Dave's Favorites: Make a Soundtrack With SonicFire Pro

Maybe you've noticed that your video productions seem a little flat. You have a digital video camcorder, so the video looks good. You've added titles and transitions, so it certainly looks polished. What's missing, no doubt, is sound: What you need is a soundtrack.

SmartSound's SonicFire Pro 3.1 is a soundtrack generator that solves all of the problems that low-budget video producers commonly encounter. You can't legally use copyrighted music, for instance, without obtaining rights. And the alternative--royalty-free music software--is often too arcane for anyone but a true musician to use. SonicFire Pro is a different kind of royalty-free soundtrack creator; it comes with musical themes that you can fit precisely to your video production without knowing one lick about how to make music.

I've been using SonicFire Pro for a while, and the newest version is magical. Just import your otherwise-completed video into SonicFire Pro; it accepts video in a number of formats, including ready-for-DVD video in the popular AVI format. Then you can preview your movie in much the same way as you did in your video editing program, setting markers to indicate when music should start, stop, and change mood.

SonicFire has a clever wizard that lets you pick music by style or mood, preview it, fine-tune it, and place it into your video. The musical segments are "smart"--you can resize them to fit almost any length of video on the fly, and they always sound like they were composed to run exactly that long. There's never a clumsy cut.

Want to add an MP3? No problem--SonicFire Pro imports files as well. When you're done, you can save the soundtrack as an audio file and export it into your video editor or, even better, save your completed movie right inside SonicFire Pro.

Priced at $299, SonicFire Pro isn't inexpensive, but it's a solid investment for anyone who makes corporate videos or is serious about home-brewed movies. The basic package comes with a small musical library, and SmartSound offers a large collection of CDs to give you more musical options.