User Manual for MusicCue 3.5
Welcome to MusicCue version 3.5 – the most advance production music, sound effects and stock video search engine in the postproduction industry. Thousands of professionals worldwide from leading facilities are using MusicCue to find the production components they need every day.
This search engine and the optional professional players can assist you in finding what you need rapidly, audition it, mark candidate files, and transfer them – with on-the-fly conversion if needed – to your timeline in all edit environments. The system contains intuitive as well as advanced tools allowing search for an asset (e.g. track), as well as filtering and presentation of the result list. Depending on your specific system, you might have access to several hundred thousand production elements. Please spend a few moments to get familiar with many of the techniques. The time investment will save you many hours later on!
First selection you must do: What asset class are you
looking for? Just click on the appropriate tab to limit your search within
music, sound effects, and video – or select ALL to include all assets.
Choose topic:
·
Projects
·
Cuesheet
Guided Tours
·
Find SFX
•
Keywords A Boolean search
for any sub-string in the Description or Remark fields. “And” , “Or”, “Not” are supported
•
Category / Sub-category
The assets are organized by Category and sub-category. You can click on any word to drill down into
the assets.
•
Browse by library name / CD
title
•
Text-search for a Composer
(and optionally, performer)
•
Text-search for a CD Title
•
Text search for a Category
•
Reverse – search for a
library, catalog or file name
•
Drill down by users’ favorite
selections
•
Advanced search on
multiple columns using ‘and’, ‘or’
•
Sub-Search within a
search result
•
Cross reference summary
search from a search result
•
Cross reference search
from one track to similar tracks
•
Search for projects
and spots names
•
Open a project or a spot content as a search
result
–
Just click the 
button near the project or spot name.
•
Search and open the CD a track came from
–
Just click the CD catalog number. 
Filtering the search result to a
manageable sub - list
All
of the following filter techniques can work together.
•
Filter by asset class:
SFX, Music, Video or ALL
•
‘Match’ or ‘Contains’ keywords 
(search CAT with ‘contains’ will
find Caterpillar. With “match” will only
find the ‘CAT’ as a stand-alone word.
•
Filter by a library title.
•
Filter by a publisher.
•
Filter by duration 
(always two digit MM and two digit SS - looking for
•
Filter asset-linked data or all metadata 
If
this box is not checked, then you will find only metadata with a
matching asset (track). If it is
checked, you will find metadata even if the track is not accessible to you.
•
Search your projects or everyone's, or
archived 
•
Security level searches: These are only
set by the system administrator and are described in the administration manual.
–
Limited to specific libraries
–
Limited to specific asset class
–
Limited to low-res files
–
Build-in firewall for low-res vs hi-res
searches
Controlling the Presentation of a
search result
•
How many records to return? 
This limits how many
records, which meet the entire filtering criterion, are allowed to be
retrieved. When this number is met, then
the results are displayed, even if there are more matching records in the
database.
•
How many tracks to present on a page? 
This limits the
number of items on a page. A smaller
number allows faster displaying of a page.
•
What sort order to use?
•
Random jump between the search result pages
•
Show summary of all tracks,
and all details 
of any one
track
•
Jump between a track’s cross references from
the track’s details
•
Visual cues:
–
Different colors for the play button when
playing, and after it was played.
–
Keywords that are
found are
highlighted.
–
Visual legend for CD title, track title,
description and remarks
–
Separate columns presents the track origin
and duration 
•
Data editing: with proper security, edit the
master database right from the result screen. 
•
Browser Power: Open any hyperlink in a new
window, email, save or print any portion of the search presentation
•
Free browser player – one file at a time
–
Quicktime, Windows Media, RealAudio etc
•
mSoft professional player
–
Apple MAC player
–
Batch transfers and conversions to any DAW /
DVW
•
Third party professional players
–
SoundMiner, mSearch, CoolEdit, Adobe
Audition, SoundForge
•
Transfers to any digital audio or video
workstation, in any combination, on any platform
•
Intuitive project management, presentation,
editing, maintenance and sharing
–
Project list: last created is in the top
–
Sub-string search for project or spot name
–
Filter ‘my projects’ or ‘all’ (security –
level sensitivity)
–
Each track have a remark space, full HTML
support!
•
<b> <i> <u> <font
color=red> etc
With
one-click you can:
- add
a track to a project
- add
a track to a favorite list
- open
a project or a spot as a search result
- cue
sheet generation from a spot or an EDL
- batch
transfer of a project or a spot
- Browser-power:
email a spot, playback from the email!
