Sony Vegas™ Movie Studio Platinum 9 software earned the TopTenREVIEWS Bronze Award for its flexibility, control, integrated Blu-ray Disc™ burning, and more. Read review
Music & Sound for Film
The Editor's Companion
This library is a must-have collection of essential audio assets designed to appeal to music producers and video editors everywhere. Armed with a multitude of sound effects, abbreviated music beds, and bite-sized rhythmic elements, The Editor's Companion will be a staunch ally when you need to deliver perfect music and sound quickly and cost effectively.
Packaged US $39.95
Download US $29.95
Reel Rock Rock Music Gems for Film
Forget about sterile machine music and worn out MIDI files, and drop all that fake rock played by pretend rockers—load Reel Rock in Cinescore™ software and get real rock drums played by industry heavies, guitars played through real amplifiers pointed at real microphones, and a whole studio packed full of other instruments you can activate with the flip of a switch. Theme Pack includes 10 themes.
Buy Theme Pack US $89.95
Download themes US $9.95 each
Vegas Pro Training Series
The first episode of our new Vegas Pro Training Series, hosted by Les Stroud. Watch tutorial
Off the rails Kompoz contest with Rudy Sarzo Legendary rock bassist Rudy Sarzo (Ozzy Osbourne, Whitesnake, Quiet Riot, DIO, Blue Oyster Cult) has launched a Kompoz contest for both musicians and music enthusiasts.
American Songspace "Sony Creative Software Christmas Contest" This contest is hosted by American Songwriter subsidiary American Songspace. Enter for a chance to win over $1,100 in Sony Creative Software products including ACID™ Pro 7 and Sound Forge™ 9 software.
ACIDplanet Contests:
The Airborne Toxic Event remix contest
Athena Blue remix contest
DJ Leko remix contest
Electronoel 9 original composition contest
Chemlab remix contest
Neoclubber remix contest
PimpX remix contest
Robert McFadden remix contest
CES (Consumer Electronics Show)
January 8-11
Las Vegas Nevada
http://www.cesweb.org
BETT Show
January 14-17
Olympia London
http://www.bettshow.com
For technical support or product questions visit:
http://www.custcenter.com
Sony Creative Software
1617 Sherman Ave.
Madison, Wisconsin 53704
Customer Service and Sales:
1.800.577.6642 or 608.204.7680
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Save on Standard Collection loop titles
In November's newsletter we announced the availability of downloadable versions of all Sony Creative Software royalty-free content — Loops & Samples, Cinescore Theme Packs, Sound Effects, and Vision Series — all currently available at discounted prices.
This month, we have a special offer for newsletter subscribers. Choose five loop libraries from a selection of Standard Collection titles for just US $99.95*. Your choice of packaged or download, just US $19.99 each when you buy five or more, regularly US $39.95 each.
Check out the selection and download free samples here
*Offer begins December 16, 2008 and expires January 31, 2009. Special price will be reflected in shopping cart once 5 or more items from the list are added. Offer available only when purchasing directly from Sony Creative Software via links in this email. Pricing displayed in US Dollars. Customers outside the US may be charged in local currency. Shipping charges may apply.
'Survivorman' details his use of Sony gear
Les Stroud, creator of Discovery Channel's "Survivorman" television series, will be appearing in the Sony Electronics booth (Central 14200 at 11:00 a.m. on January 9 at International CES (Consumer Electronics Show). If you're planning to attend this year's event, be sure to check out Les's presentation, "Sony: The Secret to My Survival."
Les uses Sony software and cameras in the production of his show. Find out how you can use the same tools to survive a complex multicamera shoot or a casual weekend family outing.
PSA contest aims to inspire student invention
The Advertising Council, Sony Creative Software and Discovery Education have announced the "Inspiring Invention" public service advertising (PSA) development contest to engage a new generation of children in innovation. The contest is part of the Ad Council's "Inspiring Invention" campaign, sponsored by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation (NIHFF). The contest is open to school groups at the elementary, middle and high school levels nationwide. In addition to prizes including Sony video and audio production software and hardware, the winning entries will be distributed to media outlets throughout the country in spring of 2009.
Entrants to the Inspiring Invention PSA Contest will submit their video in either the elementary and middle school or high school categories by March 15, 2009. Contestants are encouraged, but not required, to download a demo of Sony Creative Software's leading video editing application, Vegas Pro 8 software or Vegas Movie Studio software. Initial entries will be submitted to Sony Creative Software on DVD accompanied by a backgrounder on the production and theme. If selected as a semi-finalist, participants will then furnish broadcast-ready components for final judging.
