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SFX/Music Library/DB Software


Petros Kolyvas

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I'm looking for input on SFX/Music library software. 

 

Over the years I've created and collected thousands of sounds and composed over a hundred musical clips I'd like to collect and organize into a useable library. 

 

I've been trying out commercial solutions like Soundminer (currently trying the Mac HD demo) and Audiofinder (wow world's shortest demo) but have been dismayed by the software so far and am wondering what others use?

 

For example, my time with SoundMiner has been abysmal. It seems that the basic HD product is nothing more than simple library utility. I can't collect sounds within the program and it has barely (if) any metadata editing capabilities. It also doesn't follow any normal GUI standards of OS X applications which makes it ornery (to me at least - please don't take this personally if you love the thing.)

 

I did find a very extensive list over at the KVR Forums: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4676394

 

But with so many to try, I was just looking for a little additional input.

 

Ideally I'd like to be able to scan my projects for sound files, copy them to a centralized asset storage location/volume and start editing the metadata to make them more easily searchable. 

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DON'T EVEN MESS WITH NET MIX

 

I've spent countless hours trying to get it to just work. We had it at the facility I did sound editing for Fear Factor at, and we called it "Nut Kicks". We also used it at Technicolor. I was not a fan of it at all and support was non-existent. Maybe it has gotten better over the past few years, but as of the last time I used it in 2008...well...it made me want to burn the building down. 

 

I've used Soundminer. I found that before I loaded my custom sounds into it I had to put in the metadata before hand. Usually just renaming files with what the sound is worked, and then I loaded them in. Now, if you have thousands of sounds, that's an arduous task . 

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Soundminer is great provided you get the full-blown version. 

 

Thanks Marc - that's where my issue is, SoundMiner HD does very little.

 

I did get the AudioFinder demo working long enough to give it a real whirl and it's closer to what I'd expect a complete feature-set to be (and at a reasonable price) - it also has a more conventional UI setup, properly using most of OS X's conventions (Apps like SoundMiner where the menu isn't on the "menu bar" and use cryptic icons scream poor design to me - standard or not.) Basehead is equally cryptic, forgoing some clear-at-first-glance functionality for form.

 

At this point, I'm leaning towards AudioFinder since it meets my needs a little more closely and the price is palatable, but I'm open to try many more.

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DON'T EVEN MESS WITH NET MIX

 

I've spent countless hours trying to get it to just work. We had it at the facility I did sound editing for Fear Factor at, and we called it "Nut Kicks". We also used it at Technicolor. I was not a fan of it at all and support was non-existent. Maybe it has gotten better over the past few years, but as of the last time I used it in 2008...well...it made me want to burn the building down. 

 

I've used Soundminer. I found that before I loaded my custom sounds into it I had to put in the metadata before hand. Usually just renaming files with what the sound is worked, and then I loaded them in. Now, if you have thousands of sounds, that's an arduous task . 

 

Yeah, it seems I can't do any metadata editing within SoundMiner HD - but yeah, thousands of sounds is what I'm looking at….  whereas my re-try of the Audio Finder demo yesterday made easy work of such things. 

 

Also, I didn't find a good way in SoundMiner HD (again probably because the basic version has very little) to collect sounds from all over into one place. I had to do the copying by taking the scanned/found sounds and dragging them out into a Finder window to collect them. I could be doing it wrong, though I couldn't find anything in the provided manual indicating otherwise. 

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The full version of Soundminer is an immensely complex and capable program. I have no idea what the HD versions do, but if you're serious about proper metadata editing and organisation of your effects, then the full V4 Pro version is the one to go for. Yes, it's expensive, but so is every other professional tool that we use and let's face it, it's also a niche market, so it's not like they're selling thousands of licenses every day.

 

Adding metadata common to a whole bunch of files, such as originator, library name, category, or w.h.y., is as easy as dragging the files into the main library window, selecting them all and then calling up the metadata editor (Cmd-I). Enter your data, save, embed the metadata and you're done. There's a powerful scripting utility that lets you do a variety of other processes if you need it. It takes time to learn, but there's a comprehensive manual available as part of the program.

 

If all you want to do is add metadata, then something like Twisted Wave will let you do that and batch process sounds as well.

 

I mentioned NetFlix, because it's used by one of the facilities I work in, for its networking capabilities, and on the odd occasion I've used it, it seemed to function quite well.

 

Regards

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You can also add metadata in SoundMiner by generating it in a text file and merging with the sound files… in a lot of cases this is easer, since you can use a spreadsheet or dbm to manage the data, and then just save as .txt.

 

That's how I enter my own files and make them as searchable as the commercial sfx I use.

 

Instructions are in the SoundMiner help files.

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Audiofinder is a great app imo, i use it in my studio. One thing to watch out for with it is it doesn't write the metadata into the wav file itself, but stores it in it's own database. Great if you are searching in audiofinder, but doesn't transfer to other apps.

I do like the layout and functionality of it, and it's great for the price.

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Audiofinder is a great app imo, i use it in my studio. One thing to watch out for with it is it doesn't write the metadata into the wav file itself, but stores it in it's own database. Great if you are searching in audiofinder, but doesn't transfer to other apps.

I do like the layout and functionality of it, and it's great for the price.

 

Wow, thanks so much - that's incredibly helpful. 

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