Features

• Powerful and intuitive authoring software for professional DVD creation
• Design dynamic DVDs with the extensive set of built-in tools
• Straightforward workflow; visually intuitive storyboard interface
• Add multiple subtitle and audio tracks like Dolby Digital AC-3 audio
• Preview in real-time; enhanced input and output options

Features

• Quick Launcher and step-by-step creation wizard
• Supports most video file formats
• Plays in any DVD player
• Produce high quality compressed video files quickly and easily
• Edit and combine individual frames

Features

• New Styles palette makes applying styles to your DVD menu easy -- just drag-and-drop
• Enhanced Library palette -Organize your own text layers, vector shapes, background layers, and layer sets; custom library sets for buttons, images, and menu templates, with a click
• Verify your project at any point of production -Encore checks navigation, bit rates, and subtitles for problems any time you need it done
• QuickTime support for a broader choice of import options
• Work without interruption as source files are transcoded in the background

Features

• Music Ace 2, the second title in the highly-acclaimed Music Ace series from Harmonic Vision, is designed for beginning and intermediate students
• Featuring 2,000 musical examples and covering treble, alto and bass clefs, Music Ace 2 picks up where Music Ace leaves off to introduce standard notation, rhythm, melody, harmony, intervals and much more
• Maestro Max and his choir of Singing Notes return for an encore performance with a variety of new instruments to provide students with a continuing introduction to music fundamentals and theory
• Music Ace 2 continues the same fun and engaging format of 24 comprehensive lessons, challenging games and a creative composition tool
• Lessons - 24 engaging, self-paced lessons that accelerate development of fundamental music skills and music theory

Reviews (1)

Making Music Fun
Very well developed program for the young student of music. Can hook up your keyboard to your computer & work the lessons that way, or just use the keyboard, too. Teaches beginning tempo, rhythm, introduces the various concepts of all the differences in tempo, beat, etc. Teaches about the grand staff, also has a "doodle pad" where kids can make their own music & hear it played back to them. Lots of fun! ... Read more

Features

• Advanced clone tool removes unwanted elements from multiple frames - five presets plus the ability to overlay a source frame while you paint
• Animate text with built-in Animation Presets -- Set blend modes between characters, randomize text, write scripts and more
• Color correction tools -Adjust the color of footage and other elements with Color Finesse
• Special effects plug-ins add dramatic power to your compositions -Over 60 new plug-ins to choose from
• New disk caching tools speed up your interactive work

Reviews (23)

Excellent Time-Saver
Writing a screenplay can be a very daunting task, especially for someone who is not familiar with the format. Before purchasing Final Draft, my previous screenplays were written in your basic, custom-formated Microsoft Word document.

Final Draft 6 does it all the formating for you. A function called "SmartType" finishes off character names for you, so you don't have to keep typing in names. This is wonderful when you have two or three characters talking to each other in a string, so you can quickly type the conversation, as if it were going on in front of you.

When I transferred my previous screenplays into Final Draft, it took about an hour or so to reformat a 106-page document correctly. Final Draft was able to interperate about 80% of the formatting correctly, getting confused on mostly transitions and telling the difference between some scene headings and actions. Although, it knew exactly what was dialogue just by where it was placed in the word document, which I thought was remarkable.

Some of the templates for actual T.V. shows are a little silly, but they serve their purpose: giving you the raw format for a certain show, which can vary greatly depending on the series. If you have your own show you've created, you can save a blank document with the initial beginings of the script as a template and be able to have a fresh document ready for your next episode.

Final Draft is a great purchase for the novice screen writer learning the format, and a wonderful time-saver for the somewhat-established to established veteran.

Final Draft 6 Needs Revision
Even though it remains the Hollywood standard, Final Draft 6 leaves a lot to be desired. For lack of a decent alternative, I've used this application for the better part of a decade, and it remains clumsy to use and well behind the curve of technology.

The big issue: Onscreen text looks atrocious. After a year on the market, Final Draft 6 still doesn't use Mac OS X's technology to render beautiful anti-aliased text. Third-party fixes, like Silk, work only halfway to solve Final Draft's shortcomings. But should an application that costs $ need fixing at all? Unacceptable.

