument or group. You can bring those files back into Vegas and mix to your own tastes."

I believe that this only works with Vegas pro 7 I just checked and I have Sonicfire Pro 5.0.3 the latest version and the render to option only goes to version 7, I have talked to SFpro people and they told me that they have no plans to add vegas 8 support maybe if we who use SF Pro all write in and request the addition maybe they will listen to us,

I remember using it in version 7 and it was great...

Farss what version of vegas are you using.?

"Farss what version of vegas are you using.?"

V8.
I now see what you mean, bummer!
However all is not lost at all. Use the export as layers option.
This will give you separate wav files for each hit track and instrument group. Then bring those manually into V8 and mix away. Bit of a PIA having to do this manually but not a big show stopper at all and this will work with any NLE.

Bob.

I recently wrote to SFPro support about this too and their reply was...MG

"The Send To list has not yet been updated for Vegas Pro 8. However all the
Send To option does is place the file into a project if it is already
running in the background, the same as if you would import it manually."

Hello Bob,
oh, I get it.
You're speaking of rendering the short pieces you want to score meticulously, then pulling it into SFP as you adjust the music ... so I should watch the tutorials on SFP? I'll do it. . .
* * *
Well, there again, my learning style differs in the fact that I learn what I need to do to get the job done and then move on from there. . . I've been so satisfied with SFP to this point that I've never investigated any deeper than the superficial . . . I'll go look into it. I might even upgrade ...
* * *
I'm using 3.1.1 from 2003 ... lol ... when I went there just now to check the version, a window popped up and indicated I had 241 updates available for the Pro Library, and I am fully updated and current to 5 years ago! LOL
Thanks for initiating the peek and update process for me. . .
I do think I should update very soon - as soon as my lottery money comes in! lol I like the concept of multi-tracks and mixing it myself once they come back to Vegas... but that isn't for all their libraries, correct? Just the Strata series I would imagine...
* * *
I may also adopt a whole new workflow through it all. . . thanks to y'all.


Until that time. . . Earl J.

"I do think I should update very soon - as soon as my lottery money comes in!"

I don't recall ever paying for updates to the SFPro software. Dig around a bit, I'm pretty certain they're actually free.

"but that isn't for all their libraries, correct?"

Correct, just the strata series.

And for the record, my learning style is much the same as yours, I just work out how to do what I need to do when I need to do it. Of course the problem we have with that is we can end up ignoring features that we never think to use because we didn't even know they existed.

Sometimes with SFPro I do exactly what you do, just note that I need 34 seconds of music and set markers for that in SFPro and create a piece that long. At other times I'll render out a full 40 minute proxy of my project and use that in SFPro to set music to. You can add silence as well as music in SFPro. Working this way I can get a feel for how the music is working with the video and other audio elements, I might choose different arrangements of the same piece of music to use in different parts of the video etc. Also I have used a 'loopable' arrangement to go with DVD motion menus.

Bob.