Until all this gets sorted out, I am not upgrading to S14.  My current workflow works, I am able to use my Quicktracks albums and with the current SmartSound sale (some disks are as low as $19.99), I can add to my library and keep enjoying it.  Maybe the big SS sale is an indication that they are hurting because of the lack of support for their music by Pinnacle.

jjn:

We would be glad to reconsider our support of the Soundstage technology when
we can sufficiently address these issues.

That doesn't sound like a refusal to me, just that they don't have enough resources.

Yes, it sounds like someone is not taking care of business. You've got to progress if you want to stay in business.

Igor

SS are getting rid of Physical discs in favour of downloadable media, that's why they are trying to ship 'em out so cheap ! You never know there may be even bigger discounts at Christmas!!

I just took advantage of the SS sale and bought 2, 20 dollar disk, along with I scored a deal on e-bay for 5 other disk, I'm am a bit surprised that this discussion has stopped, as I recall, heavy chatter bought a way to get smart sounds working in studio 12, and although I have 14, I will continue to use 12, because of the SS support

I hope that Avid and SmartSound are still talking to each other to find a solution, but I'm not going to hold my breath ...

In the mean time I use one of three workarounds:

1. SonicFire Pro 5
2. S12
3. PD8

 

Working around it is pretty much where it's at, for now.

Just installed S14 and discovered the problem with SS, my SS collection is still growing and I'm not quite willing to give it up.

I've been using Studio since its earliest beginnings and have built a pretty large library of SmartSound Software.  It makes no sense for me to upgrade to the latest version of Studio if it forces me to throw away a large investment in royalty free music.  And it makes no sense for me to purchase additional SmartSound software, if it is is not going to be supported by Pinnacle.  Given the number of people who have voiced an opinion here, I believe that both companies should work together and come up with a mutually beneficial solution that meets the needs of their customers. 

rickd:

I just took advantage of the SS sale and bought 2, 20 dollar disk, along with I scored a deal on e-bay for 5 other disk, I'm am a bit surprised that this discussion has stopped, as I recall, heavy chatter bought a way to get smart sounds working in studio 12, and although I have 14, I will continue to use 12, because of the SS support

 

It's not that the discussion has stopped, it's just that I believe we have said everything there is to be said and we are now awaiting a decision from the respective companies involved. I don't believe that either Avid or Smartsound think this has gone away, if they do they are sadly mistaken. I would think around a month to two months should be enough to have some sort of proposal on the table.

 

Ian

Well I see the only options at this point is to either use Studio 12 and down for editing if SS music is important to the user, this will impact Avid sales of S14 for the lack of SS support, Smart Sounds prolly does not care, they just "pimp" Sonic Fire Pro to you for a hundred bucks plus the cost of disc's ...

 maybe if we e-mail SS and Avid that we was going to make a purchase, but we're wondering/holding off until S14 can use the library's that most have or hope to have it'll light a fire to build a plug-in?

A little consumer revolution can't hurt anything, give us what we want ... it's possible

These vendors started parting company a couple of years ago. Sounds like a fairly major rewrite of code is needed to accomodate SS in Studio.

SonicFire Pro is no harder to learn than Studio, and there are some excellent tutorials. They bundle SFP with a modest investment in music purchase.

You can always stay with S12. I think either of these alternatives are not earth shattering.  

While the sentiment for having SS implemented in S14 is great, I personally don't see it happening. You would think that after there were rumors that S12 or S12.1 might now support it, there was a tremendous backlash in the forums that Avid and/or Smartsound would have taken notice. But, S14 was released with, at the time, no hope of having SS integrated into the program. With the economy the way it is going, I really don't think that either company will spend the resource money necessary to put SS in S14. I have SFPro 5. I have some mood mapping disks long with my standard disks. I will continue to use them in my work through either S12, SFP or any combination.

Hi All

I have just received this official response from Avid via email today 9th November 2009:

"we’re in active conversations with Kevin and his team regarding SmartSound and we hope we’ll have some update to communicate to our customers very soon"

I think this is an encouraging update and as soon as I hear more I will post.

 Ian

Now we're talken. Give me one good reason to buy 14.

Like Susie says. "People first, money second, and things third".

That's the most encouraging news I have heard on the smart-sound plug-in since studio 12. I still have my wallet waiting on a solution before I move to studio 14.

This is great news, thanks for letting us know Ian.

If it's "YES" I wonder how long before we have a patch.

Fingers Crossed.

Paul W. H

Ian, thanks for the update. Encouraging indeed. Who is Kevin, I wonder?

Jonathan

This is excellent news!  I'm keeping all my fingers & toes crossed!     Thanks Ian!

Ina, thanks for the report.  If SmartSound can be incorporated into the latest version of Studio, I'm very likely to purchase the upgrade.

Nice! S14 here you come?

Marchgale:

Ian, thanks for the update. Encouraging indeed. Who is Kevin, I wonder?

Jonathan

 

More than likely the CEO of Smartsound.

This starts to (smart)sound like positive news.

Another voice here requiring SmartSound before I get Studio 14. And yes, I have Sonicfire 5, but with my workflow on some projects (no, I'm not a pro), re-editing video, I would require going back to Sonicfire again and again for the same music, just to readjust the timing. This is especially true where I want slides to change on the beat, and I later change which slides, the duration, and even the slide order because of its interaction with the music. But it's also true in many other situations.

Or to put it another way, I have a tough time cutting stuff I've filmed from the finished product, and I often have to run the "finished" movie several times to discover that certain segments are too long. That's where the auto-adjust capability of having SS built-in to Studio really pays off in time and trouble saved. 

Incidentally, I too got some discs on the recent $19.95 sale. I'm closer all the time to having the ideal music (as SS) for almost every scenic need, but often I just go a song at a time from within Studio. But, if there's no future support for SS, Studio 12 may be my last version.

But this latest news is somewhat encouraging, so we'll see... 

Like many others I too am waiting to hear that Smartsounds can be used in Studio 14 before upgrading.

btrant:

Like many others I too am waiting to hear that Smartsounds can be used in Studio 14 before upgrading.

btrant:

Like many others I too am waiting to hear that Smartsounds can be used in Studio 14 before upgrading.