And beware of WYSIWYDG, or "What You See Is What You Don't Get." You might find the perfect font in the Font Menu, but good luck applying it to your screenplay. Worse, there are occasional text hiccups, where the text-rendering is garbled and screen redrawing is skewed.

'Authorization' remains a nuisance, too. (Bet you didn't remember to 'deauthorize''before a system reinstall or upgrade.) I know of no other software that requires such an unwieldy process just to stay running smoothly.

Final Draft 6 is still better than a typewriter or a standard word processor for writing scripts, but not by much. Considering the steep price, maybe it's time to revisit the competition.

Quirky program made useless by copy protection
Buyer beware: Final Draft incorporates an archaic copy protection scheme that will drive you nuts. Every other category of computer software did away with this kind of user-unfriendly copy protection scheme in the mid-80s, but the screenwriting software vendors persist. You're probably better off using Microsoft Word (which is far more robust) and using a simple formatting utility when you're project is finished. If you have any hard drive crashes or hardware upgrades and you forget to de-install Final Draft you will lose your install keys. Tech support is scarce and the online help system is only good for the most basic information. While it should make your life simpler this product will make your life hell. Avoid it like the plague.

Best investment I've made for writing.
I purchased Final Draft a couple of years ago, and it was the best investment for writing I've made yet. I had loads of story ideas in my head, but had no idea how to write a screenplay or teleplay, and didn't have the patience to read a book about it.

I am a VERY basic computer user and feared formatting software would be nothing short of a nightmare, but within a month I formatted three one-hour teleplays, started on a screenplay, and knew how to navigate the software fairly well. The Smart-type feature is a lifesaver, and the various view, outline, and report features are incredibly helpful and save loads of time.

There are a few features that were more complicated to learn, and as an absolute novice I had some questions that I couldn't find answers for in the program, but overall - I'm thrilled with it and use it everyday.

I'd recommend this software to anyone, rank amateur or paid professional ,who's looking for a user-friendly, helpful, and reliable formatting system.

There's a reason the whole world uses it -- it's the best
Final Draft is simply the best there is. Screenwriter is buggy [I borrowed an install from a friend], Scriptware is a joke [based on the demo I tried] and Sophocles doesn't even run on my Mac. If you follow the directions it does exactly what it says it's going to do. It's a professional-grade tool [even though I'm not a professional-grade writer - YET], it's got 24/7 help [that I haven't even come close to needing] and everyone I know uses it [and I do work in the industry]. As far as I can tell the people who have problems with it aren't using it right or they have crappy computers.

Don't mess around with other programs. This one is the one to use. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review

Voyetra has created a winner with Teach Me Piano Deluxe. This comprehensive set includes lessons, music reference, music-related games, and even a simple recording console. It should appeal to both beginning and intermediate players.

Installation was fast and trouble-free. The application's interface is well-designed and navigation through the program is self-explanatory. From the main menu you can select Piano Lessons, Recording Station/Jammin' Keys, Music Games, Music Reference, and SoundCheck. We moved right into the piano lessons, which cover getting started, right-hand training, rhythm training, and more. You can also zoom in on individual chapters, and select solo exercises from a drop-down list.

After choosing right-hand stretches, a video window popped up with our friendly instructor, Hugh Berberich. The camera view is over-the-shoulder, top-down on his hand as he slowly plays a scale up one octave. The video window allows one to pause or repeat the lesson, and move to the next lesson when ready. Throughout this and other lessons, Hugh explains concepts such as intervals, bars, and sharps and flats in a clear and concise manner.

Having made it through a lesson with Hugh, we then checked out the recording capabilities of Teach Me Piano. The recording station looks like a simple mixing board, with 12 sliders; Record, Mute, and Solo buttons; LED level meters; and transport functions. The recording station is quite simple and effective for multitracking keyboard parts, transposing MIDI data to different keys, and assigning the recorded MIDI data to the 128 General MIDI-compatible instruments. Although there are no features like editing or effects, it works well for the purposes of simple recording.