–
One-click cuesheet from a project’s spot
–
Cuesheet generation from EDL
–
Print or email a cuesheet
This is a simple but powerful search. Just type what you are looking for. This search is performed ONLY on the description and remark fields. Description is usually the information on the CD jacket. Remarks are additional information about the tracks. Remarks are usually added by the publisher.
You can type up to 10 words describing what you need, and add the minus (‘-‘) sign to exclude a word. In this example( jazz fast piano – drum ), the search will look for jazz music playing fast beat, with Piano but without drum (or drums). You can also add the word ‘OR’ (alternatively use the ‘|’ sign). The word ‘AND’ (alternatively ‘+’ sign) is assumed as a default, so if you will write it the system will promptly ignore it.
Sample queries you might want to try – se what happens! (All examples are from mSoftMusic.com – your
data may vary)
Music:
Jazz brass piano drum –bass
New age light Activity
Sad moving drama – string
SFX:
Dog bark – small
Dog + small – bark
Explosion large –distant
Video:
Kaleidoscope Background
Fly shape
The search result area is the largest section of the screen:
The buttons on the left give you options to play the sound, include it in a spot, save it in your favorites, and view details. The middle section shows the CD title, track title, description and remarks. The section to the right shows the track and CD identification, the duration and possibly a “more” indicator. If the track has other tracks with similar (but not identical) descriptions, then a number is displayed following by the word MORE is displayed. Clicking on that word will display the similar tracks. This is most commonly the case when that track exists with different length cuts.
Category / Sub category drill – down:
The
main splash page is always accessible
by clicking the main page hot link,
From the main splash page, choose a main category – in this example, click the ‘NATURE’ link to open the full list of sub-categories below NATURE,
or you can click a popular sub-category. The popularity of sub-categories are set by the administrator at installation time, and can be changed by the administrator at any time.
Clicking the main category will open the sub-category list.
Clicking any one of these sub-categories will open the search result screen
with the tracks linked to the category / sub category combination selected.
Form the main splash page
Click MUSIC LIBRARY,
Then all library titles in your collection will be listed.
Locate the library you are interested in (or click Ctrl+F or Apple+F and type the library name)
Click on the library name, to open the list of CDs for this library:
You can also click Ctrl+F or Apple+F to further search within the list of CD titles.
Click any of the CDs to open it as a search result. – Subject to all filtering method you implemented – as a search result.
In the selection bar of the column in the database to be searched, click the ‘Composer’ selection. In the keywords edit area, type a composer name or a portion of her name. Then click the search button or the ‘enter’ key. The result will look something like this:
You will get every match on the composer’s name, even if several titles list the composer in a different way – some put their first name, or first initial, or whatever order – You will find it! Clicking on any of the links will open the tracks – subject to all filtering method you specified – as a search result.
In the selection bar of the column in the database to be
searched, click the ‘CD title’ selection. In the keywords edit area, type a any
string you want to find or a portion of it. Then click the search button or the
‘enter’ key. The result will look something like this:
Clicking on any of the CD titles will open that CD – subject
to all the filtering specified – as a search result
In the selection bar of the column in the database to be
searched, click the ‘Categories selection. In the keywords edit area, type a
any string you want to find or a portion of it. Then click the search button or
the ‘enter’ key. The result will look something like this:
Clicking on any of the category will open the matching tracks – subject to all filtering method you implemented – as a search result.
This option is very useful at reporting time.
If you grabbed a track and used it in a production, then don’t remember where it came from, we are here to help!
In the selection bar of the column in the database to be searched, click the ‘Reverse’ selection. In the keywords edit area you can either type a library 3 – char designation code, a catalog 5 – char code or a portion (or entire) file name string you want to find. Then click the search button or the ‘enter’ key. The result will look something like this:
Clicking on any of the category will open the matching tracks – subject to all filtering method you implemented – as a search result.
Browse Favorites
Click on the ‘favorite’ link at the top left menu:
You will get a favorite selections, which is different and unique to each system. It might include a selection of ‘New Music this Month’, a favorite lists form some users, a recommended CD list from a publisher and any other sub-set selection someone in your environment decide to mark as their favorites.
If the favorite list belongs to you or you have security level 8 or 9, you will be able to edit other people’s favorites. If not, you can either click the ‘O’pen wich will open the CDs your favorites came from, or just click on the favorite description to open that list tracks – subject to all filtering method you implemented – as a search result..
Sample favorite list:
Click the advance search link at the top of the screen opens this view:
Basically everything here is the same as the ‘basic search ‘ except you can search multiple columns of the data concurrently with a term within description OR CD title OR track title OR composer, hence you “know it is there” but you don’t remember where you “saw” it – this search will probably find what you need.
