Making new music for short films

Before I spend another 500 hours learning how to use Soundtrack Pro, I have a basic question:
Is making a full piece of music, a score with beginning, middle and end, possible with only the material supplied by the Soundtrack program, or do I need to add a musician? I haven't found anything in the program as yet that creates genuine melodies apart from the introductory riffs, etc.
Thank you,
Duckjockey

It depends on your needs and standards. Technically, it's possible to do what you want with the loops provided. If there is a lack of melodic material with any length, it is possible to edit those riffs to create your own melodies. You can trim, copy, pitch and time shift things around, but at the end of the day it won't sound any better than having a live musician perform the parts. It will save you money, but you need to have the time.
Perhaps you can create your accompaniment beds using provided loops, hire a live musician to do melodic parts. This can sound pretty good.
Alternately, if you acquired STP in Logic Studio, you'll find Logic a much better composition tool.

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Music for short film question...

So I'm editing my first, and bad, short film. I'm wondering what's the best way to go about music, obtaining and dropping music tracks in? How does one go about putting, lets say, Mozart under some video? Thanks, I know this is a noob question but I'm still getting used to it!

I keep a folder on my hard drive that is just filled with music of different types that I import from music CDs: classics, rock, pop, etc. It all comes in handy for background music in one kind of video or another, and gives me lots of choices and raw material. In fact, as Hollywood knows, the background music can make or break the video. Can you imagine all the tear-jerker scenes in the Titanic without the theme music, or the Ken Burns special on the Civil War without that special theme song he used? It's the music that sets the mood.
Like the other guys said, use some program such as iTunes, SoundStudio, or QuickTime Player Pro to convert whatever comes off your music CDs into AIFF form (although I've found FCE will try to work with just about any kind of audio file, and usually can), and then just drag and drop the music file's icon into your Final Cut Express browser (remembering that what gets dropped into FCE is only a pointer back to the original audio file). Once it's in the Browser, you can double-click it into the Viewer, and there in the Viewer window listen to it and set IN and OUT points (with the I and O keys on the keyboard) to make the length of the audio clip approximately match the length of the video clip you want to put it under, and also to choose the most appropriate part of the music or song to fit the video. You can always override these IN and OUT points on the timeline, of course, just by dragging the edges of the audio clip left or right to make it longer or shorter, or slipping it around with FCE's tools, but setting the IN and OUT points in the viewer like that before you drag the audio clip down to the audio tracks from the Browser gives you a rough starting point. If you just drag the entire audio file down onto the timeline immediately, without such adjustments, you can get an awful long audio clip stretched way down your Timeline (and it might also accidentally run over, and move, or obliterate, some other clips on that audio track way downstream). Then you must whittle that overly long audio clip down with the razor blade or other editing tool to match the video clip above it, although I did it that way before learning that it's better to do it in the Viewer window.
Once the audio clip is in the timeline, use the pen tool on the red audio volume line running down the length of it, to adjust overall volume, and to raise and lower the volume at specific points in the video clip, and to fade it in and out at the beginning, end, and elsewhere as needed. To do this, just click on the red line with the pen tool to establish control points (keyframes) so you can pull the volume line up and down. Setting the audio clips to show the waveforms of the music while you do this can help with the precision of these adjustments.
Yeah, music is so important to the mood of a video that I'm amazed so many people neglect it, or choose the wrong music (see YouTube for just how bad it can get). Some time spent experimenting to get the right music, and the most effective use of it, really pays off. I've had tears running down peoples' eyes (OK, my own too sometimes) watching some of my sentimental family videos with the right music behind it.
Same goes for comedy: check out this video comedy I created in FCE and uploaded to YouTube, and see how the music absolutely makes the main scene, and how you can match the beat of the music to the action in the video. It takes time, sliding the video clips around to match the beat, but it pays off--I've seen people fall out of their chairs laughing while watching this one: <http://tinyurl.com/6xdymg>

Using apple Royality free music for short film...

