#Cheap Audio Synch?
21 messages in this thread
Jeff, pardon me for butting in here, but… I want to do the same thing. I.E.
sync sound effects with PAR anims without spending $1200. I know that even
"low end" sound will make all the difference. Plus, DST looks to be a nice
piece of software, from the review I read. Please let me know how it works if
you get it. Do you know where I can get DST v1.1? (the one with PAR support)
I'm mostly do flying logos at the moment, but will soon be attempting some
character animation and other things which will require sound effects. By the
way, I'm really jealous of the lucky people who have access to Raptors.
Rendering takes too long!
-again, sorry for butting in.
-danny in Hawaii
Danny,
I wouldn't recommend Digital Sound Track. For a list of reasons see my
message to Eric Flom in the Amigaarts forum. I read the same review before
I bought it. It's a good concept but they didn't execute it as well as
they could have. If you MUST have DST buy whatever version you can find
and fax them a copy of your invoice and completed registration card and
they can give you access to their BBS where you can download 1.1. Or you
can wait till I get my sound program completed. It'll do most of what DST
does plus a bunch of other stuff and will cost less.
I know what you mean about rendering time. Since I got my PAR I tend to do
a lot longer animations. I just finished a 360 frame anim that took 110
hrs of render time.
Jeff H…
Jeff, thanks for the info! I wasn't aware of your program, can you give me a
hint as to the capabilities it will have? Please let me know when it is about
ready. Good to hear that it will cost LESS. This stuff is beginning to cost
real money! <g>
I don't count hours anymore, I count DAYS for rendering to finish. I can never
resist stopping the rendering several times along the way to see how it is
coming out, which doesn't speed things up any. The PAR is good stuff, though,
as is Lightwave 3D. It is more than I thought was possible in a 3D program. I
have used some 3D CAD software on the PC, and it pales in comparison.
I'll check out your message to Eric Flom in the AA forum, if I can find it.
Thanks again.
-danny
Dan,
I'll put you on the list to be informed when the program is almost ready.
When I get a bit further into the program I'll send you a list of features
that it'll have. I'd just as soon not promise too much at this point in
case some of this stuff is too difficult to add to the first version.
I MAY make it shareware with a crippled version available online so people
can look before they buy. I'm stil thinking on that one though since of
all the shareware stuff I've ever done I've gotten >>> 0 <<< registered
users. :^( (object sets, Vistapro path generators, a DCTV animbuilder)
Jeff H…
Jeff, thanks for putting me on your list.
I just got SCALA MM200 the other day, and it is kinda neat. Opens up some
possibilities, I guess.
Sorry to hear nobody registered your shareware offerings in the past…makes
one wonder, doesn't it?
Maybe it would be best to just upload a (crippled) demo, or screen shots of the
interface with text descriptions of the capabilities, instead of a full
product, to protect your interests.
With all of the products out there, I think people can easily rationalize not
paying for something that they've downloaded, unless they HAVE to.
-anyway, keep up the good work, and thank for the reply.
-danny
Danny,
It looks as though I'll be pooling my talents with another
modeler/animator for a few products we want to market. Cuts down on the
marketing costs if we're both working under the same company name.
I was originally going to release the sound program as shareware with a
limit of 150 frames and only being able to have one anim per project.
The idea was that people would register to get the ability to use multiple
anims and still slideshows and no frame limits.
My partner pointed out that most people would much rather pay $70 for a
commercial program that they've never seen, than pay $35 for a shareware
program they've used for a couple of weeks. I have to admit that it DOES
make sense. ;^)
By the way, I've noticed while writing this program that it would almost
be easier to write a timeline based anim editor for the PAR than to get
sounds synced to an anim. (perhaps my next project)
Jeff H…
Jeff, YES! I'd much rather have a program to sync sound to the PAR.
I agree that some people will pay more for a commercial product, sight unseen,
than they will for a shareware product that they can try. Maybe it is because
the commercial products come in a colorful shrink wrapped box, with custom
printed disk labels…something tangible?
Glad to hear you are able to pool your resources. Good luck, and let me know
how it progresses, ok?
aloha.
-danny
Danny,
Seems I've hit a bit of a snag with the sound program. I'm trying to write
the program in Cando and I can't even get it to count at 30 frames per
second let alone play sounds. :^(
Till I can come up with a solution to get more speed out of it I'm going
to be working on an anim editor for the PAR. Hopfully Innovatronics will
be able to tell me how to get more speed out of Cando since I have no
intention of learning 'C' for this project.
