Amateur Soundtrack composer looking for setup help

watchmaker1 said:

I'm interested in creating a setup in which I can drop my own effects / music into a video time line and master the sound myself.

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Do you need surround sound or is stereo good enough?

One problem is the workflow and who does what. Are you going to wait until the video is in its "final" cut before adding sound? I doubt that. You need to do both sound and image at the same time. If you are going to work with a film editor then you will want the same software they use. If you are oing all the work then you get to pick the software.

Mastering the sound yourself means YOU are creating the final product. You will need a video editor. Final Cut Express is the lower end version of FCP that can handle "non-exotic" video formats and stereo sound. But if you are working with video formats used by the motion picture industry and/or need to do surround sound then you'd want FCP.

Apple has "express" and "pro" version of both Logic and Final Cut.

I don't exactly agree. There is no need for a film composer to have any form of video editing setup. In 99.9% of cases, a video editor will finish his workprint, and send you a quicktime file with the current draft. It will undoubtedly go through changes, but s/he will just send you another quicktime video each time. It's the film editor's job to deliver the video to you in the format you would like, and with a proper SMPTE timecode burn-in. As composer, there is no reason for you to have any nonstandard format.

Logic comes kinda close, but in my experience, Digital Performer is by far* the best software out there for composing to video. Its tempo functions are miles ahead of any other software. Especially it's tempo find functions where it finds you a tempo based on what sync points you would like to hit with music. DP also have features to integrate with Final Cut Pro for when there are changes to the picture. It can make a changelog of what is different so you can easily adjust what you have.

There are many glitches in Logic that have not been resolves as far as I know with video in that you can only move frame-by-frame forwards in a video, but not backwards. Crazy.




*I know, I know. But in my experience, nothing comes close to beating DP.

As you have Logic 8 express you don't need to spend more on another DAW. You can import a finished video into Logic and work with audio and software instrument tracks in the Timeline. Line up 'effects' to the video, compose music, add foley, use SMPTE and markers to navigate the project and output the results to audio or video all in Logic 8.