Adding Audio to Your List of Services

SoundHound, in New York, has a long history in the audio post industry.

The power of music and its ability to influence the message of the moving image is inarguable. In advance of the celluloid era, composers were asked to help sway audience response to the Passion Plays, and it's well known that the Greeks and other early advanced cultures found an almost indescribable magic in the aural arts. That's all fine, but how much will it cost me to add music to my current video project?

The question is an important one. Here's the good news: Recent, but now thoroughly developed, technologies make it possible to score film and video projects for a fraction of what the cost was just a decade or so ago. The bad news? There is none.

Before taking a look at what you—the video producer armed with a reasonably powerful computer, a good set of ears, and a couple of bucks—can do on your own, let's take a look at how the audio postproduction process has historically taken place and that model's evolution.

If you shot a commercial, film, PSA, or any other film project back in the 1980s, you probably would have found a Moviola somewhere and edited down your footage with or without the assistance of a professional editor. Flushed, perhaps, you then would have hired a composer, given her a VHS tape (hopefully with timecode on a center track), and had a score written and produced in a professional studio. Then you would have moved on to an audio post house that would add sound effects and perhaps record foley.

Too expensive? That's OK. Since the 1960s, stock music has been a thriving industry. In the era we're discussing, stock music libraries had begun the migration from tape to CD and ultimately to the distribution via computer disk. Variety multiplied, costs dropped, and stock music became an increasingly viable way to score not only lesser-budgeted pieces, but many high-priced projects as well.

The development of the personal or project audio studio streamlined the process further. The boutique approach sharpened, with smaller shops offering suites of services that included composition, library music, foley, and full audio mix. Feeling the need to compete, many larger audio post houses jumped into the game to your continuing advantage.

Consider, for example, SoundHound. Located in New York, SoundHound has a long history in the industry. Damon Trotta, a senior mixer, has been with the company for 19 years. I asked him why you, the extremely gifted video producer on a budget, should consider walking into a facility like the one he calls home. Although most of his clients are producers working at networks and agencies, Trotta makes the case that it's in your interest to explore the advantages of adding audio at a room such as SoundHound.

"There are more tools available to the desktop audio post professional, and talented amateur, than ever before," Trotta says. "But you get what you pay for. [Producers] need to ask themselves what they want audio to contribute to their project and make a reasonable assessment of what path they have to take to get there.

"Producers of high-budget projects are always working under the gun, and they simply don't have the time to try and figure out all the variables—how to resolve various video and audio compression schemes, for example, or how to import an OMF [open media framework] file."

Even those producers who are counting shekels carefully can get high value out of working at a room such as SoundHound if they come prepared. Trotta says high-end facilities have been forced to respond to shrinking budgets and the emergence of desktop tools, and you can take advantage of that. "Expectations are up, timelines are down, and I'm expected to be all things—a composer, a sound designer, a mixer, whatever the client needs," he says. "After 19 years, I've learned how to provide all of these services—in a great facility—to all of my clients, including those working on a budget."

Excited about the possibility of waltzing into a major audio post facility, you called around. You'd like to work in one of these rooms one day, but now's not the time. What now?

If you've never thoroughly researched how prerecorded (stock) music can be imported into a video using a single computer, it's time to get to work. Whether you're working on your first project—perhaps you've only recently joined the professional marketplace—or have been forced by circumstances to wear multiple hats, it's time to get up to speed.

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For starters, search Google for "stock music." Most libraries these days offer MP3s from their catalogs online. Spend some time on the Web, and you'll begin to develop a feel for the personality of each library. You may even find tracks that are perfect for your current needs.

You have to have lived through some earlier times to truly appreciate the beauty of the current distribution network. If you wanted to audition stock music in the 1970s, you had to set up a session at a warehouse-like facility, walk through rows and rows of 1/4in. tapes and 33rpm LPs, and pray that the editor assigned to you understood what you were looking for. What a drag.

