Northridge, CA - April 17, 2001 — Visual content creators need not worry about matching their sights to their sounds anymore. Sonicfire Pro, the latest in the award-winning SmartSound line of products from Sonic Desktop, has come to seamlessly blend the tasks together. With a slew of features that include video importing, audio importing and editing and a new professional NLE-based interface, it has never been easier to create perfect soundtracks to fit any visual.

"It's a great piece of software," says Stan Perry, President of Rendertek, a Newport Beach, Calif., 3D animation, computer graphics, websites and multimedia studio. "I can do in 20 to 30 minutes what it used to take days to do. Before Sonicfire, the creator had to rely on his memory of the video to match it with the audio. The ability to work with movies and scores is fantastic. It's been an extreme pleasure to use."

The addition of video importing to Sonicfire Pro allows the user to score multiple scenes in one session, preview the video in real time and export the completed project with the soundtrack attached.

"The differences between Sonicfire and our original product--SmartSound for Multimedia--are like night and day," says Kevin Klingler, president and CEO of Sonic Desktop. "That's a great product but Sonicfire takes the SmartSound technology and revamps the entire soundtrack creation experience. Process, workflow and features are all maximized to enable things that aren't available anywhere else from anything else. This is a new ball game."

Another enhancement to Sonicfire Pro is improved editing of imported audio files. These files, such as MP3s or WAVs, are treated in much the same way as SmartSound-encoded music (included with the software and the add-on palettes). Clips are automatically configured to length by powerful new tools designed specifically to work with industry standard audio formats.

Prior to using Sonicfire Pro, Lance Scott of Pixelimage, a studio that creates graphics for presentations and award shows, worked with companies that offered 30-second clips of music for looping.

"Often, videos will run a few seconds longer than the original clip of music," says Scott. "A 30-second piece of studio music can't be looped very smoothly into 32 seconds.

"That's why I like Sonicfire. You just drag the end of your soundtrack timeline to fit your video timeline, and it re-scores the music to the right length and still keeps the musical ending."

SmartSound Sonicfire Pro for Macintosh is currently available in two versions: Sonicfire Pro, which includes the software and two CDs of high-quality, royalty-free music for $349 (list/street), and Sonicfire Pro Bundle Edition, which sells for $499 (list/street) and includes the program plus four CDs of content. The Windows version of Sonicfire Pro, available for pre-orders at NAB, is due to be shipped in May.

Sonicfire Pro is available through Sonic Desktop Software at www.smartsound.com or through dealers and resellers worldwide. Current users of Sonic Desktop's SmartSound products can upgrade to Sonicfire for a special price of $99. Add-on content CDs are also available for $69 or $129 depending on the desired quality of audio.

About Sonic Desktop, Inc.
Sonic Desktop Software, The Soundtrack Company™, is the developer and marketer of the SmartSound family of audio software product -- the world leader in soundtrack creation technology for visual content creators. SmartSound technology is available for Windows 9x, NT and 2000 and Macintosh Power PC and above. The products include the SmartSound For Multimedia and Sonicfire Pro soundtrack creation software and the Audio Palette, Sound Palette and The Edge series of music and sound effects add-on CDs. The company is headquartered in Northridge, Calif., and can be reached by phone at 818-920-9122, by fax at 818-920-9152 or via their website (www.smartsound.com).