Alternatively if you want to search description with ‘piano’ AND CD title with ‘JAZZ – you can do that here.
Search – within – Search (sub-search)
After performing any search by any method, you might have too many records returning for you to listen to them all in search of candidate match for your project. You can quickly and repeatedly sub-search the result by typing a few words to the sub-search edit field then click the ‘Sub-Search’ button.
If the sub-search did not find what you need, going back and typing another sub-search term will repeat the search within the ORIGINAL search you performed.
Cross reference summary from a search result
After performing any search available here (including the
following one), the system presents a page listing all the search results
found, limited by whatever filters you applied. The information presented is
the track’s CD title, the track’s title, the description and remark. There is a
wealth of additional information stored about every track in the system, for
example how that track relates to other similar tracks. This similarity can be on many parameters.
Click the ‘details’ 
button from any
record will usually show a list of these category / sub category
pairs associated with that track.
You have the ability to summarize all this wealth of extra
information – possibly finding similar tracks with enough variety to answer
your exact artistic need. Click the 
link at the top
section of the search result screen, and you will see the following table,
summing and counting all categories / sub categories “hidden” within the
original search result:
Click on any of the sub categories in the list will open that selection as a new search result. You can repeat this functionality even within that new search result, further “drilling down’ the list of candidates until the most appropriate track is found.
Cross reference ‘jump’ from record detail
After a search result appears you can open the details of any of the records. It might show several category / sub category pairs, a publisher, a composer and other information about the record. You can click on any of these items to perform a new search as if you ‘drilled down’ from the main splash page or from the cross – reference summary.
Search for project or spot name
To find a project with specific name, or all spots from all projects with specific words, type the desired string then choose if to search on projects, spots or archived items; then choose if to search your projects or (if your security level allow) – everyone’s.
Project management details are here
Guided Tours
Select ‘SFX’ from content type
Choose ‘contain’ - the search word is anywhere in the description
or ‘match’ - the search word is for ‘full words exact match’
Make sure the library quick filter is on ‘ALL’ or set on a specific sound effect library group
Please
note: the quick filter overrides content type selection!
Select how many returns you wish to see (affecting the search times) and how many to display on each page (affecting the speed of screen refresh).
Maximum
display per page: 999
Select search button on DESCRIPTION (for the Sound Effects libraries this is the optimal search method.)
Type a few words or partial words to search for
The
system assumes ‘AND’ between words unless you use keywords ‘OR’ ‘NOT’
Examples:
To find all SFX with ‘dog bark’ or ‘dogs bark’ or ‘dog
barks’ or ‘dogs barks’, ‘dog barking’ and so on – all descriptions with the
string ‘DOG’ and the string ‘BARK’ in them anywhere in the description:
Select SFX Content Button
(with library: All in quick filter), Contains, Description, ‘dog bark’
will give you the results.
For a single dog use same as above but: type ‘dog bark
and not dogs’
To add “growls” to above search string type: ‘dog bark or
growls and not dogs’
If you get too many results, just add another word or a
partial word and search again; it will search WITHIN the last result to narrow
the search.
Usage of ‘match’ : if you get too many or irrelevant results (you want ‘motor’ but not ‘motorcycle’ or other derivatives, ‘match’ will look to the singular word ‘motor’ – It actually looks for the word with a single ‘space’ padding it.
Drill Down by CD:
On the Main page (hit the “Main Page” link) you will have a SFX Library Link –
If you know exactly where what you are looking for is – it is very easy to find. Just click ‘SFX Library’ -> the name of the library needed -> the name of the CD needed;
(your system administrator can set a ‘most popular’
single click library directly from the main page, saving you one click)
Music search is much more involved because music is harder and more ‘personalized’ to describe. One listener’s “fast” is another’s “medium”. Since mSoft accepts the description of the music from the publishers (and each of the 60 or so publishers and almost 400 music libraries we deal with have their own correct and just way to describe their music), mSoft does not put our judgment on the descriptions.
To alleviate these problems we have created a large number of ways to help you find what you need – including the ability to add the end users’ opinion to each cut, privately or to be shared with other users within the facility.
1 Search the description or the remarks of a cut:
Select ‘MUSIC’ from content type
Under the filtering provision described in the next section, you can just type what you want to listen too: ‘jazz fast guitar not hot’. Select the ‘description’ radio button, and you are on your way to listen to exactly what you asked for.
