VAAST Track Pak Review

As we all know there is a wide variety of royalty-free music available. Unfortunately a lot of it either sounds like ‘canned music’ or is very expensive to license or requires special software plugins that can be somewhat cumbersome or complicated to use.

I happen to be currently working on a short promotional video for a repeat corporate client. They didn’t want the expensive licensed music that we sometimes use and I felt like I was running out of options with what was in my royalty-free library for this particular piece. Along came Track Packs by VASST/Sundance Media Group for me to review and it proved to be a very timely review!

Each Track Pak CD has at least 7 full arrangements along with segments of those songs, such as intros, endings and all the stuff that goes in between. Each song is similar enough that they can be pieced together seamlessly and can loop for as long as you need it to. This makes it easy to customize your track to fit your video.
To use the Track Pak, you literally copy each piece from the CD onto your computer then import what you want into your NLE. No plug in required. I currently use Premiere Pro CS3 and each piece of music came into the project just fine and didn’t need any sort of rendering. If you need to customize your piece, you just drop the segments onto the timeline and butt them up against each other. If you have Adobe Audition, there are markers every 2 seconds where you can and cut or copy chunks of music for a REALLY customized piece of music!

There are currently 4 different volumes of Track Paks. Volume One is “Piano & Pads” and Volume Two is Guitar & Pads. These two volumes are full of what I would call heartwarming and sweet music tracks that are good for emotional videos and weddings. All the arrangements are available with either just the one instrument alone or with a string or synth pad.

Volumes 3 is called Static Impulse which is electronic/techno with strong beats and effects. This music is well-suited for high energy videos such as sports and fast-paced promo pieces. Each piece has a slightly different beat so there are tons of options for customizing these pieces. Volume 4, Hall of Shadows is dramatic and mysterious. These tracks are available either with or without a backbeat. This music is suspenseful and a bit on the eerie side.

I’m not a musician by any stretch of the imagination; although I did play the clarinet in 7th grade (I was pretty bad too). But being a videographer means I obviously have to listen to and use a wide variety of music. To me, the quality of Track Paks seems top notch although there is still a very slight ‘canned’ feel to a few of the pieces. At $89 per CD, or $200 for all four volumes on www.vasst.com, the cost seems very fair for good quality music that is easy to customize and loop.