I can't think of an easier way to create a customized musical score than with SFP5. Simply bring up the Express Track, choose a theme, set the length and the variation you want, and insert it into your project. Utilizing a series of drop-down menus and interactive tools, the updated search options are powerful and easy to use. With options like "Faster", "Slower", and "More like this", the new Sensory Searching function narrows your search fast by letting you search according to your personal preferences. My favorite, the Tap Tempo option, lets me search the themes according to the speed of the music by simply tapping in the rate of the beat I have in mind with the left mouse button. After you've inserted your theme into your project, jump back to the main project window and customize to your heart's content. Akin to many video editors' ability to animate parameters, SFP5 lets you alter the mood of a theme over time using key frames. If you own themes from one of SmartSound's 810 multi-layer music tracks, you can easily change the volume and/or occurrence of individual instrument groups within the arrangements.
SFP5 offers many ways to get the right music for your video project. Among it's new or improved features are enhanced timing controls that allow you to match beats in the music to events in your video with ease -- just grab a beat and put it where you need it in your video and the rest of the track rearranges automatically to give you the best possible match in the timing. It's also now possible to change the tempo and pitch of a theme in mid-stream, thus eliminating my biggest beef with the previous versions.
There are also some new features which augment the control of a track's musical flow and help users add a little something to specific places in their score. Another improvement I've found myself wanting in previous versions is the ability to change music sections if Sonicfire’s default arrangement is developing too fast or too slow. The ability to adjust this is extremely welcome! Also included now are stingers and hits which can be inserted to place more emphasis at certain points in the music.
SFP5 also incorporates some of the most innovative new search tools I've seen. In addition to the one listed above, the new Spotting Tools feature lets you mark key events in your video that need precisely timed music, then searches the themes with the best possible match for that timing. Very cool, I must say.
The new Smart Recall feature embeds SFP5 project information into an exported WAV or AIFF file. If you want to make changes to your mix but don't have access to the original SFP5 project file for some reason, just load the exported audio file into SFP5 and it will automatically rebuild the session. Also new in SFP5 is the ability to store the themes on a server on your local network and let any other computer on the network with SmartSound applications use the themes.
Though the ability to edit sections of themes in the SFP5 project window is nice, it would still be great to see either more extensive editing capabilities within SFP5 or a more customizable multitrack export option (perhaps with MIDI export ability, like the exclusive Mac-only app Muse 2.0 does) for an easier way to get tracks from a multilayer disc library into a full-blown audio editor, like Audition, ProTools, or Nuendo.
