I held out for the longest time 'cause I wanted to do my own soundtracks in ACID. But that takes too much time and time is not in plentiful supply. Now I use that scoring time for video editing. It takes very little time to score an hour video in Sonic Fire Pro. Should've done it earlier!

I'm interested in the product! In what is different to Acid + Vegas?

Thanks

Paul.

You know-- I hate to say it, but I was never really knocked out by Sonic Fire. I mean, yeah, it's easy enough to use (I've only played with it at work, admittedly), but it doesn't (obviously) have the flexibility of Acid. Quite a bit of it, as memory serves, really isn't that big a step up from a stock OmniMusic library, and doesn't do a whole lot to personalize your project...

IMHO, of course.

David.

Wow, this is a really great offer. I just checked their web site and any Pinnacle Studio product qualifies, even Studio DC10+. (I have both DC10 and Studio 7/8)

> what is different to Acid + Vegas?

PDB, I’ve only use QuickTracks that’s bundled with Studio and played with the Music Maestro demo, but they are targeted at two different audiences. The difference between SmartSound and ACID is that ACID is a true composition tool where you compose music through assembling loops on multiple tracks. SmartSound is technology that composes the music for you all on one track. It contains beginnings, endings, verses, bridges, choruses, etc. of a complete band or orchestra. Drums, bass, guitar, whatever are already mixed on one track. You have no control over this. All you do is drop it on a timeline, stretch it to the duration you need, and it makes a random song for you of the proper duration beginning and ending right on time.

As I said, these are targeted at two different audiences. You don’t need any musical talent to use SmartSound. Just listen for a musical mood that you like, drop and stretch and you’re done. You’ll have a complete musical arrangement in 2 seconds. You have almost no control but its quick and easy. ACID requires some musical talent to at least know what sounds good together. You have infinitely more control but you also need to know what to do with that control. Each has their place.

I use the QuickTracks that’s in Studio to generate music for Vegas all the time. I’m considering this upgrade because it looks like it gives you more control over editing the music (I'm a musician) ;-)

Are there any SonicFire Pro users who could tell us if it’s really worth the upgrade over say the Movie Maestro version?

~jr

The movie maestro is just the pro series with fewer music traks per cd. I picked up a movie msestro volume and found I already had two of the tracks in the pro series. I would go for the pro myself and just set aside a bit of money every month and buy a disc every other month. As I said I love it. I upgraded from Studio 400 believe it or not.

Version 3.0 of SonicFire Pro is in Beta, now. Expect a new version within a month or 3.

I upgraded from Studio 400 to SonicFire Pro because it's a good deal ($99), and because SonicFire has the nifty Maestro feature which categorizes each of your Smartsound tunes. I have three Smartsound CDs, plus the sample tunes that were included in the Studio 400 CD; the Maestro is a very fast way to find the right tune for a project.

If I had only one or two Smartsound CDs, I'd just use the Studio 400 version (it can export WAV files for use in Vegas). The $99 upgrade to SonicFire comes with no music.

Brandon's Dad