Apple's Soundtrack now Standalone

[nuckinfutz]

Soundtrack is much easier to use than pro tools, but the rather high price and high system requirements and slow performance make me leary of recomending it for any intense looping projects.

You wouldn't want to compare a Looping tool like Soundtrack, Ableton Live Phrazer etc to Mbox. Mbox is a basic USB/Micrpre front end to Protools free. We're talking basic recording and light editing. Pretty much nothing for a processor.

With looping tools it's a different ballgame. You have "Realtime" Time compression and expansion AND pitchshifting. 5 years ago there would have been people that would have swore to you that it couldn't be done. It's very processor intensive. That's why pro Pitch Shifters like the Eventides are so expensive.

I find that Soundtrack is affordable.

Soundtrack- $299

Smartsound Sonicfire pro- $299+
Ableton Live- $399
Phrazer 2- $299
Phatmatic Pro - $149
Acid- $349

Soundtrack is right there. It's not the end all be all but for the musically challenged it will suffice.

 

[Laslo Panaflex]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
EDIT: And just for clarification, yes I do feel like being an argruementative PITA right now. 😉

That's ok, so do I. I have never really argued about anything on the boards before (at least that I can remember).

I really just think that this program, and looping prgrams in particular are a cheap way to make music. I am probably going to get alot of flak for this, but; I feel that creating "your own" musical piece from loops that you didn't make but just put them together and say that it is your song, is like putting together a puzzle and saying that you took the picture or painted the image on the puzzle. Granted there are many holes in my analogy, but I feel that it represents my thoughts about looping programs.

I mean really, how original can you be with loops that are a maximum of 5 seconds long. If people are trying to make 2-3 minute songs that don't want to sound repetitive after 30 seconds. Maybe that's just me and my choice of creating music, by hand with your hands on actual instruments instead of prerecorded loops on your computer by someone else. Sure there are people out there that have no skill on any instruments and still love music and want to make it, well they can with soundtrack, but I woudn't want to listen to anything those people come up with.
Just me. . .

P.S. let the flames begin.

Peas.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by Laslo Panaflex
That's ok, so do I. I have never really argued about anything on the boards before (at least that I can remember).

I really just think that this program, and looping prgrams in particular are a cheap way to make music. I am probably going to get alot of flak for this, but; I feel that creating "your own" musical piece from loops that you didn't make but just put them together and say that it is your song, is like putting together a puzzle and saying that you took the picture or painted the image on the puzzle. Granted there are many holes in my analogy, but I feel that it represents my thoughts about looping programs.

I mean really, how original can you be with loops that are a maximum of 5 seconds long. If people are trying to make 2-3 minute songs that don't want to sound repetitive after 30 seconds. Maybe that's just me and my choice of creating music, by hand with your hands on actual instruments instead of prerecorded loops on your computer by someone else. Sure there are people out there that have no skill on any instruments and still love music and want to make it, well they can with soundtrack, but I woudn't want to listen to anything those people come up with.
Just me. . .

P.S. let the flames begin.

Peas.

Not a flame but I think you are missing the point of Soundtrack. Soundtrack is there to let editors have access to royalty free back ground music. Licensing music isn't cheap. So why spend thousands of dollars on a library of generic music when, if you have the time and enough musical ability, you could use Soundtrack. I doubt we'll see anyone scoring a movie w/Soundtrack, but it's peferct for short form stuff like commercials, soft news stories, PR videos, training videos, Electronic Press Kits.


Lethal

 

[WinterMute]

Inevitably, pro apps like ProTools, Logic etc are infinitely better as creative tools than Soundtrack or Acid or any of the other apps that are designed to allow the unmusical to create music, Soundtracks strength (and the reason it hogs processor power) is the aformentioned ability to time and pitch stretch in realtime, along with the alignment of keys in dispirit loops.

Add to that the ability too change arrangement and tempo and have all the loops align automatically and you have a feature that neither logic or ProTools have, and bloody useful it is too.

Soundtrack is designed, as lethal points out, to create quick bespoke backing that is cheap and original (to a degree) the recording function is a nice touch for live instrument tracks and VO work, but with 128 tracks to use this also becomes an excellent audio post production tool inside FCP or along side FCE. That alone is worth the price of admission, Foley and ADR work against the edit rather than a copy is a real productivity boost in FCP equipped post pro houses, I can see Soundtrack becoming a replacement for ProTools in some low level facilities.

Recording audio into the line in of an iMac or eMac is actually pretty succesful provided you have a good mic and pre-amp combination, sure, hardware like the M-box is nice, but there's plenty of scope in the Apple hardware.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Only for G4 ? Why the hell ?

Why the hell does it need a G4 processor ?

Apple has still iBooks with G3 in their current product offering. So why is does this program need a G4 ?

If it is slow on a G3 - thats OK, but not running ?

Anyone already purchased this app ?

Cheers
CmdrLaForge

Here the System Requirements

* Macintosh Computer with a single 500MHz or dual 450MHz or faster PowerPC G4 processor
* Mac OS X v 10.2.5 or later
* QuickTime 6.1 or later
* 384MB of RAM (512MB recommended)
* CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive required for installation of Soundtrack.
* DVD-ROM drive required for installation of Apple Loops (optional)
* 5GB of available disk space required for application and content installation

 

[peterjhill]

Probably because it needs altivec to run smoothly. That would be my guess.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Re: Only for G4 ? Why the hell ?

Originally posted by CmdrLaForge
Why the hell does it need a G4 processor ?

Apple has still iBooks with G3 in their current product offering. So why is does this program need a G4 ?

If it is slow on a G3 - thats OK, but not running ?

Anyone already purchased this app ?

Cheers
CmdrLaForge

Here the System Requirements

* Macintosh Computer with a single 500MHz or dual 450MHz or faster PowerPC G4 processor
* Mac OS X v 10.2.5 or later
* QuickTime 6.1 or later
* 384MB of RAM (512MB recommended)
* CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive required for installation of Soundtrack.
* DVD-ROM drive required for installation of Apple Loops (optional)
* 5GB of available disk space required for application and content installation

As peterjhill said it probably needs a altivec. And this is not a consumer app it's a pro app and like Apple's other pro apps it requires a G4.


Lethal