Avid Xpress Studio is a software suite that includes a variety of Avid programs designed for various aspects of multimedia editing and recording. It includes the Avid Xpress video editing software, the Pro Tools sound editing program, and a host of other hardware (such as Avid Mojo) and software components that allows you to create excellent film and music productions. More recent versions of the Studio include Xpress software that supports high-definition recording and editing.

While all programs included in Xpress studio can be used on their own, the benefit of having them as a package in the Studio is that they are all linked together, facilitating the use of multiple programs for the same project. You can record and mix background music in Pro Tools; you can also use the program to edit dialogue and sound effects in your film. You can edit your video independently in Xpress, and then easily blend the results of the separate sound and video work in Avid Xpress. And although Avid programs not included in Xpress Studio, such as Symphony, cannot directly link to the software in the suite, they nonetheless are compatible and can work well together if you need outside assistance from other products. This makes the overall production process smoother and more efficient.

Music is regarded as a very important sound effect in movie productions. One way to add music to your movie is with sound loops. Loops are small fragments of music, typically no more than 8 bars in duration that are repeated consistently throughout a piece of music, a film, a video game, or a Power Point presentation. While you do not want the same brief piece looping through a long movie, the technique works well for very short films or for specific scenes.

Avid Xpress comes with a variety of pre-set loops that you can import into your film timeline and synchronize with frames of your film. However, the pre-installed creations may not fit the mood of your piece. Perhaps you cannot find the desired genre. Or, you may like the music you find, but something about it is off; perhaps the tempo is too slow for the mood you want to convey. There are a variety of plugins available for the program, such as Noise Industries Factory Tools, which will allow you more sounds and more creative freedom in how you use them.

However, if you have just spent money on Xpress Studio (and it does not come cheap), then you will need to look elsewhere. This situation leads to the beauty of utilizing Xpress Studio suite. If the sound capabilities available in Xpress don’t appeal to you, you can open up Pro Tools and either edit the loops that come pre-installed with that program, or even record and design your own. Then, you can easily import the loops you created in Pro Tools back into Xpress and have the perfect background music for your scene.

The newest version of Xpress Studio (HD) even comes with Sorenson’s Squeeze 4 Compression Suite, which allows you even greater control over your music editing capabilities. Sorenson’s Squeeze 4 Compression Suite works both for sound and for video. This means that you can compress and encode your loops to make them fit with the rest of your project on a DVD.

If you need more royalty free music and sound effects you can find them here
Royalty Free Music Collections from Partners In Rhyme
Free Royalty Free Music From Partners In Rhyme
Royalty Free Music Individual Tracks, Edits and Loops from Musicloops.com
Free Sound Effects from Partners In Rhyme
Professional Sound Effects from Sound-Effect.com