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SoundBasket was the first product developed by
Raw Material Software, the software design company set up
by Julian Storer and Philip Meehan in 1999. The initial idea for SoundBasket was to design a network- based sound effects server for use in professional post-production studios, utilising low-cost PCs, hard-drives and networks. 
Within 3 months, a fully-working version of SoundBasket was up-and-
running at a top London film sound facility, and by the summer of 2000,
there were several SoundBasket installations, with a total capacity of
over 1000GB (approaching 1 million digitised sound files!)Uniquely, SoundBasket took a different approach to searching for sound effects, by utilising a complex algorithm that analysed what you typed in, rather than did simple 'string matching'. This resulted in an intelligent system which would find the sound of thunder if you typed in 'lightning', a sound effect named 'children playing' if you just typed in 'kids', coped with American spellings and/or foreign-language terms, non-standard plurals, synonyms, brand names and even common misspellings. All this was presented in an ergonomically-designed single-screen interface, optimised for the way that sound designers and editors work. Here were some of SoundBasket's more interesting features:
Looks good, doesn't it! Yep, we thought so - and so did the dozens
of studios who all wanted to buy one...
So what happened to SoundBasket? Well, after literally
two years of discussions, meetings and business plans with
five different UK distributors, it became rapidly obvious that
the UK pro-audio industry is made up of 'box shifters' - people who simply
want to buy a boxed product from a manufacturer, double the price, and sell
it on. We wanted SoundBasket to have the full support and backup of a
professional UK-based pro-audio company, but to this day... we simply haven't
found one who was up to the job...Oh well, we don't care. There are, as of now, over 50 SoundBasket terminals in constant use each and every day, and we still support upgrades and library additions and for those happy, happy customers. So, dear reader, let this be a lesson to you. Legal Notice:
the views expressed on this page are not necessarily those of either Julian
Storer or Raw Material Software, but are, instead, those of Philip Meehan
who wasted what seems like the best years of his life typing in thousands
and thousands of sound effect descriptions for essentially nothing.
To this day he still can't sleep properly and even though SoundBasket
has him made a fair old wodge of cash, he still can't go into any London
pro-audio shop without throwing some sort of fit and attempting to attack
the staff. If anyone would like a confidential list of the names and
addresses of the useless pro-audio distributors who have reduced him to
this, please send us an
email, making
sure you include the phrase 'time-wasting bastards' in the Subject line.
Thank you
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