Provides: Royalty free customizable music for videos

Format: DVD

Developer: Synk Audio Studios

Minimum Requirements: G4 or Intel processor, Mac OS X v10.4, 512MB RAM, 5GB hard disk space, 1024x768 display, QuickTime 7, default audio device capable of 44.1kHz stereo output, DVD-ROM drive

Processor Compatibility: Universal

Retail Price: $249.00 boxed and download version

Availability: Out now

Version Reviewed: 1.6

You know how when you're watching a software demonstration and the company rep makes it look pretty easy, and the whole time you're thinking, "It can't be that simple," and then you try it on your own and it's not? Of course you do, because that's every program that's ever been created. I most recently felt that way when watching the Musicbed DV Screencast. Was it that simple when I tried it? No. Don't be ridiculous. But it is much easier than any other audio program I've used, and yes, that includes GarageBand.

But comparing Musicbed to GarageBand isn't really fair. They're designed for different purposes, after all, as Musicbed's sole function is easily add customizable audio to your video projects. It does this with prerecorded music that you can control to a certain extent. You're not writing any music or placing loops, you're simply adjusting the tempo, duration and feel of the music. Confused? Well, it works like this...

The first step is to export your Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express, iMovie, etc. project to a QuickTime movie. Just about any variation of QuickTime will work, but native .dv files do not. There are a bunch of options in Final Cut that you can pre-set before sending it to Musicbed to enhance how Musicbed handles the file, but we'll bypass that high-end option for this review.

From within Musicbed, selecting the Choose Video button will allow you to open your .mov file, which then appears in the window at the upper right of the interface. The time and frame count of your video is displayed here, as well as the controls for the Musicbed and movie audio levels.

To the left of this are your Musicbed audio controls, which are nothing more complex than a few drop down menus, your characteristic selectors, and a couple sliders. That's it. If you've ever looked at audio or video mixing boards and felt intimidated, that won't be the case here. A basic high school grammar education is all you need to create your own movie soundtrack. Kind of.

The next step to all of this is to experiment with the prerecorded music. I should point out again that these aren't loops or midi audio, it's actual recorded music that has been specially encoded to allow you to manipulate it as much as you want without degrading its quality. Automatic settings are provided if you're still uncomfortable with the concept of creating your own variation or simply don't have the time to experiment. If you really want to make the most of Musicbed DV, however, you'll go manual and start having fun.

Above the Music Package window (which contains all of the music provided with Musicbed) are two drop down menus: Genres and Moods. These allow you determine the basic style of music you want to add to your movie. What you select here will determine which music tracks are presented to you, as predetermined by Synk. The options are labeled ambiguously, but they still do a good job of guiding you towards what you want. For instance, if you told me to give you music for the crime film genre containing a "major setback" mood, I wouldn't have the foggiest idea of where to begin. But when I select those options in Musicbed and listen to the music it suggests, I think, "Yeah, that makes sense."

But it doesn't end there. Having selected the options above, Musicbed gave me 85 snippets of music split into 14 different themes. Each theme contains a different amount of segments (understand that I'm making up my own terms, here, but you'll figure out what I mean when you get into the program): Air Tortola has six (an intro, an ending and four middle sections) while Velvet Chase only has three (intro, middle and end). Aside from the feel of the music itself, this is something to consider. If you're creating music for a 30 second commercial, the three segment theme is probably enough. But if you need nearly 11 minutes of music as I did with my Commemorative Air Force slideshow, then you'll want as many variations as possible to reduce the amount of customization you'll have to do later.

A play button beneath this window allows you to sample the music, and the characteristic buttons on the left will alter your choice on the fly. This is especially helpful early on; not sure what the difference is between "dry" and "spacious?" Play some music, and toggle between the two options. It'll quickly become clear.

Before you add the music to the timeline, you can add markers to the video. Doing so contains the music you add to within the marker area currently selected. If you don't use markers, your selection will run from the beginning to the end of your video, but adjusting the length of the music clip is a simple matter of dragging it in the timeline. There is a slight technical problem with that, which I'll get to in a bit.

Once the music is in the timeline, you can control the individual characteristics throughout by selecting the characteristic and adding a keyframe where the change should begin. Add another where the change should end, then drag the parameter to alter it. For example, you can do an abrupt change from melodic to percussive, or a long, slow fade from smooth to punchy.

A couple problems do arise here. First, the timeline behaves erratically when you're sliding through it. It bounces around when dragging with the mouse, making it hard to place the selector exactly where you want. I had to just get close, then use the arrows keys on the keyboard for precise placement. Second, the pieces of music don't always flow together as well as I would've like. I used an intro from the Circuit Six collection, and no matter how much I changed the duration of the clip, I couldn't get it to flow naturally into Section A of the same collection. And finally, when you're manually altering the characteristics, keeping track of what you're working on can get confusing. By tightening up the user interface, Synk could easily have room to show each characteristic in the timeline simultaneously.

When your music is done, you export the audio only. This may seem odd at first, but it makes perfect sense as it leaves your source video exactly as you left it in the video program. Obviously, making any further edits will knock it out of sync with the Musicbed audio, so you'll want to make sure the video is done before beginning this process.

The final question, then, is how good is the music? That depends upon what you're looking for. It's the same as the difference between stock and custom photography. Custom photography can get you exactly what you want, provided you're willing to pay for it or know how to go out and get it yourself. Stock photography will often do the job without the cost, but it can also look quite generic. The same goes for this. With the relative simplicity of the software and the vast collection of provided material, it's easy to get this music to fit the feel of your video. However, it'll rarely do anything more than just "fit."

When I describe this program to others, they don't believe such a thing could exist. I don't even bother, then, to explain to them that not only does it really work, but that it's harder to describe than it is to use. I'm not sure if it's a great solution for Final Cut Pro users, despite how well the two programs work together, simply because Pro users will likely want a little bit more than Musicbed DV can give. But if you're using Final Cut Express or iMovie to edit videos where you need royalty free music (wedding videos and podcasts, for example, or anything else you're going to be selling), Musicbed DV is going to save you a lot of time and money.

Just don't tell your clients how you did it. They won't believe you anyway.

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