Please be sure to select ‘library: All’ from the quick
filter list, or you can narrow your search to specific library subsets. For example choose the drop down to “XYZ”
library to search for “jazz fast” within only that library. mSoft provides you with an initial quick
filter list dependant on your custom library list and this can be easily
customized for your facility!
Boolean searches can be very elaborate. Things like ‘pop
and vocal and tenor and not jazz and not organ’ will work just fine! So
experiment away, see what pops up!
2 Finding music by specific CD:
On the Main Page you
will see a Music Library Master Link -
If you know exactly which CD that you are looking for then it is very easy to find. Just click ‘Music Library’ -> the name of the library needed -> the name of the CD needed;
(your system administrator can set a ‘most popular’
single click library directly from the main page, saving you one click)
3 Finding music by ‘drill down’ category:
There are about 20 – 25 ‘general categories’ in the Main Page (hit the “Main Page” link); Click on a category then click on any sub-category under it.
Your system administrator can set however many she
chooses, and under them the most popular sub-categories for a one-click search.
4 Finding by CD title, Composer or Performer: (when relevant)
Choose the appropriate radio button to direct the search by either CD Title or Composers and then type a few words or partial words from the CD title or the Composer name. Click ‘search. It will return list of possible matches to ‘drill’ into.
Note: The CD Titles will appear with their parent
libraries. The (number) refers to the
amount of cuts on that cd.
5 Finding results with the Categories button:
The drill down option is nice but sometime a system has thousands of similar subcategories within general categories. For example, look for ‘JAZZ’ – it can be under ‘style’ or under ‘CD title’ or under ‘Genre’ or under ‘jingles’ and so on – each music owner will stick it where they see fit.
To ‘meta-search’ this, just click ‘categories’ radio button and then the words you are looking for. The result might look like this:
Of course most ‘jazz’ items will be under the category ‘Jazz, but clicking the ‘guitar jazz’ might be what you were looking for!
6 Finding Music by
Cross References:
mSoft is the only system worldwide that has actually “cross
referenced” material from multiple libraries.
If you want to see what some piece of music has been cross referenced to
simply hit the (Icon for record details) to see any other
Music that this item has been “cross referenced” to in the database. For example you might find Big Band items
that might be cross referenced to other music genres, instruments, geography,
etc.
7 Using the Advanced Music Search Feature :
If you are not sure where to find what you wanted - hit the ‘advance search’:
This page will search across Description, CD title, Composer, and Track Title – and give you the option of choosing ‘OR’ or ‘AND’ between the fields. For example, choose ‘Beethoven’ in composer and ‘Pastoral’ in Track Title. This will find all music with ‘Beethoven’ as composer and the word ‘Pastoral’ in the Track Title. You do not need to fill all the fields to get results.
Because this search is logically pretty complex this way of searching across cross-field results takes some experimentation. Also keep in mind that certain searches might take a bit more time!
How many records to find? How many to display?
Record Results
Option:
With this option you tell the system how many results to
return and how many are displayed per page (Note:
Maximum Page returns are 999)
The more you look for, the longer it will take.
The more you want to display on a single page, the longer it will take to refresh and scroll to the next page.
For speed and efficiency we advise that you avoid looking
for very large number of records; the system can do it but you are using more
resources than you need and we know that you will not click to listen to
250,000 cuts! It will take 7 labor years to listen to everything mSoft has in
its database as of September 2003!
Sorting Option:
You can choose the sort order of the returned results.
‘NO SORT’ is the fastest search because we do not need to read all the matching records.
‘CONTENT’ sorts by Description and Remark
‘TIME’ sorts by track length (given that we have that information)
‘CATALOG’ sorts by the library catalog number
‘COMPOSER’ sorts by composer (Music only)
‘CD Title’ sorts by CD Title (Music only)
‘Track Title’ sorts by CD Track Title (Music only)
Quick Filter Option:
If you want to search within a subset of libraries there is a filter by library option:
Filtering:
The system administrator can set groups of libraries and give them a descriptive name: “libraries under blanket” or “libraries under needle drop” are two prime examples for potential sets; You might want to look for blanket licensed music first since it is cheaper to use.
From the quick filter drop down list select whatever group you wish to use.
Your search results will then limit you within that chosen library or libraries.
Note: this selection
overrides the ‘content type’ selection (SFX, MUSIC, VIDEO, ALL)
Content Type (ALL
and Video):
VIDEO:
The MusicCue system will also handle video. You can store MPEG, Quicktime, AVI, etc. on your
server and use all of the search options to access your files.
ALL:
This option will search across ALL content types (SFX, MUSIC, and VIDEO)
Note: there is a
Search Limitation -
You can not search
a single character. 2 characters is the minimum length.