Additional features like music games and the Jammin' Keys section provide a respite from the lessons. Overall, Teach Me Piano offers a lot for the beginning or intermediate piano student, and would probably appeal to those simply interested in the piano's role in modern music. --John Bosch ... Read more

Reviews (21)

I have looked at others but this is simply the best...
What they don't tell you is that, you can add midi songs from the internet to the trainer, so that you can learn thousands of songs.
In the lessons, you can change the tempo, if it goes to fast. You can ask it to label the notes with the corresponding letters, as well as, the fingers to use. You can pick a range of measures to go over, instead of the entire song. The most important part of learning music is the timing and this program teaches it from the beginning.
The sequence that the material is presented and studied is thoroughly professional and challenges you every step of the way. This program with a midi keyboard connected to a computer is an ... alternative to traditional music lessons for children and adults.

Excellent Product !!
I'm 52 years old and learning to play the piano for the first time. I'm using Teach Me Piano Deluxe in combination with my computer (running win xp) and a midi keyboard. I've been at it now for 5 months (practicing about an hour each day). When I started I knew nothing and now I'm playing simple songs. Short of having a teacher sitting beside you, I think this software is the next best thing. If you're willing to make the investment in time, Teach Me Piano will take you a long way toward learning the piano.

Non-Turtle Beach Sound Card Owners beware
AFTER READING THIS REVIEW, PLEASE READ THE UPDATE LOCATED TOWARDS THE BOTTOM.

After reading the reviews of Teach Me Piano Deluxe elsewhere, I must admit that I was geeked.

However, after reading the reviews of the same software here at Amazon.com, I was somewhat apprehensive due to the bad reviews it received, especially for Windows 2000 users and especially the boxed retail version sold in stores.

Therefore, I called Voyetra customer support, told them that I was running Win 2K and there were bad reports on the boxed software and Win 2k. He assured me that there was no difference between the download version and the retail version.

I took him at his work and purchased the retail version. WRONG MOVE! It would really be a nice package IF IT WORKED! As another reviewer stated, the sound is terrible. The MIDI settings keep changing. Sound is intermittent and may leave you at any time.

Using the headphones with this software is a nightmare. Sometimes the sound comes out through the speakers when it should come out through the headphones. Then it might come to its senses and do the right thing.

This software is also a CPU hog. Most of the time, CPU usage is 100%. It hangs constantly, especially during the video episodes and during the verbal instructions. Not only will this software not work properly, but after I kill it in Task Manager, it has the nerve to foul up any other apps that I may want run, even Internet Explorer!

I have rebooted my system tonight 8 times in the course of 1.5 hours. This is totally unacceptable. I will be calling Voyetra on Monday for an upgrade or a refund.

I write software for a living and I am extremely familiar with how to install and use vast numbers of software packages.

However setting up and using software should be a no brainer for even the most novice of users. I feel sorry for a novice trying to wrestle control of their computer back from this software.

UPDATE:

I was FINALLY able to get this program to behave. I was able to, by hunting and pecking, to figure out that for my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum sound card that I had to set specific MIDI Synth before the MIDI Input would work and I had to do it in a specific order. It seems that Voyetra not only wants to sell you their software, but they only support the Turtle Beach sound card which they also want to sell you. With Sound Blaster soundcards being the most popular sound cards, not to mention the fact that many PCs motherboards now come with integrated sound cards, this is unrealistic. I know that every sound card may not be tested, but at least the most popular ones should and there should be a non-Turtle Beach compatibility list on their website. At the very least, the software should warn the consumer that they purchase this software at their own risk if they have a non-Turtle Beach sound card because Voyetra will not provide technical support BEFORE THEY PURCHASE THE SOFTWARE.

Since I eventually got it to work after much PAIN, I upgraded my rating to 2 stars.

Not too bad...
Worked out a lot better than expected. Requires a lot of perseverance and self-determination, but the program itself is very intuitive and easy to use. Highly recommended.

Try this one...
With all these bad reviews, I'd like to make a suggestion...Adventus Piano Suite Premier...Lots of songs, rock solid stability (run the patch from the website if you have any problems) and easy transition from one lesson to the next... ... Read more

Features

• Prepare for singing with proper breathing and posture
• Understand the differences between jazz, blues, classical, opera and other styles
• See your performance and measure it on-screen
• Includes headset microphone

Amazon.com Product Description

Cakewalk Home Studio 2002 frees you from dependence on studios and technicians so you can do your digital recording from your desktop. With support for 24- and 16-bit audio, real-time DirectX effects, DXi software synths, MIDI FX plug-ins, and ACID-format audio loop technology, Home Studio 2002 turns your PC into a multitrack recording studio.