These days, you're in the catbird seat. Sure, you can still purchase complete libraries on multiple CDs, but why clutter up your studio? More and more libraries let you listen to their contents online, choose the files you want to use, and download them as high-quality audio clips directly to your hard drive. You can even get free advice from many of these content providers. VideoHelper will help you select tracks at no charge. "Our rate sheet is public," says VideoHelper principal Joe Saba. "As of today, I think we charge $110 for a local commercial. National spots are negotiated. We're happy to walk people, especially those who are new to it, through the process.

"Let's say a producer's working on a health care video. They've identified where they want music to be placed. We'll offer them three or four cuts that we feel are appropriate for the intro and make similar suggestions for the other places in the video where they want music."

Many audio post houses are now offering multiple delivery formats. If they feel it's appropriate, some of them (including VideoHelper) will even send you a hard drive loaded with their library at no cost.

But Trotta was right. Once you begin the journey, you have to understand the file format that Apple Final Cut Pro, or whatever editing software you're using, defaults to. If any of your audio clips have been recorded to a different spec or differ from one to the next, you need to handle the conversion process. If you're not up to these and other audio engineering tasks, no big deal. There are many capable freelance mixers; hire one and keep asking questions. Maybe you live outside of the major markets and can't find an engineer in your ZIP code. No big deal; just use the Web to find someone who can exchange files with you via an FTP connection or a free service such as YouSendIt.com.

SmartSound Sonicfire Pro can automatically tailor a track to your video.

Interactive scoring is one of the truly great advancements in the audio industry that was developed over the last decade or so. We've reviewed SmartSound Sonicfire Pro in the past, and I won't rehash that document, but I strongly suggest that you visit the SmartSound website and study the possibilities that this remarkable program offers. In brief, you select an audio cut (which sits inside the shell of your workstation), tell the program the length of the scene, and answer a few other questions, and Sonicfire Pro will work behind the scenes to tailor a track for you. The results are generally quite good—good enough to make me think I made the right decision getting out of the scoring business when I did. Other companies offer similar products, so get out there and learn about them.

Bob Gioia runs Pro Video Multimedia out of his home in Suffern, N.Y. An industry veteran, Gioia has followed its trajectory. In the salad days, the business was housed in a large facility, and Gioia had a partner and staff. Streamlining operations has been the ticket to his long-term viability, and the work keeps coming in.

"We offer full-service production to our clients," Gioia says. "In some cases, we'll handle everything: write the script, shoot and edit the video, put the content on the desired distribution format, and design and execute all of the print work.

"We're currently producing five videos for Thinkpath Engineering. FedEx is a client of theirs, and we're shooting at a FedEx facility in North Carolina. We went down there to shoot the project from scripts they developed themselves. We're also working on a video for Avon. Inter- and intranet work is a growth area in our industry that we're tapping into. We just shot 17 or 18 snippets for a lawyer who specializes in estate planning, which he'll put up on his website.

"Almost every project we're involved with uses music, at least for intros and outros. We have a number of music libraries inhouse, but the ability to access clips from the Internet has made things much easier for production companies like ours," he says. "We no longer have to order 50 CDs and find a place to store them inhouse."

Gioia runs Final Cut Pro but generally farms out his audio post work to freelancers. "I'm mostly the guy who writes and produces at this point," he says. "There are five or six audio guys in the metropolitan area that I use on a fairly regular basis. Right now, four of them are working on videos for me."

Using YouSendIt.com, Gioia says he no longer burns CDs for shipping. He uses the basic $10/month package that YouSendIt.com offers. It gives him a maximum file size of 2GB per transfer and up to 40GB of total transfers per month. "We're getting to the point where we might need to bump up to the next level," he says.

You're in control. If you're not comfortable adding music and sound effects to your project, perhaps your budget will allow you to head off to a major-league audio post house such as SoundHound. Are you confident that you can one day learn to be as comfortable cutting audio as you are working with video? If so, study the stock music library world. Learn about the content that's out there and how distribution streams work. Decide which video editing platform handles audio in a way that best suits your workflow. If you don't think you can handle audio on your own and also can't afford to work in an established facility, explore the community of freelancers who specialize in this area. There's more than one way to trim a track.

Your project deserves excellent audio. With a little legwork, you're sure to deliver a quality product that will keep your clients knocking at the door.

Search Reel-Exchange for stock music options and audio post houses and professionals.