Does anybody know that if I use a track from apples royalty free music library in soundtrack, do I have to put it in the credits where the track came from. And what should I put? The track name and courtesy of apple or something like that?
Thank you so much for your help!

You might consider contacting [Associated Production Music|http://www.apmmusic.com/pages/faq.html] and asking them. There's nothing in Apple documentation that addresses this.

Best sequence preset for short film with all stills?

Hi,
I'm working on a short film documentary, its all stills, I usually work with video - first time doing all stills. Project looks great in my time line, but when rendering for standard DVD I'm getting lots of odd pixilation in cross fades and fades to black. Not a lot of time to keep testing the hundreds of sequence and render settings. Perhaps not the best choice but I used AVCHD 1080p30.
Anyone know which of the sequence presets would be best for a film with all stills?
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Still a little unsure about the render twice. I did use a AVCHD sequence/timeline, but I am exporting using media encoder to MPEG2. I'm guessing by render twice you mean rendering in the timeline after you bring in stills and apply motion, then rendering again when exporting for MPEG2? If thats your meaning, not sure how you get around rendering twice - I mean the motions and timeline still needs to be rendered, or are you saying leave it all to be rendered at the export process?
I can see how the terminology could be confusing. When you Export>Media from Pr, that's the same as Exporting and Rendering (esp. if your output format is different from your Preview format). One way to look at it is that you're rendering a complete single file to a single codec.
Rendering is also a term used to "build" Previews in Pr. That's where your source media - no matter what codec was used - is rendered into the Preview format you selected in your Sequence Settings.
You have options when making a DVD. You can export (while simultaneously rendering) to an intermediate file, such as ProRes for Mac people, and then make your DVD from that. That is "rendering twice." OR... you can simply Export to an MPEG2 from Pr, and make your DVD from that, which would be "rendering once."
Based on what you just wrote, it sounds like you're only "rendering once." But if so, I'm baffled why your fades are blocky.
Maybe it would help if you described how you're making your DVD. I wonder if you're re-transcoding your MPEG2 when you get to Encore (or whatever you're using to make DVDs). That could explain it.

Making New Categories For Software Instruments

Garageband comes with categories like Pianos and Keyboards, guitars, Synth Leads, etc. I was wondering if there is a way to create your own categories in Garageband

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I recently got a new laptop and i havent downloaded new music for many months off iTunes and i have always used my aunts laptop. I setup up an my itunes sccount but it only showed downloaded music from over two years ago. How to fix it?

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I'm trying to install new ringtones but don't have a ringtone file in my library, so can't load new music for ringtones. Help?

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http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunes.html

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http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1363
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i use to (for 1.5 years)see a text listing for new music for the current week plus older weeks but now (for the last 4 months)all i get is album covers for the current week. whats up????

Command-R didn't specifically solve the problem, but it did direct me to the correct place. The reason I couldn't see my files in the music directory was that after I upgraded to iTunes 6.0 everything was loading as a compilation. It therefore dumped all the new files into a compilation directory, which doesn't show up among the iTunes playlists.
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That sounds about right.
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Can I use the music "Run down bounty" in adobe elements 11 for commercial production (short film)?

Hi,
in the sound bar are some songs eg. run down bounty. Can I use them for commercial - short film?
thx

Are those part of the SmartSound Sonic Fire Library?
If so, you will want to go to the SmartSound Web site: http://www.smartsound.com/ as they have all of the licensing info for their music. You should be fine, but I would check, just to be sure.
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Using iPhone for making short films...

I recently completed an action short film by only filming with my phone, then editing it later with Final Cut Pro.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2IzWkIkjVc
I was wondering how other people's successes with making iPhone short films have been?
Thanks!

Use the feedback link.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html
Russ

I just opened a new account for my daughter with a different email than mine, but all of my music library is now showing in her music library as well. please help

Hi, I just created a new account for my six year old daughter. The problem is that my entire music library is now in her music library as well. Please help

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Next - Library files that you mention are there but do not end .itdb
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Regards
David Pugh

Making new music for short films

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