Add a range of audio effects, like Amp Sim Lite, reverb, chorus, delay, flange, and EQ. Create loops fast. Record unlimited audio and MIDI tracks. Mix with real-time audio and MIDI effects. Home Studio lets you work with ACID-format, MP3, WAV, WMA, and MIDI files. You can also import and synchronize AVI video to music projects. This very robust program includes an ACID-format audio loop library as well as free versions of Pyro MP3 and CD Maker (trial version), Virtual Sound Canvas DXi soft synth, and DreamStation DXi soft synth. ... Read more

Reviews (18)

Fantanstic Program!- And Inexpensive Too!
I am new to using my home PC to make digital recordings. Cakewalk Home Studio 2002 is the only recording software I have and it works great! I have a Dell Dimension 8200 computer and am running Windows XP. I agree with other reviews of this product that once you go through the provided tutorials, it's a cinch. Plus, the controls and toolbars of Home Studio make sense and are quite intuitive. The contextual help and help references are quite good.

I am using an M-Audio Omni Studio with a M-Audio Delta 66 sound card and everything works great! I was pleased when the software recognized the sound card immediately after installation. I think my learning curve on Cakewalk Home Studio 2002 may have been positively influenced by my previous experience with using a 4-track, tape-based unit (Tascam Portastudio 414). Plus the toolbars remind me of the ones in AutoCAD 2000. Because the icons make sense (e.g., two small metronome buttons- one with a red square that sounds during recording and one with a black triangle that sounds during playback), the software is easier to learn.

For the money, I don't think you can beat this package. I am a guitarist (classical, jazz, folk), so it may be a while before I get around to exploring all of the MIDI-type features. I think the track view is great for recording and the console view is great for mixing- very straightforward and convenient. I love that I can make MP3 files and send them as email attachments to my music loving friends. The only bummer I've encountered so far is that the MP3 encoder is only a trial one and if you want to keep it, you have to spend an additional $29.

Very good software
I have a full review below. Just wanted to add something else.

Home Studio XL in Windows 2000 gives annoying little problems that force you to stop your flow (in some cases for as long as 5 minutes when it crashes and you let windows 2000 sort everything out on its own). Every problem in the full review pertains to working in windows 2000.

However, on windows 98, its smooth sailing. I never had a problem with it while working in Windows 98.

difficult but outstanding
I purchased this item in spite of the warnings about how difficult it was to learn. It is indeed difficult. The tutorials are detailed, but regretfully silent on some key issues. I had to search the web for solutions to some problems I had in getting it to run on my laptop computer. The solutions simply involved toggling some options in the pull down menus, but I'd never been able to stumble onto the fixes without investing a few hours in searching the web for advice. I still can't get the chorus and reverb options to work on the mixing board. Oh well. Nevertheless, there really isn't anything else like this product -- especially for the price.

Powerful tool, on a budget!
I have read the review above from the guy who says that Cakewalk Home Studio stinks, and cannot disagree more. True, you do have to learn how to master the tool before it will perform optimally, but what's the alternative? You either learn how to do it, or pay someone to do it for you.
As a musical nerd/geek, I use Home Studio a LOT. I have produced my own music as well as that of others, and for the price you simply cannot beat it.
Unless you are a complete weiner, you should be able to figure out how to use the software. Go on, by the software and start recording...You know you want to!

For it's price it is a good value
Software sequencing is not as easy as some might think. It takes a bit of getting used to and reading up on midi, recording audio and mixing. All of this is available on the interent for free and for a person new to home studios it is an excellent supplement for ANY sequencing software.

One area where Cakewalk and other "linear" sequencers create difficulty is when comparing to audio based programs like Acid. It doesn't get much easier than Acid....until you want control that enables you to add your own sounds while playing in which case you'll need the Pro version which while more capable is still not meant for using with midi in any significant way.

Home Studio 2002 is an outstanding bargain. You get a couple of direct x synthesizers aka DXi. They are simple but effective enough to get the user started in software synthesis. Partiuclarly Dreamstation is useful for analog style timbres and the Virtual Sound Canvas is acceptable for traditonal sounds that will play standard midi files.

