mSoft Inc. at AES

A great big thank you to everyone who came out to see us at the AES expo. It was nice to see some old faces and new ones, too. For those of you who missed our presentation on digital asset management, we've posted the paper and the PowerPoint presentation (http://www.msoftinc.com/aespresentation.htm). Check it out! We've laid out the history and future of DAM, and even included some graphs to help you determine what you need for your facility. - Let us know what you think.

We displayed the latest versions of our awesome MusicCue and ServerSound systems, plus the great new mSearch (an OEM version of SoundMiner exclusively for mSoft users) and SoundMiner 3 from our friends at SoundMiner. We also showed the cool new ServerSoundStorm server and audio package with its unique and slammin' music and SFX libraries - not available from the CD libraries! Ask your sales rep about a discount!

Playing Favorites

We haven't been sitting on our hands since AES, either - even if you just saw our MusicCue system in New York, check out our super-cool new "Favorites" feature at our demo site - it allows every user on a server system to have their own "favorites button" accessible from the main page, and then as many of their own custom music styles within that.

Here's how it works: Listen through some music and find some tracks that you want to be able to find quickly for future use. From the search screen, click the "heart" icon next to the play button. The program prompts you to either add to an established favorites list or to create a new list, and then you're asked what favorites list you want to add it to, or if you want to create a new one. MusicCue automatically creates a named favorites button on the favorites splash page based on your user name. You can then go to "(Your Name Here) Favorites" and choose your favorite cuts from your "Purple Passion Lounge Music", "Slammin' Harder Than Hard Rock", and as many other custom styles as you want to make. Each user on your server system can do this, so you can go also look in someone else's favorites that know a style of music better than you - everyone shares their knowledge, and your facility "personalizes" your music server as you use it! Can't find it in your favorites? Go look in everything else from the main splash page, and when you find it, start a new style and throw it in.

We came up with this from listening to our power users like Randy Hinderling at Pomann Sound and Betty Rake at Audio Recording Unlimited. H ere's an offer to add you to this group soon: go to the site and create a user password for yourself (if you don't already have one) site site and create your own favorites group, and we'll give you 10% off on any system purchased before Jan 1, 2004 (not available with other discounts).

Killer Tracks + mSoft = Happy Engineers

Lots of new goodies from our friends in the music and SFX production business:

Killer Tracks has teamed with mSoft to deliver a new server system that NBC will use to produce its' current hit show "Average Joe..". The twist is…the music didn't go out to them on CD, it went on an OEM version of the popular MusicCue server. Called Killer Server, the first system will have 800GB (about 1,000 CDs!) of quality Killer Tracks production music. The show's seven Avids all have access to the music over their the local network.

This marks the first time mSoft has provided an OEM product for a content provider under our rental / subscription agreement, but it's also the first time a music production company has offered to provide its content on hard drives without also making CDs available. Doing so means cost savings to Killer Tracks and time savings to you, the working audio engineers who need to claim back some time from your busy days!

Harpo Goes Online With MusicCue

We're excited to welcome Harpo, Oprah Winfrey's production group, into the mSoft user family. Just this past month they installed the MusicCue 3.1 system. It comes complete with production music from heavyweights APM, Five Alarm Music and Fifth Floor Music plus a great SFX package with everything Harpo needs to produce its top rated television shows.

Harpo uses multiple systems, so having a flexible digital asset management system available is very important. With all its ProTools and Mac & NT Avid systems hitting the server all day long, the ability to access audio through MusicCue makes production so much easier with unmatched flexibility.

Thanks for choosing mSoft!

Universal Uses mSoft for Proprietary Records

Universal also added a new 3 TB MusicCue system, and was very excited about its unique ability to digitize and database 1,500 of Universal's own popular and soundtrack CDs. All they do is just load a CD into the server's CD ROM and the data for the CD is downloaded into the MusicCue database, linked to the digitized audio file, and "published" on the MusicCue server for everyone's use. This is a considerable benefit for any promo or trailer facility with a huge CD library that's become unmanageable for music editors.

Like Harpo, Universal uses a wide range of systems, including ProTools and NT and Mac Avids. The new system makes it easy for engineers on any of those workstations to access their pop and soundtrack music as well as hot production music from Killer Tracks, Extreme, X-Ray Dog, MasterSource, NonStop Music and others. Universal already added a comprehensive SFX package with audio from Sound Ideas and Hollywood Edge, as well as purchasing mSoft's new SoundStorm SFX package.

We brought on several cool new boutique libraries just for Universal: SpiderCues, Static Music, Parodi Fair Music, and Pfeifer Brothers. These and virtually every other library are available for your own mSoft system!

CDs? - or CD Substitute? - Introducing the MusicBox Presto Server!

Up- and- coming library MusicBox, with offices in Los Angeles and New York, has recently decided to offer their customers a server with their rapidly growing 30 CD library on it as an alternative to CDs. The 160GB system reserves 60GB for their existing CDs and future updates, and let's users select 100GB of their own sound effects libraries to fill the rest of the drive (CD license required). mSoft has even thrown in 1,000 effects from the fabulous SoundStorm SFX library to sweeten the deal. MusicBox's Frazier Robinson was in the mSoft booth at AES showing the desktop server, and can be contacted at 866-269-0900 or KFrazier@musicboxmx.com for more details.