Kevin Hicks site

Spot,

Can you check your link? I'm getting a dead-end. I've never heard of that site before and now you've stirred my curiosity.

Freeplay looks interesting, however, its terms say it has a non-commercial use. My project is intended for sale.

Just started playing with SonficFire Pro - Great little program that lets you build royalty free tracks to your time specs based upon pre-recorded, fully orchestrated clips (Like Acid on Steroids). It comes with over 40 different basic tracks and you can build hundreds of variations from each. The website is www.smartsound.com.

You can also get some pretty decent RF music on eBay - I bought a couple of libraries for very reasonable prices and am very happy with them (do an eBay search for TracksNow or Impact).

You could always get a real composer - depending on the scale of the project, you probably could find someone with plenty of talent and gear to pull it off for you - and both of you come away looking and sounding good. Just a thought...

Cinemascape from sony is really good for ambient sounds. I have used this several times and it is easily edited in acid.

j razz

Well, I have been auditioning the various royalty free music sites for a few days now and nothing seems to be grabbing my attention. I have to say many of the samples sound "canned".

I agree Acid is the way to go and I have scored a few tunes using it but it is really for the musically inclined not me. It took me a long time to make a few barely passable acid songs. Maybe the prepared projects that they are selling can help now.

tygrus

I'm looking for some music too and happened upon stockmusic.net. It's not cheap as it seems most songs are at least $30 a pop (which is by no means an unfair price). In addition to having a good range of styles, it is very easy to preview songs on that site.

As mentioned above, there is a good (and cheap one) called Tracksnow. They have volume 1-4 on eBay right now for $55. There is NO reason to not buy it. It is 4 discs and it has saved my butt more times than I can to mention. I also have volume 5-8, but I think the first volume was better.

I have to say Tracksnow is the best of them all in terms of price and quality, other than scoring yourself. I bought 8 discs today for $180. That should solve my scoring problems for a while.

As I said earlier, the TracksNow library is a great sound for a great price. You also may want to listen to the Impact stuff - Up on eBay now here (you can listen to samples too):

Im very happy with TracksNow. I've used it quite a bit.

I just looked at SonicFire Pro and wow. It's a little pricey but seems like you can get a huge range of music.

Another music resource is Shockwave-Sound.com

Does anyone use Sound Forge Audio Studio, and if so, is it OK for basic audio-editing? Quite affordable at around $70 U.S., but don't want to spend even that if it's not worth it. Thanks for any input.

Oops! I posted under wrong subject! Meant to ask if Smart Sounds is all one would really need for a variety of music styles to accompany corporate videos that are from 2 - 3 minutes long? Is it really that simple to use - as they lead you to believe it is?

I've often found it most challenging to find just the right music for my projects. Thanks again.

> Meant to ask if Smart Sounds is all one would really need for a variety of music styles to accompany corporate videos that are from 2 - 3 minutes long?

SmartSound is dead simple to use. Select a style, specify the length, let it compose, export to WAV. Download the demo and see for yourself. It is perfect for short 2-3 minute projects.

And btw, Sound Forge Audio Studio is awesome for the price. Now that it supports plug-in effects it is probably all you need for 90% of your audio work.

~jr

I'm convinced - thanks :-)

As JR said, "dead simple to use". I am a real newbie at this and if I can do it anyone can.

If you buy the basic package it comes with forty something songs that it uses as a base for it's variations - Each one is made of many smaller pieces that are encoded in a way so the software knows which ones go together - You specify the base song, the length and the variation (they use a drop down box of names) and within seconds you have a pretty nice, usable piece (2 -4 minutes is the best length but I have done longer) and shorter).

If you really want to get ambitious, you can do your own peicing together of the pieces as after you drag one up to the timeline it lets you know which ones will go nicely next. I have used this technique to put together longer (over five minute) pieces as sometimes the software gets a tad repititious for longer stuff.

Along with the two cd's it comes with, you get a tutorial CD which has another four songs for you to use. When mine came in the mail, it also had a code for a free download of any single song in their catalog (a $20 value). Also, another nice thing is that even if you don't own the entire catalog, you can preview all songs and then purchase online right on the spot.

Last thing - I had a copy of Pinnacle Studio 8 that came with my DVD writer a couple of years ago and this also uses SmartSound technology, so I was able to get a utility (call SmartSound support and they will give you instructions) to import these songs and use them as well. So for my initial investment (I bought it at NAB Post in NY) I got 57 songs.

Smartsound is one of two reasons I keep Pinnacle Studio 8 on my machine. The other one is that is has a MJPEG codec built in (at least that is the only program I can convert my mjpeg digital camera footage to dv avi without a special extra codec). Have used it a lot over the past few years.

birdcat, thanks for the tip to call for the utility on the extra songs. They have a wide selection of material to use.

"I need some ambient or mood music for my project, something emotional and provoking but not cheesy."


Totally recommend AKM

along with Ch4 ITV, BBC and others . .. some major well known tunes come out of the woodwork .. oh yes!

Grazie

Just to add my 2 cents to the kudos for Smartsound...

Although I've found it a bit pricey for home use, it is truly easy to use, and it works well.

Further, they always seem to be coming out with new libraries.

Finally, one other benefit that I don't believe has been mentioned is the ability to create pretty "listenable" loops for websites, for instance, just by checking a box.

Great product, IMHO.

Pierre

Digital Juice StackTraxx is all I have been using lately. I have been pleased with its versatility. Great product.
Jimmy