The audio system is dead simple and requires about an hour to get help through the Cakewalk bulletin board or several other music related sites. Cakewalk's manuals are drab but have the information necessary to get you started. Third party books are common for software. They cut to the chase and do not have to spend the laborious time explaining the entire program. They get you going and then you continue learning with a decent knowledge of the application you are using.

Feature wise you get 80% of the much more expensive Sonar program which adds a beat slicing and sequencing DXi, Rewire capability (for programs that can be synchronized in sample perfect time, some include Reason, ReBirth and Abelton LIVE) and several direct x effects. It's ability to use Acid loops and to save loops to the format makes it especially good for remixers and for those projects that needed a bit more instrumentation but survive as audio tracks. In terms of value for money this is an incredible deal.

There are a couple of contenders but they are nowhere near the capability of Cakewalk Home Studio 2002 which is good enough to create professional tracks.

Considering the professional quality plugins available for instruments and sound/effects processing nothing at this price point is close. Maybe the price of so much flexibility is a little extra work but that becomes a question of whether you need to work immediately or can take a day or two to master the most important aspects of the program so you can lay down tracks and midi takes.

Pass on Cakewalk Home Studio if you are looking for instant gratification. Buy it if you want a taste of the pro-studio at a fraction of the cost. ... Read more

Features

• Live arranger and multitrack arranger and mixer, plus Song Maker tools for arranging a song with a click
• New Robota analog drum machine, one-click looping, vocoder and vocal tuner
• Features 96 tracks for music in stereo, video clips, MIDI, text and images
• Add video fx for animated text blending, rolling credits, transitions and beat-controlled animation
• Create your own musical emails, or Webpages with music embedded into them

Features

• Resources and activities to support composition classes
• Designed for use by teachers and students
• Use at the computer or create handouts and worksheets
• Special IT activities that link to Sibelius or a sequencer
• Hundreds of exercises; high school and college levels

Features

• Complete set of professional DJ tools -- from crossfaders to mixing boards
• Import your own sample and sounds, to edit & mix -- create a completely new sound
• Work with samplers to create your own sampled bit and loops -- mix them into your latest hits
• Add scratching effects and do a little bit of freestyling, with the virtual turntables
• No other external hardware needed

Reviews (1)

mix station
try to mix in my computer ... Read more

Amazon.com

The arguable king of CD burning is back, and it's got a bag of new tricks. Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 Platinum Edition takes you by the hand and leads you through all kinds of CD and DVD creation, from data backups and music compilations to photo slide shows and feature films. User friendly to the last, it comes with a massive manual weighing in at almost 400 pages. Unfortunately, however, beneath the shiny surface of this program hide a few snags.

Burning data and music compilation CDs is simple enough with a "drag to CD" function--you can literally drag files from Windows Explorer onto an icon that resizes in the lower right corner of the desktop. More complex burning and copying can be done through wizards or manually.

For DVD authoring, Roxio includes support for every DVD burning format out there. It allows you to create movies, photo slide shows and more. It interfaces directly with digital video recorders to capture footage to the PC's hard drive, from where you can then burn them to a DVD. You can rearrange parts of a movie, trim clips, add sound, and more. The interface is functional at best, though, and casual film directors will pine for a simpler, more graceful solution than this program can offer.

The PhotoSuite applet's interface is overly friendly and not nearly powerful enough. Adding photos from a networked PC was a painstakingly slow process. Worse, once we'd picked out a few dozen photos, we went to create a VCD slide show and were met with an error message that even baffled Roxio tech support.

Another caveat: Easy CD automatically checks for product updates, but it forces you to register the product in order to download them. This invasion of privacy aside, Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 does provide some easy and user friendly features at the cost of clunky interfaces and limited options for power users.--Joel Durham ... Read more

Reviews (187)

Beats Sonic and Nero hands down
I am very much into burning CD's and now DVD's with the help of Easy CD Creator 6. I have used many other burning software and have nothing but problems. Installing Nero 5 made me lose my drives and I was stuck in Tech Support hell......p. I also tried making VCD and DVD movies with Sonic My DVD and it was a very frustrating experience.

With Creator 6 I was able to capture my video easily, add the content to the DVD Builder layout and I created a DVD with menu's that played perfectly the first time I tried. I am telling you and hope you believe me when I say, this is the easiest CD and DVD burning application available hands down.

