Themes are 60% off thru Dec 31st.

Haven't seen the email yet.

yeah, saw that. sucks imho. I find it very useful. In fact, I use it all the time!

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/news/newsletter.asp?keycode=64147

j razz

Sniff, sniff. 8-(

Other than it doesn't work with Vegas x64, it is really a great little piece of software. I didn't think of buying it until around Vegas 8, but it has been indispensable since then. With Adobe announcing that its next update (CS5) will be only 64 bit, it's possible that SCS is thinking the same way. Maybe it wasn't worth it to continue to tweak Cinescore and they probably decided to start from scratch. It's not like there's been any recent upgrades.

32 bit software is really a dinosaur for video work. You really need as much RAM as you can afford to make things efficient. But the transition to 64 bit has, unfortunately, been excruciatingly tedious. My guess is that since the major OS purveyors are now talking 128 bit, it's finally time for everyone to move on from 32 bit.

"We're currently developing next generation music creation technology and the current version of Cinescore will be the last." (copied from Sony email sent out regarding this Cinescore announcement). Anyone have more details on their "next generation music creation" software?

nex gen = guitar hero with record facility......

Bit of a bummer. I use it quite a bit.
Wonder what new thing they have in mind?

Ted

Smartsound have the physical inventory on sale at some huge discount, they're going online only.
I bought the whole of Spot20's catalog at under 10% of the original price.
It seems you can put just about anything from any band into your Youtube video so long as you can tolerate the popups over your video trying the flog the tune to your viewers. Mighn't be long before the record labels are paying us to steal their music :)

I've got a crate of around 50 CDs of production music I bought for $10, about what the crate is worth. Can't find anyone that owns the copyright but some serious dollars were spent by someone producing it.

ARIA et al has announced it's given up suing individuals

And now Cinescore goes the way of Viscocity.

Is there a bigger picture to all this.

Bob.

Maybe it is is bit of "The King is Dead . . Long Live the King?" - Or has CS finally left the building?

Sure it's sad, but maybe, just maybe the replacement will be even better? Now, if only SONY had the same approach to ProTypeTitler, we would be onto a winner!

"Is there a bigger picture to all this." ? - Well, Bob, there is always a bigger picture.

Maybe they are selling it off (?), and rather have "other" developers develop it further? Dunno. Maybe the profit streams that would have come from the sale of stock music hasn't been realised? Intersting that one of the main comments heard was the "lack" of new Themes coming out? Perhaps a realisation had occurred that this just wasn't the core biz, and that this should not be further pursued? Sure, there were/are elements of CS that still need to be jacked-up. But it would now appear it wont be happening. Again, it is interesting that the lack of themes that COULD have made a difference hadn't been forth coming and maybe it was this that spun-back at the development cycle for CS?

None of us mere mortals can know. All we can do is posit the question, Bob?

Grazie

I'm hoping to see something acid but automated. That would be pretty powerful stuff.

Sonic Fire Pro has a pretty decent music tool too, and I gotta think that they just saw too much competition from that area.

Dave

"Themes are 60% off thru Dec 31st."

Anyone know where/how to get the discount? I don't know what they were going for before, but the prices seem to be about $90. That's not without the discount?

I stopped getting emails from Sony a long time ago. Anyone know how to get them to start sending me emails again?

Thanks all!

-joe

I wasn't so much referring to CS in particular but rather the whole state of play in the stock music business. Certainly I have no crystal ball that gazes into Madison!

I do have CS and most of the themes in the back of the cupboard somewhere. Never used it really. More themes, many more would have helped.
The problem with stock music and stock footage I think is the value lies in it's uniqueness. A $1,000 clip doesn't get bought by many unlike a $10 one. Once the few who really needed the $1,000 clip (or track) have bought it the market is gone. What to do, offer it for $100, then maybe $10, maybe for the cost of postage.

Other problem I feel with music is there's the clients / jobs where, well, almost anything will do. Then there's the ones that need the full deal, composers etc. The middle ground is hard to cater to. You want exactly the right piece at a cheap price. It's a hard ask. I have a project now where just the right music will make or break it. Darn hard to find from a library. Just the time to listen to what's on offer makes it hard. Once you've built the visual story the music has to dovetail in very tightly.

Bob.

Bob, I agree. However, CS has the amazing ability to allow me to deconstruct each Theme; arrange what is called "Intensity"; manipulate sections and variations of riffs BUT then if I really want to get creative, I can then, back in Vegas, layer each and every part/track to bring in sections too; it allows for recreation and then adaption of my existing work and play on. I have now created not an immense library of my own work, but is/was burgeoning.

Look, we can "discuss" the pros and cons of tailor-made and so on and so forth - CS is a halfway house for somebody like myself who has had humble musical tutelage, but ain't no where near getting to "score" my own musical ideas.