I'll let you know what happens.
Jeff H…
Jeff,
Sorry for jumping in slightly off topic but could you recommend any music
CDs? I'm looking for the non-royalty, (paid for when I buy) music to add to
animations. What are the complications of royalty vs. non-royalty music and
what does the term "needle drop" mean exactly?
Thanks, Bruce
PMFJI, Bruce, try calling Creative Support Services or Music Bakery in L.A. .
They both have reasonable pricing and fairly extensive offerings. (upddated
almost daily). "Needle Drop" comes from the ddays B4 CD. It literally means e
each time the needle 'drops' on the recording you gotta pay again. Buy-out,
leasing or a service that offers limited play licenses are your best bet.
However, be careful with certain lease or license co.'s that have long and
elaborate agreements.(ie $$$$ times the number of times that the piece will
receive airplay, either locally or Nationally) Buy-ouy is usually best,
followed by 99 year lease-able stuff. Competition is fierce so shop around a
bit bit and you may be surprised. Royalty tipically means that each time the
piece airs you will have to pay the writer, the performer and the publisher.It
gets very expen$ive very quickly. Hope this helps…
I like jam with my Toast, Stan Shumlick 2 Tall Video Burbank, CA [A/ex
Thanks a lot for the input, it helps a lot.
Bruce
Bruce,
I'm afraid you're asking the wrong person. Music isn't my area of
expertise. I seem to remember an article in Desktop Video World a couple
of months ago that explained the royalty vs non-royalty issue and how to
legaly add music to your videos. You might see if your local dealer has
any back issues on the shelf and see if you can find the article.
Jeff H…
Jeff,
Thanks, I think it would be a good idea to take a look at that article. I
don't know how soon I'll be able to spend the time to do it though…Your PAR
software sounds interesting, it seems that I do quite a bit of tinkering with
the animation I have on mine. I've been going back changing scenes,
re-rendering them, splitting the animation, taking out the old scene and
inserting the new one, and glueing it all back togather.
Too bad about the audio software project, but projects can be like icebergs,
you only see a fraction of what's actually required. An engineer who ran a test
facility once told me that taking everything into account, you figure out how
long something will take, then you 3x it.
Bruce
Try Music Bakery, $48 a month for Royalty FREE music. No Needle Drop Fee's
either
Thanks, I've ordered the free demos and asked for info from The Music Bakery
and Creative Support Services.
HI Jeff,
Sorry to hear about the timing snag in CanDO. What will your anim editor for
the PAR do? Is it to sync sound to the PAR? I just broke down completely
today and ordered a TBC IV. I guess the Sunrize card is really on the back
burner now.
aloha,
-danny
Danny,
The anim editor will be a timeline editor where you will be able to define
clips from various stills and animations on your PAR drive then assemble
them into 1 animation. Kind of like using split, join, duplicate & rename
functions in the PAR software only easier to do more complicated edits.
I'll probably also have a function to interleave 2 or more anims. This way
you could render every second or 3rd frame of an anim as a test, and if
everything looks good you'd render the remaning frames to the PAR as a
seperate file. My program would then take 1 frame from anim_a, 1 frame
from anim_b, 1 frame from anim_a, another from anim_b….. and assemble
them into 1 new anim file.
The anim editor won't do any sound syncronizing. That'll be my seperate
sound program assuming I can get the timing problems worked out.
The anim editor shouldn't have any timing problems since it won't require
much speed to get the job done.
Congrats on the TBC4. Let me know what you think of it. I've been
considering one of those myself for video recording. (Actually the thought
of having all that digitized video on my PAR drive was what gave me the
idea of the editing program.)
Jeff H…
Danny
If you're on Oahu, you can stop by anytime and we'll demo our AD-516 setup for
you. We're not dealers or anything, but I'm always interested in helping out
local Toaster guys.
Grady Third
Director
Prime Radiant Productions, Inc.
Honolulu, Hawaii
Grady, Yes I am on Oahu. I'd really like to check out your setup. I have
several projects in mind that could really use it… Would you mind if I
brought someone with me? Do you also have a PAR?
Anyway, please give me your address and/or phone number where I can reach you,
and I'll get in touch. Or, you can reach me at home (672-3129) or at work
(527-7493).
Thank you.
-danny
I'll give you a call next week and we can set something up…sure you can bring
a friend.
Grady
Grady, I'll look forward to seeing your setup. What does Prime Radiant
Productions do? Is it Video Production? Just checking. See you next week.
-danny