I also forgot to mention the MGI photo application that is now owned by Roxio is also bundled as well. The biggest improvement over Creator 4 and 5 is the Audio application Audio Central which lets you rip MP3's and edit the MP3 file and ID Tags which contain all the information of the file. It compares to the audio features of Microsofts media player.

I strongly recommend this suite of burning products to anyone that has a digital camera, video camera, dvd player, or wants to backup or create audio CD's. This application does it all.

Not very user friendly...or with lack of support services
I have to agree, I am very disappointed with the software and services...don't like the idea of talking to a computer or calling long distance. My biggest problem is losing all audio files when video is copied to DVD. I paid 100 for a DVD of an occasion and when I went to copy with this software, I lost all the original audio tracks on the tape:-(...mine was also buddled with Plextor DVD-burner. I have to think twice before I buy another of these products as I now am shopping for something better to replace this software...I also have Pinnicle and with the rendering and failing to copy over to the DVD, it's just about as bad...customer service is better though.

Expensive but worth it
All CD&DVD burners tend to be fairly expensive, as usually software is. Comparing this to Nero, Roxio is a sure buy. It is really easy (surprise, surprise) to use, and it looks good.

It is also powerful, in the sense that you can do almost anything with it. You can even cut your music, design menus for your movie DVDs and create your own covers for your CD cases.

It comes with a helpful handbook that helps you deciding on wich application to use (Audio central, Creator Classic etc.).

One thing it lacks is a wizard. Wizards are always nice to use and keep you self-confident that you woun't waste your DVD disk though it is quite hard even without the wizard.

I didn't have any writer probelms, and I am overall happy with the product, though I think that once you buy an expensive DVD burner one has to buy an expensive program as well, though this does make burning so much easier than playing with codes and files and windows. If your looking for an powerful burner, this is what you should buy.

Save your money...
The best thing about this product is that I got it via eBAY for $15.00. I know now why it was so cheap. The module that I was really interested in, DVD creator, is a total disaster. It is hard to use, confusing, and does not produce repeatable results. Forget about getting help from Roxio. I tried using the email route. About 3 days after submitting a question, you get some form-letter jibberish back, unrelated to the question. I refuse to pay for long distance. I also refuse to buy any more Roxio products, at any price.

A Genuine Stinker
I got this software with a terrific Plextar PX-708UP disk drive. Why they include ROXIO I will never understand. Lot's of problems. It doesn't work along with Redxpress Express Copyware 3. After using Redxpress once, the computer would recognize the DVD drive, but the ROXIO program wouldn't. The exact same thing happened with my two machines, both equipped with Windows XP. Don't buy it. Ive consistently found ROXIO products to be low rent. The pits. Go with Nero. ... Read more

Features

• Choose from 7,500 royalty-free sounds and loops in. wav format -- all created by top international producers
• Select your sound -Trance, Hard Trance, Progressive House, Euro Dance, Chill, Hip Hop, Latin, Garage, Britpop or Alt-Rock
• Use the Sound Browser 2.0 to find the perfect sample, and edit it visually to fit your songs
• Warp sounds and create a new feel with the eJay RealStretch Time Stretcher
• Fully compatible with all other music software

Amazon.com Product Description

Express your musical creativity with ease and flexibility with ACID Music 3.0. ACID Music is a software solution for creating original, royalty-free music quickly and easily. Create music in a number of styles with its multigenre loop library containing more than 600 loops. Paint your music without messing with complicated sequencers, drum machines, or musical instruments. Enhance each individual track with effects that are sophisticated, yet simple to use. After you're finished with your tune, burn it to CD with ACID Music's Track-at-Once CD burning, export to MP3, or publish online to Acidplanet.com.

Create music using an easy-to-use pick, paint, and play-style interface. Pick the sounds you like and paint your music track by track. Use as many loops as your computer can handle. Once you're done, sit back and enjoy the groove. It's that easy--just dig in and get creative.

