SmartSound Movie Maestro
Company: Sonic Desktop
Price: $49.95
http://www.sonicdesktop.com
About a week ago I got a package in the mail. Contained within the package were a box holding a copy of SmartSound Movie Maestro and the reviewers guide. I looked at the box first and noted the following quotes:
“Create Perfect Soundtracks for Your Videos-instantly”
“Music Magically Begins and Ends with Each Scene”
“Give Your Movies that “Hollywood” Sound”
“No Learning Curve-Works in Seconds, the First Time”
Generally, I don’t bother with the reviewer’s guide. I like people to know the idiot reviewing the title is as uniformed as if said idiot just bought the program at CompUSA. After reading what the box promised I knew that there was no way I was going to look at the reviewer’s guide, If the box says it’s that easy then I need to see if SmartSound Movie Maestro lives up to the hype.
I, like most other folks, have developed a certain skepticism over the claims printed on the front of software boxes, after all I have never seen a box that said “Just some crap we threw together in the hopes of making some scratch.” How does SmartSound Movie Maestro hold up to the claims on the outside of the box? I’ll cover them in order:
“Create Perfect Soundtracks for Your Videos-instantly”
99% true if you discount the installation time. The program fairly hums on my G4, there is no time spent waiting for the track to load, everything is as simple as a few clicks.
“Music Magically Begins and Ends with Each Scene”
This is true if you believe in magic. The music does start and stop with each scene (or if you’re using iMovie, each clip) but somehow I doubt it’s magic. I believe it’s the result of some fairly nifty programming. It is my fervent hope that the guys in programming see this review and kick the living crap out of the folks in marketing for reducing all their efforts to mere “magic” Beatings aside the program performs flawlessly in this respect.
“Give Your Movies that “Hollywood” Sound”
This is the most iffy claim; the tunes are good but not uber stellar. If the box said “Give your Movie that Average Television sound” then it would be closer to the truth. Still SmartSound Movie Maestro is pretty impressive for 50 bucks.
“No Learning Curve-Works in Seconds, the First Time”
This was the claim I was most skeptical of, so I pulled it right out of the box and it worked. It worked so fast I didn’t have time to learn anything (honestly, I was dropping background music in under 5 minutes), which was lucky because my brain is fairly full, learning anything more could result in significant hemorrhaging.
So how does SmartSound Movie Maestro work you ask? You import a clip from a variety of file formats and then select music for said clip. You get a few choices at first: Techno, Family, etcetera and then further focus your music selection from there. The music you choose loops and then ends at the appropriate moment. I could spend several thousand words explaining exactly how it works but it’s one of those things that is just so slick it would take longer for you to read it that it would take to install the program and drop in some background music. To steal a phrase from Hans and Franz: Hear me now and believe me later.
I do have a few very minor complaints about the program, and they both concern the selection of music. There isn’t an obvious option for a scary or tense scene or a cheesy 70’s porno loop. I would have appreciated some Halloween type music loop and I could have a lot of spoofing fun with a cheesy porno loop. Still the music is laid out for home movies and if you keep that in mind there is a huge range available.
Bottom Line: If you want to add some music to movies, music that’s always the right length, buy this program. I don’t think you’ll find anything cheaper or slicker without spending big cash. You can always add a MP3 but songs don’t necessarily end when you want them to and often contain non-relevant vocals. This program does for background music what iMovie does for digital video.
Computer Particulars
Tested on: G4 400 Mhz, 448 Mb RAM, 40 GB hard drive, OS 9.2
Program compatibility: Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, Windows 98 or better
MacMice Rating: 5 out of 5
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