SmartSound

A great way of giving your own video productions a professional touch is by adding music. Of course you can do that by ripping your CD's or downloading mp3's and use those for your video. This is allowed if you don't use your video for public distribution or showing. Another option is using SmartSound from Smartsound Software Inc.

The company and its products

Smartsound Software Inc. is a company based in California. It was founded 1995 and produces audio generation software for use by semi-professional video editors. The basis of their product line is formed by license free music tracks. They can be used in their own line of products but it also in video editing products of some of the leading video editing manufacturers including Adobe, Avid, Pinnacle and Ulead. They also deliver their own products to create sound tracks: Sonic Fire Pro and MovieMaestro.

Features of Smartsound

SmartSound are files that contain music tracks. They offer the following extra information and features:

• The duration of the track can be changed to any desired value. The programs using the SmartSound files will automatically create an arrangement that fits the duration without any change in the speed of the composition.
• The files contain information about a musical style (e.g. Fusion, Holiday, Jazz, Latin, Rock etc.) and also keywords indicating a mood (e.g. bluesy, moderate, energetic, cheerful etc.) Styles and keywords can be used to narrow down the search for a suitable sound track for your video without having to browse through a library and listen to individual sound tracks.
• The soundtracks are divided in so-called Segment Blocks. These segments are small pieces of music which can be put seamlessly together to create your own composition.

Libraries of SmartSound tracks can be purchased on separate CD's or downloaded from the Internet. They are available in two quality levels: sampled at 22kHz and at 44kHz. Apart from music, they also supply other sounds (e.g. cars, planes, futuristic sounds etc.).

Sonic Fire Pro

In order to process SmartSound files you will need a program that understands the format. From their two own sound track generating programs, Sonic Fire Pro has the widest possibilities. So, let's have a look at that one to get a good understanding how SmartSound works.

The main window holds three separate windows. In the Movie Window you can open a movie used for synchronizing the added music to. The Block Window displays the sound tracks opened in the project and which can be used in the movie. The Timeline Window is where you place the audio tracks.

Sound is added to the movie by dragging sound tracks from the the from the Block Window to the required position on the timeline. On the timeline you can can adjust the duration of the sound track on the timeline by dragging the handle at the end of the sound track. The program will automatically create a new composition fitting the required duration. Building your own composition is done by dragging separate segment blocks to the timeline.

Furthermore the program contains a menu called SmartSound Assistant. This feature makes use of the style information and keywords stored in the SmartSound files. When using the Assistant you can first select a style to use and then, form a listing of keywords a mood. Sonic Fire Pro will then display all sound tracks that fall within the selected style and mood.

When you're done you can either save the audio track as an audio file in a variety of formats or merge the audio and the selected movie in a new audio/video file.

Smartsound in video editing programs

As stated above the SmartSound company has partnered with several suppliers of video editing programs like Adobe, Avid Pinnacle and Ulead. If you buy a video editing program in which Smartsound is incorporated you will find that it includes a plug-in and it can directly be invoked from the menu in that program. The program will then also contain a basic library with a selection of audio tracks. The exact way it is incorporated differs between the various programs, but usually you generate the required audio track directly on the timeline. Changing duration of the track can also be done exactly the same way as in Sonic Fire Pro. However, you cannot compose a sound track from individual Segment Blocks.