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Sponsored by:
| The SmartSound Solutionby Derrick StoryJan. 28, 2000
Recently we've discovered that adding music to our multimedia web presentations is no easy task. We've learned that it's NOT OK to take your favorite melody off a CD, add it to your images, and publish it on your web site. The alternatives we were left with were to buy royalty-free soundtracks from a music library, or to create the tunes ourselves. OK, all of you accomplished musicians out there with recording studios who are also developing web sites for a living ... raise your hands. Umm ... there's one. Hey there's another. That's about it. Situation desperate. Well, that's the way I was beginning to feel anyway. Sorry I ever brought the darn subject up. Then I went to MacWorld SF and made an important discovery. Off in the back corner of the South Hall, a crowd of people had gathered around a small booth run by a company called Sonic Desktop. Their product: SmartSound for Multimedia. My revelation: These guys had the solution. SmartSound is a royalty-free library of musical clips supported by an intelligent interface that helps you create precision-length soundtracks for your multimedia presentations. There are two major operating environments: the Maestro and the Editor. The Maestro is a wizard-oriented helper that allows you to select mood, instruments, length, and effects. The Editor helps perform minor tweaks to your custom soundtrack. SmartSound is available for both Windows and Macintosh, and you can get started with a basic library for under $300. Maestro please!The heart and genius of the application is the Maestro. SmartSound touts itself as the music solution for visual artists. About two minutes into creating your first custom soundtrack, you'll see why. When you open the application, you're greeted by a nice audio hello and the "Controller" window. The Controller window provides much of the functionality you'd expect. From it, you can launch the Maestro or the Editor, play tracks you've already created, and perform a host of other minor functions.
We'll begin by launching the Maestro. We're presented with the first of six windows. It offers us a variety of themes to choose from. (As our SmartSound library grows, so does the number of available themes.) Let's pick the "Background" theme to create a track to accompany our slide show. After hitting the "next" button, the second window lets us choose how long the track will be. Let's say we needed 18 seconds of music for this project; no problem. Then we can move to the third screen, which displays various moods to choose from. After settling on the "Classy" mood (described as "soft, yet heart-felt background"), we move to the fourth screen. Now we have musical options to preview that are based upon our previous selections. (Again, the larger our sound library, the more options we're presented with.) To help us decide among the options, there's a "preview" button for each clip. Our choice: Mozart's Piano Sonata #16 in A Major. Up to this point, SmartSound does seem pretty intelligent. But it's not until the fifth screen that we discover how amazing the application really is. We're presented with another eight options for how our music clip will be performed: Elegance, Parlor piano, Light piano, Twinkle, Regal piano, Full piano, Low piano, and Short intro. Plus, once again, each clip can be performed. The final selection: "Elegance." The final screen allows us to name our tune. It seemed best to stick with the default name, "Elegance," so we can remember what we've already used if we decide to create a variation on the theme at a later date. Now we simply click the "Finish" button and are returned to the Controller interface with "Elegance" loaded in the player window. Here we can play the tune, review its components, move it to the Editor, or export it. Too many notes!
When I first opened the SmartSound Editor window, I was reminded of one of my favorite scenes from the movie, "Amadeus." Mozart has just finished playing a court-requested melody for the patron king (whom, I might add, had no ear for music). Mozart stands before the king awaiting praise, but is greeted instead with a lukewarm response. Perplexed, Mozart asks the king what is wrong with the tune. The king pauses for a moment before responding with a straight face, "Too many notes." If you find that your Maestro-created tune has too many notes, or not enough, then the sound Editor can help you adjust your piece. The Editor consists of two windows: the "Sequence" window and the "Block" window. This is where you get to peek inside the application to understand its structure. As you look in the sequence window, you see that our 18-second tune is actually comprised of six sound components called "smart blocks." These components can be moved around at will, allowing you a surprising amount of design flexibility. What's extremely cool about this Editor is that it also includes a "Block" window that lists the various components you're using, and the others that you didn't use within your working theme. So, if you generally like the composition, but want to liven up just one little segment to go with a particular visual, you can do so by merely dragging the corresponding block to the appropriate location in the sequence window. Very nice feature.
Take it away!Once you've completed your musical composition, you can export it to a variety of file formats. If you're happy with the music created by the Maestro, simply hit the "Export" button when it returns you to the Controller window. Or, if you've been working in the Editor, choose "Export" from under the File menu. Either way, you'll find a dialogue box presenting you with export options in the following formats: AIFF, QuickTime, Wave, AU, Sound Designer II, and RealAudio. For this article, we'll use QuickTime and RealAudio. The QuickTime export "Options" button gives you three compressor choices: None, IMA 4:1, and uLaw2:1. I was disappointed not to see the QualComm PureVoice or the QDesign Music 2 compressors on the list of options. If you need to export directly from SmartSound, you're stuck with the IMA compressor. If you own QuickTime Pro, or Media Cleaner Pro, you can export your file uncompressed from SmartSound (using the "none" option), then open it in QT4 Pro and export it again using the compressor of your choice. Why go to the extra step of exporting from a second application? Well, look at the following table to see how the file sizes stack up.
The RealAudio export "Options" button gives you 10 compressor choices ranging from "RealAudio 14.4" at the low end to "RealAudio Dual ISDN Stereo" at the high end. Having such a wide variety of choices within the SmartSound environment is very convenient. If you want SureStream compression, you'll still have to use RealProducer; but for everyday usage, SmartSound seems to have the bases covered. Here's a quick overview of how the different options compare.
Additional audio palettes expand possibilitiesYou can build your SmartSound library as your needs and budget allow. You can begin creating music with the basic package that includes the application software and Volume 1 from the Audio Palette series. Web developers can save dollars by using the 22-kHz discs instead of the 44-kHz versions since you'd end up sampling down the tracks to 22 kHz anyway. Currently there are 18 discs in the Audio Palette series and four in the Sound Palette collection (sound effects such as crickets chirping at night). The 44-kHz discs run abound $125 each, but the 22-kHz versions run only about half as much. Titles include "Romance and Memories," "Classical Masters," "Cinematic Excellence," and "Global Voyage," just to name a few. You can also import your own audio files and add them to existing compositions. Even though they are not "smart enabled," there are enough tools in the Editor to blend them with other audio files. System requirements and compatibilityFor PCs you'll need Windows 95 or newer and a 486 chip or later. Mac users have equally generous requirements: System 7 or newer and at least a 68020 processor. SmartSound files are compatible with nearly every multimedia application currently in use, including Adobe Premiere, Avid Media, Ulead Media Studio Pro, Edit DV, Strata VideoShop, Sonic Foundry Sound Forge, Macromedia Director and Flash, QuickTime Pro, Microsoft PowerPoint, and many more. Final thoughtsThis is an enjoyable application to use even if you don't have a specific project in mind—especially if you have a great sounding audio setup on your workstation. SmartSound lives up to its "easy to use" promise, and the royalty-free custom sound tracks solve a huge problem for tight-budgeted multimedia producers. Aside from wanting a few more audio codecs in the export options set, there's nothing to complain about in this intelligent software package. I'm sure SmartSound will continue to add new discs to their Audio Palette collection, permitting a steady stream of fresh sounding music to accompany our web projects. SmartSound is smart indeed.
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