Many users have asked for clarification on SmartSound and its removal from Pinnacle Studio. Here’s our attempt to provide some background and address the questions we have received.

With the introduction of Studio 11, we introduced our Scorefitter music generation software and removed SmartSound (although, through a negotiated arrangement with SmartSound, we allowed existing SmartSound users to continue using legacy SmartSound content by ensuring “backwards compatibility”).  The reason for this strategy was two-fold. 

First, with the introduction of Scorefitter, we embarked on a new music generation approach where we would enable musicians to “score” music for automatic music creation. This approach has allowed us the flexibility to work closely with musicians to author music specifically for the Studio environment. We have signed up great musicians and are open to signing-up new musicians and helping them author content for Scorefitter. In addition, with Pinnacle becoming a part of Avid, new exciting audio technologies have become available to us to consider for an exciting Studio roadmap.  Most of you know the Avid family includes Digidesign, the leader in professional audio production and M-Audio maker of high performance, hardware audio components. Avid is very strong in audio and video and we, along with Studio users, have an exciting audio future. 

Second, we made arrangements with SmartSound for “backwards compatibility” in an effort to help migrate existing SmartSound users.  We wanted to ensure that our SmartSound users could continue to use the tools they had come to rely on in previous versions of Studio, with the intention that they would eventually migrate to Scorefitter as a music solution.

In terms of Studio 12, we have decided, based on market research and looking ahead to future opportunities, to remove support for SmartSound. This decision was not made lightly but based on a wide range of factors. At SmartSound’s request, and as a result of inability to reach a contractual arrangement satisfactory to both parties, we will be disabling in future releases of Studio current known work-arounds that enabled the use of SmartSound.