Music and SoundFX Libraries Buyer's Guide (page 2)

A crying baby. A crowd of football fans. An alien spaceship. These sounds and more - many, many, many more - are available online for videographers. As with the royalty-free music collections, these pieces can be downloaded individually or purchased as a collection on CD. Collection CDs tend to run about the same price as their musical counterparts. Fortunately, individual sound effects can set you back as little as $8 each.

There is one challenge that you may face: options overload. A quick glance at SoundDogs.com's library reveals over 43,000 sound effects available for download and purchase. Be prepared to spend a lot of time listening for that just-right sound effect before you click the "Buy" button. With professional sound effects and music libraries available for a relatively modest fee, what more could the average video editor want? That's simple. Control.

Nothing is more frustrating than finding a piece of royalty-free music that is nearly perfect. If only there was a way to remove some of those strings or to add wind chimes. Sure, you could fiddle with the equalizer settings in your non-linear editor and maybe even drop in a wind chime sound effect, but it still wouldn't be what you're really looking for.

Now, thanks to loop-based music creation software, you can compose that music in your head from the ground up, without ever having to leave your editing booth. Software like Sony Media's ACID Pro 6, Apple's Soundtrack and Cakewalk Music Creator 3 let everyone unleash their inner John Williams.

Anyone familiar with professional video editing software will instantly feel comfortable at the helm of one of these loop-based music creation packages. Select a loop of repeating sound - be it a set of strings, drums, brass or even sound effects - and drop it into the timeline where you want it to play. Additional loops are layered in, one at a time, to generate the music you want. This approach to adding music and sound effects to your projects finally puts full control into the hands of the average videographer.

• Tailor the music or sound effects to the unique needs of your project.
• Since most loops are royalty-free, there are no pesky licensing issues for you to wrestle with.

Of course, this freedom comes at a cost. Though each package includes a good set of loops out of the box - both music and effects - they will almost certainly not meet the needs of all of your projects. That's where additional royalty-free loop packs come into play. Though they aren't cheap, often running as much as one royalty-free CD collection, they offer far more options than a set of canned tunes.

Not every technical advance is easy to take. Look at HD. Sure, it's fun to watch, but many videographers wonder how they can afford to make the leap. Fortunately, loop-based music and sound effects creation tools don't fit into that category. The ability to add professional-quality, custom-tailored sound effects and music to the average production is not only welcome, it's an innovation we can all get behind.

Tony Bruno has been making independent films for four years, is an occasional actor and makes his living as a professional technical writer.

Check out Videomaker's PDF Downloadable "Music and SoundFX Libraries Buyer's Guide" containing links to manufactures' websites

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