Cinescore Closes

[TimStannard]

In case anyone's interested, it Sony are discontinuing Cinescore, although apparently there's a replacement product in the pipeline.
Whilst the great strength of Cinescore is it's ability to generate a seemingly endless variety from the same theme, it's been relegated to playing second fiddle for me to SmartSound for two clear reasons:
Smartsound allows you to place empahasis EXACTLY where you want it whereas in Cinescore you just give it servibg suggestions and it'll peak/fall somewhere close by.
Smartsound just has a wider range of themes - Cinescore seems much more "video" orientated, lots of pulsating rhythms and percussion.
There are other advantages too.

However, anyone who has Cinescore might want to take advantage of the fact Sony have slashed the prices of individual downloads to £1.98.

Guess how I'm going to be spending the evening

[Midnight Blue]

When did SmartSound get so clever? Is it a different one to the one that come with Pinnacle? All I can do is set a start and a stop and it fills in the blanks. It does do an intro at th beginning and usually a proper end to the piece but I've never known it to place "emphasis EXACTLY where you want it". Does it run in Vegas ? or as a stand alone program.

[TimStannard]

Smartsound has always been more versatile than the version that's bundled with Pinnacle. Sonicfire Pro 5 Scoring Edition, which has been around for getting on couple of years now is even more so.
There are various ways in which you can do this (and each of these is optional)
Firstly you can cuild your "song" from blocks of material - so you can have precise control over the structure. Obviously these changes occur at "sensible" musical points, but these can be as short as two beats.
With the "Strata" sound series of CDs the sounds are in a number of layers so you can, for example, cut the lead instrument when narration cuts in, or cut everything (or reduce in volume) except the the percussion - this can be done either gradually or suddenly at ANY point in the music.

There are other things called "mood mapping" where you can set to change the "feel" of the piece. "Spotting" is where you tell the software where you want emphasis and it will adapt accordingly (though I've never tried - the other facilities, the concept seems a bit too "automatic" for me.)

Not all of these facilities are available in all versions. I was lucky enough to buy in before version 5 was released and qualified for a free upgrade to Sonicfire Pro 5 Scoring Edition, which I think will cost you $99, so it ain't cheap. The content isn't cheap either, but there are significant bulk discounts (now done on a rolling annual basis so your purchases during the past 12 months count toward your discounts) and there are frequent "sales" (though I suspect with the new discount basis these will cease.

One of the strongest points for me is there's a lot of orchestral stuff which I tend to prefer for my films - I think is sounds less cheesy than pop or fusion production music.

[worddigger]

Originally Posted by TimStannard With the "Strata" sound series of CDs the sounds are in a number of layers so you can, for example, cut the lead instrument when narration cuts in, or cut everything (or reduce in volume) except the the percussion - this can be done either gradually or suddenly at ANY point in the music.

Another thing I find useful is that it is frequently possible to mix segments from different tracks to create a great score. The feature I find most useful is being able to audition the tracks online, purchase and download, and automatically have the sync rights, all at the point of purchase.

Front the content of Smartsound's more recent string of sales promotions, it would appear that they are moving towards clearing out their hard CD sales and moving towards an all online business. Smart Move!

Even though Smart Sound is not designed as a plugin for Vegas, it is very easy to manually import a video track and score it on the Smart Sound timeline, then export the .wav file to upload into my editor.

[Midnight Blue]

Well, it looks like I've been missing out all these years thinking that SmartSound was just the limited music program that was bundled with Pinnacle. When I first started I thought it was very cleaver but it doesn't take long before you realise it's limitations. (The Pinnacle bundle)

Thanks for putting me right on this guys.

[Shrimpfarmer]

I have looked at smartsound a couple of times. Its certainly a very powerful piece of software and in the right hands will allow you to do so much more.

The only thing that put me off was the expensive music files.

[worddigger]

Originally Posted by Shrimpfarmer I have looked at smartsound a couple of times. Its certainly a very powerful piece of software and in the right hands will allow you to do so much more. The only thing that put me off was the expensive music files.

Expensive is relative. At $20 or $14 USD for a single cut, yep that is money but I consider that price a bargain. Just keep in mind how much more expense (and how much hassle) it can be to obtain sync rights for a single tune from most mainstream publishing houses! That ain't cheap!
And many good composers charge $hundreds, by the minute.

[Shrimpfarmer]

Originally Posted by worddigger Expensive is relative. At $20 or $14 USD for a single cut, yep that is money but I consider that price a bargain. Just keep in mind how much more expense (and how much hassle) it can be to obtain sync rights for a single tune from most mainstream publishing houses! That ain't cheap! And many good composers charge $hundreds, by the minute.

Your right in that view digger when it comes to the professional side but for a home user who just wants something for a non commercial production its too expensive. I don't begrudge them the money because I know that their product is very good.

[TimStannard]

I'm a home user, using it for non commercial purposes. I want to stay on the right side of the law (it's a moral issue with me) so I use music which I'm entitled to use. This is especially relevant if I want to broadcast films (eg put them on YouTube).

Often I'll use free production music (and there are many sites which provide this) but if I want something that's a bit more tailored I'll use SmartSound or Cinescore. Smartsound music is not at all expensive when compared with other production music and gives you more flexibility than the more normal "fixed length" cuts.

In practice, unless you're desparate for a particular track at a particular time, you never play the full price anyway. If you are that desparate then it's probably because it's a commercial project so you'd include this in your costs anyway.