Yesterday, I saw that some people were having some doubts regarding the new Soundminer HD. I could answer some of them but I find more appropriate to ask directly to a person on the Soundminer development team, so I collected some questions on Twitter, Facebook and Mail, and here is what Steve Pecile kindly answered to me:
Well, first of all it seems your readers are confused as to what HD is. It is NOT a replacement or equal to v4pro. v4pro is our very highest asset manager. It is costly but it does many many things that no other product does. It remains as our top end product and will remain as such. Many editors however have said, ‘we’d love to use Soundminer but its too expensive’ as you yourself noted. They then use AF or Itunes or even the Pro Tools workspace. So after speaking to editors we decided to make a version of the product that was less than half the price with the key features most of these kinds of users need. HD is that product.
It is packed with great stuff and for the money, nothing can touch it, but it isn’t v4pro!
Designing Sound Reader: So… Soundminer HD doesn’t have the VSTRack? Could be implemented in the future?
Steve Pecile: It will not have the VSTRack as that is a feature of only v4pro.
But it does have a high quality fast search engine that is miles ahead of any of its competition. It has support for reading all kinds of metadata. It has alternate search options that none of our competitors can offer. It has a high quality editor and simple to use transfer system that allows it to intelligently drag to other applications even at $199. And even the basic version can edit the ‘Description’ field for metadata.
For a bit more they get spot to timeline, AVID support, Final Cut transfer, Nuendo 5 spot to timeline(not finished yet), Pyramix spot to timeline, ability to add metadata to any fields, Field assign for instant and ease adding of metadata and a 64 bit conversion engine using iZotope technology. All for $399!
Specific answers are as follows:
DSR: Could you tell us more about how SMHD+ handles multiple DBs?
SP: HD Basic is set up like Miniminer. There are two preset databases – one for Music and one for FX. In HD plus, you can make as many databases as you want and even import v4 databases. Just select the one you want…
DSR: What are exactly the differences between V4Pro and HD Plus?
SP: Apart from what I noted above, V4pro is a different class of product. V4pro supports higher order things like the various field recorders, iXML fields, import quicktime movie, VSTRack for design, multi-channel transfers and monitoring, Rewire, Rewire Synchronization, Find and Replace, Copy, append, numeralize, import CSV tabbed text and other metadata functions, REGEX scripting, HTTP playback, etc.. HD is designed to take the ‘BEST OF’ from v4pro – high quality boolean search, advanced alt search, some new searching methods like Live Filter and Launch pad, easy to use editing and transfers with every effort made on quality for the things it does. that’s why we chose iZotope’s 64 bit SRC to be added to HD Plus.
One shouldn’t expect v4pro for this price but there’s a lot of v4pro in here and no shortcuts on quality making it far better than anything in its price range.
DSR: Is there an option to upgrade from HD+ to v4Pro?
SP: Always… It’s the difference in price.
DSR: I’m a user of SM XP. What are the differences between it and the new HD versions? Is there a way to upgrade to HD Plus from XP?
SP: This is noted on our site – $100 moves you to HD Plus for windows
DSR: Is there an upgrade path for Miniminer users? Is it possible to audition sounds while rolling picture in Pro Tools?
SP: Again noted in our page that you copied….$50 to move from Mini to HD basic.
DSR: Would love to know if there’s a ‘favorites’ feature, beyond the weighting. also, does the group buy work by tim prebble for crossgrades?
SP: Crossgrades are not part of the group buy. They have to be new licenses. There is a ratings field but not a ‘favourites’ repository at this point apart from the project section in HD plus which could also provide that kind of feature over and above weighting and rating per file.
Also, Tim Prebble has announced a Soundminer Group Buy, where you can get up to 20% discount from several Soundminer products.
Thanks for consolidating the info, Miguel! The video and info made it appear that Soundminer HD was the “next” version, after V4PRO. I’m glad to know that it’s a lesser “best of” product. That being said, it looks like there are several improvements… so the next question is:
When will there be a update to V4PRO? What enhancements will it offer?
Again, Soundminer software programmer is top notch, but the tone and attitude of the “customer service” is close to beign rude. Allways pointing out how inadequate (I am beign polite here) the users are for not “getting” what the company is trying to communicate. A real shame. Great product, poor attitude.
@gb
agree. been a sm user for years and years… wonderful utilities, but the customer support has always come across as incredibly condescending.
What about HD plus VS V4 Standard Edition?
Great Article. I love using http://www.soundjig.com for my samples and sound effects.