Editor's Note: This is an expanded version of the review that appears in the January issue of DV magazine.

By J.R. Bookwalter
Despite all of the advances in digital video, one aspect of postproduction continues to elude novices and prosumers alike: good music. While numerous royalty-free stock music libraries are available (and most of them are shifting away from audio CDs to “instant gratification” online downloads), there are times when you want something customized to your project, be it simply an audio sketch to relay your ideas to a composer or for those looking for a finished cue but can’t afford one.

Enter Abaltat Muse 2.0. This Mac OS X software package performs audio magic on your QuickTime movies by virtually writing a score to your picture with a few mouse clicks. You can use the results as-is, tweak and customize them to your liking or even export a MIDI file to build onto your compositions with other music programs.

When I was first assigned the review for Muse 2.0, I was familiar with the product only by name. At first glance, the program appeared to be a costlier version of Apple’s popular GarageBand (included in their iLife ’08 package) or Soundtrack Pro (part of the Final Cut Studio 2 suite). Thankfully, Abaltat set me straight on that right away on a telephone walk-through of the software with one of their product managers, and it was immediately clear that this is a different animal altogether.

Muse 2.0 requires Mac OSX 10.4.7 (PPC) or 10.4.8 (Intel) or higher (it runs great for me using the latest, Leopard 10.5.5) and 2GB of hard disk space, most of which is taken up by the professional sound samples the software uses to create your score. Installation is fast and simple, and the Muse program itself is quite small compared to many modern programs (only 20MB). You’ll have to enter a license key, which is tied to your specific hardware, so make sure you install it only on the system you intend to use it with.

Upon launching the program, you’re greeted with… nothing! You’ll have to open a QuickTime movie (by dragging its icon onto the Muse icon in the Dock or using the File > Open command), and Muse begins to analyze your video. How long this takes depends on the speed of your system and the length of your video, but in general it’s better to open short clips (less than a few minutes), which will take a minute or two to analyze, depending on their complexity.
After the movie is analyzed, you’ll notice a Color Timeline window with nine different color patterns and a graph displaying your video content as waveforms. The Color Timeline is how Muse does its magic — it translates the video to a spectrum that can be matched to the music it creates, using the various colors to determine the mood and style of the piece (with a little help from you, of course).

The main window for Muse 2.0 features your QuickTime movie, a volume slider for Music and Movie, the option to solo or mute five audio tracks (Melody 1, Melody 2, Bass, Drums and FX), a Compose button and a timeline, where you can add, delete and modify keyframes to alter your compositions. At the bottom are standard transport controls for your video playback, and the music remains locked to them as well. It’s a pretty lean interface (even the Preferences window is bare-bones), but don’t be deceived… there’s a lot of power under the hood here.

Click on the large Compose button and you can select a Band type: Atmospheric, Ensemble, Hip Hop (Classic), Minimalist (Orchestra), Minimalist (Electronic), Percussion or Retro Tech. Each Band type has presets you can use or alter accordingly using the Advanced button. If you want to get started quickly, select a Band and Preset and click OK. Muse will process your selection against the Color Timeline of your video (you’ll see a Progress box as the score is built and samples are added), and in a moment you’ll be ready to preview your composition. Click the Play button (or space bar) and your score plays back with the movie. It’s that simple!

For better results, the Advanced button expands the selector to offer a few adjustments to further make your music your own. You can choose from Melodic or Freestyle compose methods, tell Muse to concentrate its arrangement only on specific color types (you can use the Color Timeline window to scroll through the video and see which ones are affecting your music and where), adjust the tempo, complexity and time signature of your finished cue, and more.

The real wonder of Muse is that it can “read” your movie and translate it into anything resembling real music to begin with. And keep in mind that no two cues will ever be the same, even with the same presets, because Muse is creating a piece that’s customized to whatever video you feed into it.

Before you decide to hand your friendly neighborhood music composer his walking papers, remember that Muse 2.0 is not just going to do a complete music score to your project at the click of a button. Abaltat’s product manager was quite clear that the software is primarily designed as a sketchpad to convey ideas and moods to a composer, although it’s capable of producing customized background music for corporate logos, documentaries and much more if you tweak it.

Muse’s output will also vary depending on your video content. I fed it several trailers for feature films that I’ve produced, and the results were not always the greatest. It fared much better with simpler graphics or talking-head subject matter, keeping the score interesting but not as repetitive as stock music. Darker content will likely translate to less-interesting music as well, if my experience is any indication.

Where Muse does shine is in its ability to load a quick video, rough out a temp score and then export a MIDI file that can be imported into the aforementioned GarageBand, Digital Performer, Logic or just about any other music software. There you can repatch instruments to your heart’s content, add tracks that would be otherwise cumbersome or impossible in Muse, and polish your score until it’s just right.

In addition to MIDI, Abaltat has included AIFF and WAV audio and QuickTime movie export. The latter allows you to combine your customized score with your video and import both back into your NLE of choice, while the former gives you the opportunity to do the same with just the new music score.

If Muse has one Achilles heel, it’s that tweaking your arrangement is frequently a cumbersome task. While you can do some basic mixing using keyframes, this ability almost seems like an afterthought to the programmers, who have spent most of their time enabling us to do the nearly impossible (and don’t get me wrong, this is time well spent!). I’d recommend Muse as a complement to another music program in your arsenal rather than as an all-in-one, whiz-bang jack-of-all-trades.

The Abaltat Web site features a number of tutorial movies to better acquaint you with Muse 2.0, as well as a downloadable, time-limited trial version. And truthfully, this is one of those rare software packages that you really do have to see in action (or better yet, use it yourself) to fully appreciate what it can do. If you’re burned out on stock music tracks or don’t have the chops to DIY with GarageBand, Muse 2.0 is an inexpensive, simple and time-efficient way to score audio that’s fully locked to your QuickTime video.

Just don’t quit your day job! 

ABALTAT MUSE 2.0

SCORE:

PROS: Simple, minimalist interface with quick, easy and customized results.

CONS: Probably too pricey for many prosumers, often cumbersome to tweak your scores without MIDI export, not as effective on fast-paced video content.

BOTTOM LINE: Pulls a giant rabbit out of your magic hat by allowing content creators to sketch out musical ideas or even produce finished, customized scores with a few clicks.

MSRP: $299.99 (introductory price for download or CD)

CONTACT: www.abaltat.com