Pro Editing @ Home

by Kevin P McAuliffe

One thing that can make or break a piece that you are editing is music. It can drive your piece, or bring though an emotion that you want the viewer to feel, but here's the problem. With stock music becoming more and more common as companies sel their "generic" music bundles (sports, corporate, country, etc), you might think you've found the right piece of music for your show or promo, and then you go home, turn the TV on, and hear the exact same piece of music in the latest burger commercial. It can be frustrating, but that's where a company like Abaltat comes in. What? You haven't heard of Abaltat? Well, I had the chance to talk to Mark Altekruse, Director of Sales and Marketing for Abaltat, about their company and Muse 2.0, their flagship music creation program and how it can take the color information from your edited piece, and turn it into music!

PE@H: Tell me a how Abaltat got started in the music creation business.

MA: Abaltat got its start when Abaltat’s founders, Siun Ni Raghalleigh and Justin McCarthy, began discussing the various difficulties of achieving the results they wanted in soundtracks. Siun is a film and video producer and Justin is a film editor and musician so their backgrounds lead them to understand the workflow and also understand some of the technical hurdles that a video editor has to contend with if they are going to tackle creating a score.

The principle problem is one of speed – how to quickly generate a soundtrack that fits the timing of an edited video and still delivers your project on time. The secondary problem is that many film and video editors are not musicians and, as such, there is a mystery surrounding how to create a soundtrack that fits the narrative of a video clip. So, basically, this concept began with the two of them asking “what if?” What if there were a software application that would analyze a video clip and then create music complete with adjustable and editable functions like tempo, time signature and other musical traits? Of course, that always raises a host of other questions, like what is the analysis criteria and how would it create different kinds of music? The answer is what eventually became Muse 2.0 – a software program that analyzes a video clip for length and color saturation offering a series of tools familiar to video editors enabling them to determine musical style, tempo, musical complexity and many, many other functions in an application the is incredibly easy to use.

PE@H: There are a lot of music creation programs on the market today. How is Muse different from the rest?

MA: Muse 2.0 does not rely on pre-recorded loops or audio files. It generates original music in near real-time via analysis of the video itself. Muse should be viewed as a very cost effective, yet comprehensive way to give anyone the ability to create an original soundtrack for edited video clips. Muse is a highly creative tool where the output of original music can be used as-is or exported to creative audio workstations such as GarageBand – or any workstation that supports MIDI, aiff, or wav files. After export, the editor can add more audio or MIDI tracks, use additional loop libraries, effects processors and many other functions within the DAW. In short, Muse can be the launch pad for a complete soundtrack production environment.

My Muse layout

PE@H: There is an "Express" version of Muse.  What is the difference between that and the full version?

MA: Express utilizes the same composition engines as Muse 2.0, except it does not ship with any sounds. Rather, it uses the internal sounds of the Mac. Both Muse and Express take full advantage of the advanced audio and MIDI capabilities of Mac OS X Core Audio and Core MIDI.

PE@H: You recently released a new version of Muse.  What is new in version 2.0?

MA: Muse 2.0 was released in late August and offers two new composition engines, improvements to the Bands, a very easy-to-use elegant interface, enhanced track soloing and muting and more robust sounds gathered from the Garritan Sound Library. The tools set in the Advanced Compose area have also undergone some changes and enhancements and we also incorporated a series of 5 presets for each Band. The presets are a great way to generate a soundtrack quickly and efficiently.

PE@H: Muse being able to create music based on colors is a huge selling feature.  What else do you think makes Muse a "must-have" music creation program?

MA: Clearly the color compose functionality is unique, but additionally is the fact that video editors can customize their soundtracks using common keyframes. These keyframes can be placed at strategic points on the timeline, which enables them to change instruments, alternate between major and minor keys, transpose the score and create fade-ins and outs. There is no limit to the variety one can achieve by using these tools as well as the Advanced Compose features.

This is how Muse sees the color information in my imported clip

PE@H: How do you think Muse would fit into any Post Production workflow - i.e. - Final Cut, Premiere, Avid?

MA: Any NLE that exports clips in QuickTime can be used with Muse. Simply export the scene and import into Muse. When you are finished in Muse, either export the soundtrack in QuickTime, aiff or wav and import back into the NLE. Or import the audio and MIDI file generated by Muse directly into a DAW for more editing.

PE@H: What type of music selection will people have when then choose to buy Muse?

MA: At the moment there are 7 Bands included with Muse. These take on music styles ranging from a classical musical ensemble, to euro dance, to hip-hop, to minimalist and others.

PE@H: Muse has an extension called "Band"; can you tell us what "Band" adds to Muse?

MA: A Band is essentially a style of music but we call them Bands because we use a preset style and combination of instruments. But, like I said earlier, that is just a launch pad. You are free to change instruments and so many other musical functions.

PE@H: Looking forward to 2009, what can we look forward to seeing from Abaltat?

MA: We see a huge adoption of Muse in the creative space – particularly among all the serious hobbyists out there who love to create original videos. Muse gives them a great toolset to make their own music and post all their original work to video sharing sites.

PE@H: How does Abaltat feel about recently winning the DV Award of Excellence for Muse 2.0?

MA: Obviously we are honored with the DV Award of Excellence. We realize that this award is not given lightly and the fact that we received this at a time when our company is so young only adds to our excitement. It’s always a high when you work so hard at something you believe in and along the way earn some added recognition in the community.

I want to thank Mark for taking the time to talk to us. Muse is definately taking music creation in a new direction, and you can check out a free demo of Muse 2.0 by visiting www.abaltat.com . I also wrote a review of Muse 2.0 for the Digital Media Net that you can check out here! For those of you interested in buying Muse 2.0, Abaltat is offering it for an awesome price of $149 US, which is half off the regular price of $299 US until March 1, 2009.