One grand prize winner will be chosen from each of the two categories and awarded a prize package valued at more than $22,000, featuring Sony Creative Software's professional video and audio production applications, Vegas™ Pro 8, Sound Forge™ 9, Cinescore™ and ACID™ Pro 7 software, as well as Sony Creative Software content including loop libraries, sound effects and Cinescore themes, in addition to having the PSA aired on national television.
Full contest rules and regulations are available at: www.inspiringinvention.org
Text crawl with Vegas Pro
by Craig Anderton
Text can add creative flourishes to projects, and the text generator in Vegas Pro software has lots of useful features. So, let's cover how to create a text crawl along the bottom of the screen, like what you see on news stations for breaking news and stock market tickers.
Clockwise from upper left: The text, solid color band, and video tracks arranged in the timeline. The Video Event FX window shows that the text starts at X = 2.500 and Y = 0.793. The Video Preview shows the text crawling across a band placed at the bottom of the video. The Event Pan/Crop window shows how the selection field has been moved up to narrow the band.
CREATING THE CRAWL
To start, go Insert > Text Media on a video track, then click on the text window's Edit tab. Type the text in a single line. Next, click on the Placement tab and click-drag the text to the right (use Free Form text placement mode) so that the line's first letter is just outside the text preview pane's right side. An X value greater than 2.000 should work; set Y around 0.600-0.800, depending on the text size and how low you want the crawl.
We need to create a second keyframe, so ctrl-click the keyframe on the left and drag all the way to the right. Select this new keyframe, then click-drag the text to the left so that the last letter appears just off-screen to the left (e.g., an X value more negative than 2.000). The Y value should equal Y in the first keyframe so the text crawls in a straight line.
If the crawl is too fast, right-click on the timeline's text event and choose Properties. Click on the Media tab and enter the desired crawl time under Length, then click on OK. Roll out the event so that it covers the specified length, then click on the event's Generated Media button in the upper right. Drag the right keyframe all the way to the right for the longer crawl time. Finally, fade the opacity envelope in and out if you want the crawl to fade rather than just appear. Click here to continue
Craig Anderton is executive editor of EQ magazine and editor-in-chief of Harmony-Central.com. He also plays in the band EV2 with Brian Hardgrove of Public Enemy. Photo by Paul Haggard.
Electronoel celebrates nine years
ACIDplanet.com® is hosting the ninth annual Electronoel original composition contest. The only requirement is that the song includes at least one of the Electronoel9 Bells from the downloadable contest assets. The Grand Prize Winner gets a Sony® PSP® handheld game system, a copy of ACID Pro 7 software, and much more. Hurry, the contest ends January 17, 2009.
For contest details and to enter, go to www.acidplanet.com.
Tech tip: Archiving your ACID projects
by Gary Rebholz
 If you've ever created an ACID project, put it aside for a period of time, and come back to work on it later, then you've very likely had the somewhat frustrating experience of not being able to find all of the media that you used in the project. Or, even if you can find it again, it might have taken a while to hunt it all down and get it linked back to your project. This happens most often when you pull the files you use to create the project directly from your loop library discs and you use more than one loop library.
This article focuses on a couple of simple methods you can use to ensure that your projects always open with minimal fuss and you never have to run into the your file can't be found in the specified location dialog box. These techniques are quite useful for archiving your finished projects, but I also find myself using them for projects in current production to ensure that I always have the files I need to continue working on my project.
First, let me set the scene. You're working feverishly into the late hours of the night. You're onto something amazing and you're pulling loops and one-shot files from lots of different loop library discs to get the sounds you want. You're swapping loop library discs in and out of your CD ROM faster than a politician changes positions on the issues. Finally, your lack of sleep overcomes you and you decide you'll have to finish the project another time.
Well, "another time" keeps getting pushed off due to life getting in the way, but finally you get back to your masterpiece. You open the project with new vigor and excitement to implement some ideas that have been percolating during the break only to have the wind taken out of your sales by the dialog box shown in Figure 1.
A dialog box helps you find files that ACID software needs in order to open your project.
Now, that's actually a very useful dialog box and I'm not trying to say there's anything wrong with it. It can really save you a lot of hassle because it identifies the file ACID software can't find, tells you where it expected to find the file, and gives you several useful options on how to deal with the fact that the file is missing. If the file I had used in my project had come from a CD, the location path would identify which CD I need to insert into my drive so that the file can be found once again. Click here to continue
 Gary Rebholz is the training manager for Sony Creative Software. Gary produces the popular Seminar Series training packages for Vegas Pro, ACID Pro, and Sound Forge software. He is also co-author of the book Digital Video & Audio Production. Gary has conducted countless hands-on classes in the Sony Creative Software training center, as well as at tradeshows such as the National Association of Broadcasters show.
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