As you say, you have had it in the back of the cupboard - and unused and untested? - if you had had the time and inclination you might have been hooked. I was!

CS was a way big jump for me. You mustn't think of it as "just" royalty-free music with a program to apply it. It is more than just that.

Now, if we ARE going to get CS-On-ACID . . .woah . . . . . !!!!! Painting Themes? Nesting Tracks? Perhaps Marker syncing with Vegas!!? Oh my eye . . . ! But I don't know anything. However if the MADDERS have been listening to us CS-Users, with any thought like a "Yes we can!" - then they have got my vote.

Here's to yet MORE product integration.

Grazie

I'm with you on all of this, don't get me wrong.
The problem is getting people to PAY for my time doing it or to even appreciate it. I've spent a good many hours on a current project probing the angles of the "story" and today I get told I'm just wasting my time. Just grab the good bits, throw them onto the timeline and stick some music to it, that's all we want, should have it done in a day or two. I'm just feeling a tad annoyed at the moment. The best music for much of this project would be a good atmos track and foley to really nail the story but oh well, heavy metal will have to do :(

As for being hooked, well as I you know I have AE. It did get installed and tested. Yes, I'm inspired with what I can do but again same problemo. It's not so much the money, it's the lack of appreciation of the effort and time involved. It will get used on the project mentioned above for an intro title. I'll spend way more hours tweaking it than I'll ever get paid for just to learn a bit more.

Would I like to go down the CS rabbit hole, for sure, thats why I bought it, same reason I bought AE, expand my creative abilities. But there's just so many hours in the day and this isn't my main source of income.

Anyways, looks quite likely I'll get to shoot a feature next year. All the time you've spent setting me right wasn't wasted :)

Bob.

Grazie's term "Cinescore on Acid" would definitely be the way to go, and I could see Sony pulling that off. The problem with Cinescore for me has always been that you could make the music somewhat unique, but then for the next video project I'd have to strain to make it more unique for the next customer.

I often use Acid Pro, MIDI files, and sound libraries (IK Multimedia's Miroslav Philharmonik is an amazing orchestral resource for just a couple hundred dollars), and make insanely unique soundtrack projects with my fairly simple music background. If you've ever used PG Music's "Band-in-a-Box" along with sound libraries, that is also a very useful model of music production, albeit with a somewhat cheesy UI.

Sony did not say they're getting out of the music creation business, they said they're working on the next generation. If they could combine Acid and Cinescore functionality, THAT would be powerful. I could see it being like Microsoft Office... incredibly powerful with way too many options to ever use but very simple for the average user.

so basically Sony's leaving us with a piece of software, and selling said piece of software, with no windows 7 support, no 64-bit support, and all new computers come with 7 & many 64-bit.

This is one of those things that's going to leave a bad taste in my mouth, like Adobe did with every release I used of them. Why? Because their other stuff has support for 7/64-bit & this software was said to work with that stuff.

"so basically Sony's leaving us with a piece of software, and selling said piece of software, with no windows 7 support, no 64-bit support, and all new computers come with 7 & many 64-bit."

Where does it say that?

Grazie

The notice said that the reduction will appear in your shopping cart.

As far as emails go, not sure. Check your settings in the "My Account" link at the top of this page, there should be some contact settings there.

"so basically Sony's leaving us with a piece of software, and selling said piece of software, with no windows 7 support, no 64-bit support, and all new computers come with 7 & many 64-bit."

I am able to use Cinescore on a Windows 7 OS. Unfortunately,you're correct about the 64bit support... it can't be used as a plugin inside Vegas anymore on my 64bit system.

Regarding "leaving us with a piece of software": Given Sony's history of fairly reasonable deals when upgrading software, I would hope that they if they're serious about developing the next generation of music creation software, when they do, they give a nice reduced rate if you type in your Cinescore serial number.

we can hope they give cinescore users a discount on the replacement software, but there's no guarantee. There's hasn't been a situation where Sony discontinued a piece of software & had a replacement yet so noone knows.

Cinescore says Windows XP & Vista supported in the readme/notes. If 7 has an update that breaks it then 7 users are SOL. :( Just like Vegas 8 doesn't list 7 as supported so if you have an issue you're SOL. But that makes since: Vegas 9 is officially supported in windows 7.

Twenty dollars a pop for themes is bargain basement.
But after previewing, only Incredible Vistas and maybe Hyperculture are of any real use to me.
The rest is rather cheesey, even to the pungent aroma of limburger.
My subjective opinion.
Maybe the fundemental reason for the failure of CS is plain and simple, bad music?
Having said that there are times when there's no buget for royalty-free music and Cinescore can work,... in small slices and with the right cracker.