Sound Library companies are offering easier ways for users to find that perfect music or sound via the Web.

Some clients with large in-house libraries are provided with Sonomic's Total Library Server. The standalone server allows the client to search its own library and make a one-button click onto Digidesign Pro Tools, on the track and timecode specified by the user. "This is a great time-saver," Price comments, because otherwise they would have to find the sound, edit it, import it and then drag it to the track."

At its NAB exhibit, Sonomic will emphasize this sound library management system but will also show a lower-priced version aimed more at freelance post production and broadcast engineers. Although Sonomic is effects-oriented, its support systems handle music as well.

FIRSTCOM: DOWNLOADING CONTINUES TO GROW

With more than 1,500 CDs and 28,000 compositions, FirstCom Music (www.first-com.com) in Dallas has an extensive Web site with its own search package called Musiquick Online. It allows search through keyword and nearly 50 applications, such as corporate and orchestral. These can be combined in a single search with any of 11 indexes, including style, composer, instrumentation, tempo and title.

"All clients who have Internet access use Musiquick for at least part of their search," says VP/executive producer Ken Nelson.

Music can be downloaded in AIF files or 256K MP3. He estimates about 20 percent of customers are now downloading music for use, and this practice continues to grow.

Meanwhile, clients continue to seek help from the company's three music directors, in LA, Dallas and New York Nelson reports at least half of its users call these people to recommend specific discs or tracks. This is more like 90 percent for TV and film producers because either they don't house large libraries or their music needs are very specific. He notes their needs are quite different from those of a corporate production operation, which tends to maintain a library with a very specific style.

An exhibit at NAB will focus on improvements made to Musiquick, including the "virtual preview." Nelson explains, "Instead of exchanging discs back and forth, customers can go to a place we set up on our Web site containing the discs they need to audition, including full tracks in all versions."

FirstCom offers a project management system that allows users to save tracks into projects and share them via e-mail. It also has a disc inventory updating system, allowing users to update their "virtual library" of discs to match their in-house inventory.

LA POST MUSIC: WEB SEARCHES VIA CUE QUEST

Cue Quest is the name for the online search capability of LA Post Music (www.lapostmusic.com) in Sherman Oaks, CA. Music licensing administrator Antonio Moncada says customers can choose a genre, put in a keyword or search by cue number from the back of the CD to get information on the composer or publisher. Each choice has a three-second sample for auditioning.

Not yet offering broadcast-quality downloading, he notes, "We'll do so when we can perfect our security system. In the future, if it's the best way to go, we may put the whole library in a hard drive. This will provide a centralized box with all of the music so that the customer won't have to inventory the CDs.

"The biggest change," Moncada asserts, "is that libraries are popping up everywhere. Our edge is having a higher quality sound." The use of the company's music ranges from on-hold telephone music to such TV series as The Sopranos, The Simpsons, Sex and the City and Ed. New music offerings include a Christmas jazz CD, "Americana Piano," "Traditional Brazilian," "Mysterious Intrigue" and "Americana Guitar."

VIDEOHELPER EMPLOYS FRESH GROUND

New York-based VideoHelper (www.videohelper.com) uses the Music Source program from LA's Fresh Ground for online searches. There's also a desktop version for producers who don't have online access in edit rooms. The music library is a member of Library-Tracks.com, an online search engine and project-management operation.

The Music Source program allows search by genre, style, emotions, or featured instruments, including such specifications as authentic Greek or Cuban instruments. President Joe Saba says keyword search can emphasize qualities. "If you want things intentionally crappy," he says, "we get nine results for 'crappy."'

The music can be downloaded in noncompressed CD quality -- 16-bit, 44.1 kHz. While nearly all customers use the search engine, fewer than half use the download capability.

Saba explains, "For some people, CDs are a lot easier, and many of our clients are too time-starved to wait for a download. Not all of our clients have broadband connections and others that do also have firewalls, which don't allow much downloading of large amounts of data from non-company sources.

VideoHelper's NAB exhibit will emphasize new releases and the streamlining of its search engine with easier keywords and more specific categorization to search among the company's approximately 1,700 titles.

BROADCAST-QUALITY DOWNLOADS ON THE WAY

Also using Music Source is NYC's Metro Music Productions (www.metromusicinc.com). President Mitch Coodley hopes to offer broadcast-quality downloads within the first quarter via Fresh Ground software.

"We're a fairly small library, with about 60 CDs," he says, "and our longterm clients get to know the whole library. The newer clients like to use a combination of our Web site search and having us do the search. Many of our customers say, 'I'll know it when I hear it,' and can't fully describe in advance what they want."

He adds, "There's an advantage in having an audio disc in front of you. You can audition 12 cuts in a minute, listening to a few seconds of each. You can't do that on a Web site. If someone comes up with a system for that, I'll sign up, but now, if you want to compare multiple cuts, you have to download them." In the spring, Metro Music expects to offer its search engine on a CD-ROM.

MANAGING SOUNDS

For production facilities, the larger an in-house sound library gets, the more elusive its assets become. This is when a company like Woodland Hills, CA's mSoft, Inc. (www.msoftinc.com) gets into the act.

"Libraries can be inundated with CDs," points out Doug Perkins, VP of sales and marketing for mSoft," and it becomes unmanageable for them." Because of this, his company's digital asset management systems are now being used by such operations as music production facilities, Internet game producers, audio post facilities and advertising agencies.

Most of these clients employ the mSoft system for sound effects and production music, but Perkins says it also has the capability to manage uncompressed video. When mSoft takes on a library, it gets lists of its CDs to load onto a server for search. The content is digitized as audio files.

"The production company is able to keep cue sheets of the music it's using," Perkins notes, "and this can be imported into a production cue sheet, rather than them having to make a cue sheet by hand. If they're looking for surf music from the '50s with a twangy guitar, we give them a database of everything they have like that."

The company is considering offering a rental option. Currently, purchase ranges from $20,000 to $100,000, based on the size of the library. Perkins estimates that rental would cost a few hundred dollars a month.

RELATED ARTICLE: For those wanting improved service from sound libraries, the keyword is "user-friendly." Clients who prefer to deal with a helpful representative can still be accommodated, but the online repertoire of services keeps building. Some recent developments are:

* A greater number of search parameters

* Broadcast-quality downloading from more libraries

* Sorting capability

* Client server systems, including a move toward lower cost systems directed toward freelance post production professionals

With many sound libraries and asset management services exhibiting at the upcoming NAB exhibition, these developments can be expected to be a major subject of discussion.

An example of a current online search approach is offered by douglas Price, co-founder/COO of Sonomic (www.sonomic.com) in New York. A client desiring rain in Zambia would use a combination of category and keyward search, starting with the "ambiance" category and then going to "foreign," followed by "Africa." Finally, the keyword, "rain," would be employed.

Price points out that clients can search by file name, production company, description or library at any stage of the process. Sounds from Sonomic can be downloaded in 44.1 on 48 kHz, all in 16 bits. He discloses his company will be supporting 5.1 formats as well as 24 bits beginning in the second quarter.