 The
Value of a Sound
What
the New Sound FX Library is All About
by Viv Beason
We are one step closer to completing our mission. At the beginning
of this journey, we set out to supply the world with affordable royalty-free
content and media of all kinds. We started with animations, moved
on to graphic sets, music, layered Photoshop® graphics, stock footage,
and, most recently, sound effects. As with other Digital Juice products,
the new Sound FX Library is priced in a way that changes the industry,
democratizing the content, if you will. We've become known for high
quality at extremely affordable pricing.
HEAR
THE VALUE
Sometimes the value of a product line is obvious. The Editor's Toolkits,
for example, have complete sets of animated graphics that instantly
complete a production and make it ready for broadcast, with all of
the elements you'd expect to see in a program. People immediately
understand what the product is, how it is used and realize the value.
The same goes for royalty-free production music, such as our BackTraxx
or our innovative layered StackTraxx. Almost everyone knows that anyone
who is producing video that will be seen in public needs properly
licensed music. Some of our products require a little more education,
however.
I believe our newest Digital Juice Sound FX Library needs a little
introduction. For example, you could run any of our animations as
a visual treats, without any audio enhancement. Or you could bring
in text bullet points without any audio. You could transition from
scene to scene, silently. The next time you watch television, however,
especially commercials, entertainment programs, sporting event or
news programs, listen to see if there isn't something else going on
besides just flashy visuals.
DIVERSELY
USEFUL
When creating this product, I wanted to include a broad variety of
categories of effects that connected with every potential customer.
Our four main classes make up the most comprehensive package ever
created. I say that not as a marketing ploy, but with pride because
it is a fact. This translates into a wealth of potential and options
for every single one of the videos or movies you'll produce this next
year.
NOISE AND PROFESSIONAL VOICE
WORK
You'd be hard pressed to find any sounds excluded from the General
FX class. The Noise FX class is, by itself, worth every penny of the
product's selling price. The Human FX class is one that we included
to help the smaller producers, from the one man and a dream outfits
to the small network affiliate. Along with coughs, sneezes and laughter
from all ages and genders, we also have canned phrases that will prove
valuable when adding that little extra professional touch when creating
a local commercial or promoting a syndicated afternoon sitcom. Phrases
like "It's our biggest sale of the year", "Coming up next", "Stay
tuned" are just a few of the hundreds of professionally voiced male
and female clips. Now your commercials don't have to sound like they
were locally produced.
MUSICAL
DEPTH
One problem when creating a package of such depth is that not every
category or subcategory can get its just due when trying to promote
the product. This package contains a few hidden jewels that I feel
deserve some extra attention. One of these is the Musical FX class
which is, in essence, a scoring tool that could potentially save some
of you thousands of dollars in musical production costs. Check out
the Texture category, for example. Similar to our StackTraxx product
in its ease of use, but totally different in how it's used, these
musical textures aren't songs, but they are the melodic elements that
pull a program together. You don't need to know anything at all about
music to seamlessly score an entire production.
EVOLVING
THE EVOLVER
An interesting category in the Noise FX class is the Evolver. While
demonstrating the unfinished product to a close videographer friend
of mine, he made the suggestion of creating a composite audio scene,
instead of just thousands of individual sound fx. His idea was to
have a professional sound designer construct an elaborate barrage
of individual sounds together into one clip that evolves over time.
The results are whizzes, bangs, stingers, swooshes and elements that
generally lead somewhere, grab your attention and make a point. His
reasoning was that many video editors would appreciate a jumping off
point if at all possible. Something that could be edited, added to,
or shortened, instead of constructing the string from scratch using
multiple raw elements.
The Evolver category is just what a video editor needs. They are immediately
impressive to the ear, but we got a surprise when we dropped them
behind some random animations we had laying around (and we have a
few of those): the Evolvers seemed to match. Automatically. I've tried
several with different Editor's Toolkit Motion Design Elements, and,
I must say, most of them looked and sounded great, even when dropped
straight onto the timeline.
I hope this little essay has inspired you to challenge yourself to
take your editing up to the next level, past the visual and into another
sense-dimension. As usual, Digital Juice has provided the tools and
at an extremely affordable price. I promise, like all of our other
products, once you've worked with our Sound FX Library on your first
project, you'll wonder how you survived before without it.
Viv Beason is President of Digital Juice.
WHAT
WOULD IT SOUND LIKE
Digital Juice background animations and foreground elements
become much more compelling when matched with sound effects
and musical hooks. Imagine what the Jump Backs animated
backgrounds shown below might sound like. High-tech, computer
noise and mechanical? Catchy guitar riff? Low rumbles
and dramatic whooshes? Television graphics are almost
always accompanied by some sort of audio effect.
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