• Use the Magix LiViD virtual drummer, for digital percussion with human performance qualities
• New ringtone generator lets you export your own sounds to common cellular phone audio formats
• Comes with 2 CDs featuring 3,000 new loops, samples, effect presets and video clips
• Burn data to a DVD, archiving your entire sound library
• Work with professional effects like Chorus, Flanger, Modulated Filter and Delay

Music Maker 10 Deluxe has a professional range of functions for incredible sound quality at home, with a user-friendly simplicity that lets your creative spark shine more easily and more brightly. Updated Task Assistant for help with common tasks & with making videos Wider range of remix functions, including EQs and insert effects Magix Remix Maker for extended remix automation Optimized start and end marker handling for faster arrangements Expanded MIDI editor for more intuitive MIDI handling and arranging Low Latency offers fast response for real-time recording and live audio inputs

Customer Rating:
Summary: A lot of good things, and a few omissions
Comment: I upgraded from version 5 to version 10 last year. This product features two different software programs, the Music Studio and the MIDI studio.
The music studio functions like a recording studio, and provides easy editing of a multi-track recording, with intuitive, easy-to-use effects.
If you're used to dragging and clicking things in other computer applications, it's not at all hard to figure out how to do it in Music Studio 10. The features list is far more than one needs to easily record and remix in Music Studio 10. The Music Studio side offers a number of synthesizers and effects. the effects are easy to use. The synthesizers
are not too difficult, but underwhelm me somewhat. For example, the "natural" drum machine LiVid, aims to provide easy "instant" percussion, but in my experience its "instant" beats rarely satisfy.
On the other hand, if one wishes to create ("sequence") notes into a simple synthesizer to supplement one's song with individual composition, the synths are useful for this purpose.

The main place to create new music, as opposed to record music, is the MIDI Studio. This studio lets one write songs which can be played back
using either general MIDI, several in-built synthesizers, or by adding "VST plug-ins", which are little plug-in additions to host programs which may be easily obtained from a number of on-line sites (there are freeware, shareware and commercial ware synths readily available).

I've never made much use of the MIDI studio, although it has a lot of functionality. Here I find myself disappointed with the tutorial materials. The materials included with the handbook and the software are
not well-written. In some cases, they seem to be transliterations from German written by people who do not put themselves in the mind of the consumer who actually wants to make music with the software. I find myself using other software for my MIDI sequencing as a result.

In mitigation, Magix runs a forum which is staffed by really knowledgable volunteers, which helps with support. Also, lately Magix tutorials which are more useful show up at the recognized on-line video sites where people go to watch short video. Still, for me, Music Studio is by far the more useful device, as MIDI studio has never seemed as user-friendly to me.

Music Studio is great software if you want something more featured than freeware programs like Audacity, but want to keep the price affordable.
Both versions 10 and 11 have come down a good bit in price, and what was formerly good value for the money is now incredible value for the money.

I have done a number of ccmixter.org remixes using Music Studio 10, and have been very happy with the product. I wish the product had even more tools to assist the remixer, but the bpm detection, "elastic audio easy" for pitch tuning and other devices are of some use. Still, it's not a bad rudimentary remixing station, and it's a very capable recording workstation.

This is not perfect software, but it's very good software. If Magix put as much thought into getting routine technical writing done by people attuned to the new user's musical goals, then this product would improve dramatically. But Magix does try, and this is a good product.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great product !
Comment: This software is easy to use and it doesnt take long to figure out the many options it has to make great music.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Makes you feel like a pro
Comment: This product is great!It is pretty easy to use and to navigate around. You can produce a nice sounding track once to get the hang of it.I have several songs I made already on my personal website and people are rating them!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great for the money to throw down some tunes
Comment: I am a blues/rock/experimental musician with intermediate skill with both instruments and recording software. I don't have the time or money to devote to learning high dollar pro-tools, etc. I was familiar with cakewalk prior to this purchase. For the dollar, this was a great bargain to do my recording. That being said, I'm a one-take kind of guy who doesn't like to do much tweaking on the mixdown or master.

So I highly recommend this product if you fit the following traits:
1. Don't have money or time to learn the professional toolsets
2. Are computer-literate (lots of drag and drop action)
3. You are not overly picky or have high expectations of the software.
4. Just want to have a little fun.

I did find issues with stability on Windows XP Home with the latest SP. The software has crashed a couple of times.

Another complaint is the drum synth doesn't sound right when you slow down the tempo. Maybe there is a workaround but if you want to play a song at 93 BPM the best bet is to use an external drum machine as opposed to the kits provided in this software.

There are plenty of mixdown and editing features available for those who do editing and mastering.

I wouldn't use it if I were recording a professional-quality CD, although it probably could be done. Definitely a good starting point for young or inexperienced recorders.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Big Improvement Over MM2005 Deluxe, But Still Not Perfect
Comment: I have been using Magix Music Maker since version 7, and have seen it progress in terms of stability and features. This version is the most capable and stable yet, although it is not without problems.

To summarize the functionality of this application, it is a clone of Sony's Acid program. It is a loop sequencer with which you can quickly put together loop-based musical compositions. Included is a set of loops of varying styles to get you off the ground quickly, as well as a series of virtual synthesizers to create your own sounds. For the price, you get a lot right out of the box.

Central to the program is the main sequencer, which is simply a specialized grid onto which you can drag and drop your loops and synthesizer tracks. There is the ability to individually manipulate track data by varying volume and adding fade in/out effects, as well as a rather extensive collection of special effects for creating 3D effects in your audio. There is also an integrated effects rack for tweaking and "fiddling" to get the sound just right.

The synthesizers that are included are varied in nature and include a beat box, a drum machine, a "virtual drummer", copper, silver, classical guitar, a grand piano, an ambient sound generator, and a couple of others. While these are all useful, I have found that one cannot generate the "right sound" in every situation. Particularly limited is the new "LiViD" synth (Little Virtual Drummer) which seems to be just a loop-based drum generator with prerecorded tracks that allows you to tweak the drum tracks in a few interesting ways.

While the built-in synthesizers may leave you wanting a little more, there is a VSTi host for integrating other synthesizers that are downloadable from the net to allow you a wider range of unique sounds. In MM2005D I had consistent problems with the VSTi host, but the problems seem to have been addressed in this new version. Adding a couple of external synths is easy and can give a big boost to the range of sounds you can create. I am glad this feature seems to have received some attention.

One of the strongest features of this package is, in my opinion, the mixer, which allows one to manipulate individual tracks, setting volumes and balance as desired, all in a central place. This fine tuning capability enables one to get the track arranged perfectly without needing to go after every individual loop in the arrangement.

In spite of the good things I have to say about this application, it still is flawed. I have had it crash on me a few times, grabbing the CPU and not letting go and not doing anything. The solution was to kill it in the task manager, which is a poor way to close an unruly application.

Also, as was true with the 2005 edition, the program only allows a limited number of mp3 creations before requiring an additional fee if you want to use this feature. To get around this, I save my compositions as WAV files and convert them using LAME (free DLL that can be downloaded from the internet), which is an effective and no-cost solution.

Overall, this is a good application and allows the user to have hours of creative fun, building music tracks. It is not a perfect solution, but for the price it is worth the investment if loop-based music creation is of interest to you.

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