Introduction

Soundminer V5 Pro

Thank you for purchasing Soundminer v5 Pro. V5Pro is now 64bit, with most code being touched and improved on in some regards. Its our biggest undertaking as yet. Here is just a short list of the key improvements.

  • 64 bit application - new code, rewritten, meant to take advantage of new OS developments as well as things we’ve been germinating on.
  • AudioUnit DSP processing - building upon our original VSTRack, we’ve added support for AudioUnits. The new DSPRack features improved plugin search, presets, output format and output channel controls.
  • New search methods - new left panel Filter Search, chained search pills, Tag to Database function, all improve upon our industry leading search engine.
  • Speed Improvements(Scanning, waveform zooming, etc) - 64 bit allows us to go in and optimize things making all these functions quicker and taking advantage of new hardware improvements.
  • Built in Radium sampler - This changes everything in sound design. Integrated interface that easily connects to any MIDI controller, allows up to 5 layers of sounds, each with their own array of filters, modulation, envelopes and plugin settings. Don’t worry, tutorials exist but it won’t take long before you are creating new sounds!
  • Updated UI - we took the opportunity to improve, but not drastically change what has become a comfortable tool for many.
  • User Experience improvements, including custom database ordering, field ordering. Little things, but important things.
  • Assignable watch folders that scan items in the background. You can auto ingest new content now by simply setting a watch folder!
  • Tag to Database… build up a particular database for editor’s by tagging sounds from one database into another with notes.
  • Cantar Mode scanning and operation - improvements for dialogue editors and importing from field recorders.
  • Cloud advancements - HTTP with a smart new improved proxy engine and an interface to allow to playback directly from an Amazon S3 cloud bucket.

System requirements:

  • Apple Macintosh OSX 10.9 or higher
  • 4 gig RAM.
  • 100 MB of available drive space for application only. Additional space required for local databases and assets.
  • iLok v2 or v3 physical key, Codemeter Key, HASP HL(purple USB key) or Network key(Red USB Key)
  • At least one available USB port. (Not required for clients using the HASP Network Key as the key is installed on a remote computer.)
  • Files with extensions(.wav,.aif,.mp3). Sound Designer II files not supported. The API’s to access Sound Designer II resource forks is no longer available for 64 bit applications. If auto-update is not working, please contact support@soundminer.com for access to new versions. Keep in touch by visiting the User Bulletin of the website.

What is Soundminer

Before we start, we should go over a few concepts. Soundminer is a class of products called ‘audio asset managers’. This means quite simply they are systems designed to keep track of, search, audition and transfer sound files. In order to do this efficiently, Soundminer depends on embedded metadata. Metadata as it refers to audio files within our system is the information about an audio file that is stored in the file itself. There are many metadata standards and they are not all the same. Not all audio files contain metadata. Soundminer can ingest several types of metadata including broadcast wave BEXT information, ID3 tag containers (eg. iTunes), older spotlight/finder comments from the Apple operating system, iXML field recorder data, as well as metadata from competing systems.

The Soundminer Metawrapper is a superset of all of this data and, in addition, also contains proprietary extra fields. When combined you have a very expansive and robust system for keeping track of all your audio files.

Once you have all this information ingested, you can then use the enriched search features of this platform to find what you are looking for quickly and easily. There are many ways to find files within this system and exploring all the documentation is highly recommended (read the Metadata primer at the end of this manual for example).

All users receive a ‘welcome’ email when they purchase. Keep this email as it has access to many tutorials that will better help you learn the system.

Like all Soundminer products, you can upgrade from one current product to any other current product for the difference in price. If you want to know more about Soundminer’s other products, visit www.soundminer.com or contact us at sales@soundminer.com with questions.

Standard is the lighter version of Pro. V5Pro contains extra features for sound design, server functionality, multi-channel and advanced project and metadata features over and above the Standard feature set. Features unique to Pro are identified as such in the manual in most cases.

V5 represents a huge change to the code base… Enjoy!

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