In Review: SonicFire Pro 5

DV by Ned Soltz

Just the other day I was speaking with a producer friend. ''I just got an email from my music download service,'' he said. ''They're raising the prices again. And trying to loop those 15-second clips when I need a little more time is a real pain.''

The answer, my friend, is Sonicfire Pro 5 from SmartSound.

I have been using Sonicfire Pro ever since it was SmartSound 1.0 -- at least 11 years. Over this period of time, the product has matured into what I can unequivocally state is the essential music bed application for any project which lacks the budget for expensive licensing or custom composition.

Other applications assemble music beds through loops or importing MIDI files, a process that can consume time as well as one which might require more musical skills than many jack-of-all trade producers might possess. Still other producers, like my friend, rely on royalty-free or needle-drop cuts of specifically-defined times -- 15, 30, 60 seconds, etc.

But what if you need a cut that is, say, 21 seconds and five frames? Or what if you want to create a bed of the identical duration of a clip or sequence yet matching beats or transitions to specific portions of the video? And what if you can't compose or don't have the budget for a composer? And of course, the music needs to be royalty-free.
The answer once again is Sonicfire Pro 5. read more...