Michele Yamazaki, VP Marketing & Pluginologist at Toolfarm (that’s me!), talked to Larry Jordan at Digital Production Buzz last Thursday about why editors need plugins, what new and what’s a must have in the plug-in scene.

Listen Now!

Michele is scheduled to be a regular on the Digital Production Buzz every couple of weeks so tune in. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

“… The right music and the right sound effects in the right places.”

The above quote just about sums up the usefulness of this new tutorial by Jeff Earley for Digital Juice. Jeff takes a flattened render of a voiceless After Effects promo into Premiere Pro and adds layer after layer of sound and music… in just the right places. He gives tons of great tips on general sound design along the way. He makes heavy use of Digital Juice products and software, but again, these tips work with any tools and assets you have. You’ll learn:

• how to combine synthesized and practical clips together for new sounds with unique personalities
• combining whooshes and impacts
• how to align the peak of a whoosh with the animation
• how to make sure your sounds don’t bump into each other
• and a lot more

I found it particularly fascinating to hear what Jeff had to say about each sound while he was auditioning them. All in all, nice to see a tutorial on sound design for a change, especially since sound is such a vital aspect of motion graphics design. And many of us could probably do with a little guidance in the area.

Watch the tutorial here.

Have you seen any tutorials like this one? Share with us and post them in the comments!

— John Stanowski

How do you use music in your video and film productions? Win one of two copies of the SmartSound Sonicfire Pro with Final Cut Pro Deluxe Bundle, given to two randomly selected respondents who answer all the questions. a $249.85 value. It includes 2 discs – Core Foundations and A New Era – plus a $99 album coupon. We’ll be collecting responses through Friday, October 2, 2009.

Learn more about SmartSound products in our store

Here’s a little tutorial I did about using SmartSound Sonicfire Pro and Final Cut Pro.

Tutorial: Using SonicFire Pro with Final Cut Pro from Michele Yamazaki on Vimeo.

Michele Yamazaki from Toolfarm shows you how to create a custom soundtrack for your video in Final Cut Pro using SmartSound SonicFire Pro.

In this episode, Aharon continues to explore how audio can be used to control time, but he expands on that by showing you how it can be used to change the look of the footage as well.

Watch | Download Project Files | Example Video

Products Used: Magic Bullet Looks, Trapcode Sound Keys

Try a free demo of Looks and Sound Keys here: Free trial of plug-ins.

AE Version: 7.0 (They may work in older versions, I’m not sure). Play movie samples

Download SoundFX1.zip

Also, I was away for a week in sunny, mosquitoy Ontario, Canada. I saw moose. That was cool. Thank you Harry for doing such a great job of holding down the fort!