The work can be organized into ‘Projects’
and ‘Spots’ within ‘Projects’. Each user
can create an unlimited number of Projects and within it unlimited number of
‘Spots’. Each Spot can contain up to 50
links to Sfx, Music or Video files. This
is an excellent way to organize your work and provides a “history” of your used
work. Projects can be shared across the
system so that multiple users can access and edit projects that will be worked
on by multiple users. You may envision
the benefits of being able to go back a few months to grab your Sfx or Music
from particular Projects and quickly importing them into your new Projects with
a click of a button.
Creating Projects and Spots:
Click the Project button to start the creation of a new project.
Then name it and add a description if you like. Click the submit button.
You will then be prompted to name your first Spot under that Project.
Click the submit button.
You will then see “Spot
created or edited; Now, drop some sound into it!” You would then hit the
button
to drop items into that Spot.
To add more Spots within that Project go to that Project. You will see the Spot that you created at first. You then hit the Spot button to create a new Spot WITHIN that Project.
Adding
content to Spots:
Before you can add content to a Spot within a Project you must first choose the Spot
from the list (so the system now
knows that you are in that Spot);
then just click the button (next to
the speaker icon) to drop the media into the Project/Spot. Once there, you can click the 
(E for Edit)button to
add remark to that media within this spot.
To see further record details click the (Icon of a records page) button to see details
of the media (you can do this either from the Project/Spot or from the normal
results pane). To remove an item simply click the 
(Minus Icon) button to remove the item from
the spot. To play the item click the 
(Speaker) button to play the media.
On the project or spot level will remove the spot or the project after
validation of intent, will edit the spot or project name and 
will prepare a transfer of the spot or the
entire project to the special mSoft players (PC or MAC).
Transferring media
from one Spot to another Spot:
The bottom right button (marked “O” for Open) will open the Spot into the left results pane.
You can then search for another Spot to drop those items
into by hitting the button.
You can also copy an entire spot
by locating that spot, and clicking “COPY SPOT”. After identifying (or creating) a receiving
spot, if you click “PASTE SPOT” it will paste a copy of the previously copied
spot.
Searching for
Projects or Spots:
You can search your own list of Projects or Spots (and you can search – if your security level is high enough – other people’s Projects) by typing in any partial search word from the title in the search box provided.
Cue Sheets
After completing your Spot you have an option of seeing a Cue Sheet that is generated for that particular Spot by hitting the Cue Sheet button.
Once open you can alter the information in the fields provided. You can print or email this page for reporting purposes.
mSoftPlayer PC – the Windows
players
Classic version: this player is the workhorse in daily
use by thousands of editors worldwide. It is fine-tuned to maximize speed and
can be operated without a mouse. Just click the 
button to see all
keyboard shortcut available to you.
In
the user's preferences check 'direct mount drives' and 'AudioPlugPro (PC)
When you search now you will see a new speaker icon that changes red when you click it to play:
if you do not see the new speaker icon, you did not install the player!
Please make with you system admin that you are covered under a seat license for the player, then:
- Unzip the player installation package into a new directory c:\msoft on you computer
- Drag and drop the following files (one by one) on RegSvr32.exe to register it:
AXMSOFT.ocx
HHTPCT.ocx
NMOCOD.dll
The player will open automatically if it is not already running, and will display the following adjustable – size screen.
Your can resize the player and ‘stick’ it anywhere you wish on the screen, it will remember that location and size for the next time you need it.
Play 
stop, 
reset, 
drop link to list,
grab
a project, 
batch download /
convert list to target directory, 
stop batch download,
Edit current file with selected editor, 
scan current directory,
Grab last spot
transferred, 
clear download list,
Running duration (use scrub 
bar to locate anywhere
in the file),
Setup, (see separate
selections)
Help, 
Play only 5 seconds
from each download 
Play batch
If
you set the player on the setup screen
for ad-hoc batch,
The play list will look like this. Click
‘download batch’
You’ll
get this screen: 
Choose a target directory to download
You can choose to convert while downloading.
To
grab an existing project and spots within a project click this
You’ll get this. Dbl-click on a project to see spot list or check
to get this:
click OK and you have the entire project with spot tree ready to be transfer; choose target directory and it will not only transfer and convert, it also will keep the tree of the project and under it all the spots.
Logging In
Open up your web browser and browse to the name or IP address of the ServerSound server. Type in your assigned password in the password field and press “Enter” when you’re ready to start! The system will log you into the main server and automatically log you off from any other location you previously logged into the system from.