Hundreds of loops are available for your use. ACID Music includes a content CD containing more than 600 loops and dozens of projects from Sonic Foundry's Loops for ACID collection. This huge assortment will get you on your way to creating royalty-free music in minutes. Genres include: dance, hip-hop, techno, industrial, pop, rock, jazz, ambient, orchestral, and more. A number or studio effects are available to deliver maximum impact, including EQ, reverb, delay, flange, chorus, phaser, and more. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Easy to use, and pretty powerful
Given that this is a stripped down version of some of Sonic Foundry's more powerful (and expensive) professional tools, Acid Music 3.0 is still a pleasant surprise. I had it set up on my computer within ten minutes, and with very little tutoring from the instruction guide, was able to browse to the music loop library, "paint" out loops on the multi-track display, modify loop characteristics like reverb and bass, and so forth. Obviously, Acid Music 3.0 doesn't easily stand alone. This software cannot generate its own unique loops, so I wound up having to find a MIDI program that would let me create original loops for making truly original music. But as a non-musician who hosts a radio program and is a bona fide electronic music fan, Acid Music 3.0 made it super easy to assemble my MIDI tracks into pretty good sounding pieces. I would recommend this program to anyone, musician or non-musician, interested in breaking into the world of digital computer music creation. It's been almost three months since my wife gave me my copy as a gift, and I've managed to put together many different kinds of pieces of music, using both original content and the great loops that come with the program. It's a lot of fun, and has me hungering to see what more I can do with the thing.

What a Suprise!
I discovered this software by accident, while window shopping, and I ended up buying it and taking it home. I was able to get it up and running pretty quickly, and was creating my own music right out of the box. Of course it takes some time, but this program makes it possible to make some pretty good music in your spare time. Add a mic to your computer,and you can pretty much turn your computer into a recording/editing studio, make your own music and burn it to CD. Sounic Foundry also makes it easy to publish your work to the web, by providing an online community of Acid music-makers who review and comment on one anothers' work. You can also listen to music published by other users. Even if you're just a musical legend in your own living room, this makes it easy and fun to become just that. Sound Forge also sells music loops on CD especially for Acid, but you can find lots of free loops on the web that also work. Sound Forge also provides weekly samples for free on their Acid Planet website.

The best of the ACID Music series.
This one is definately the best out of all of the previous ACID Music programs. It has a ton of loops, a really cool looking skin, and much more options than in ACID 1.0 or 2.0. It comes with two CDs. One of them has the application on it with some loops and the other CD has nothing but loops and demo songs! It has over 1,600 unique loops! Definately a good buy for those who really liked any of the previous ACID Musics.

Great for making original tunes quickly and easily.
This product, as well as other software developed by Sonic Foundry, is used in the gaming industry. It was even used to make the music in Summoner! I've been using this product for a while, and I have made tunes like THAT and saving them as MP3s, WAVs, and so forth. Heck, if I make a digital home video or something, I can rig it with music by adding the music in with ACID Music! Get this if you want to make games with tunes, show off to friends and make them say "Damn! You couldn't have made this!", or if you got other reasons to make some good music without needing to hire an orcastra (eat your heart out, John Williams)! ... Read more

Features

• Control almost anything in the rack with the Matrix Analog Pattern Sequencer - an analog sequencer with 32 steps per pattern, with free sizing of time signatures
• Merge and split audio and CV signals easily with Spider Audio & Spider CV Mergers & Splitters
• Advanced RV7000 Reverb lets you dial in your desired reverb sound in seconds, and saving it as your own preset
• The all new Combinator builds elaborate chains of Reason units - instruments, effects, pattern sequencers, you name it - and save as patches
• 512-band Digital Vocoder modulates in analog and digital, for a robotic voice or weird harmonics

Reviews (3)

My Review of Record Producer deluxe
I agree with much of what K. Wagner of Rosslyn VA wrote.

I use Digital Performer in the classroom. I noticed last year that Digital Orhestrator Pro, which preceded Record Producer Deluxe and by all accounts is the same program re-packaged, worked very much like the Digtal Performer software. I used it extensively and then decided to buy Record Producer when it was introduced. I upgraded to Deluxe when I realized I did not have all of the tools.

Record Producer Deluxe interfaces well with my equipment. No problems yet.

I have not used the FAQ page form Voyetra but I am getting close because of a nuance. I have noticed that Record Producer Deluxe arbitrarily changes my patches. For example, I assign patch 65 to an instrument but when it is saved and I load it again later, that patch may be (and usually is) changed to 64. The same goes if I assign 57, 58, 66 or 67. They all move. I have noticed that patch 68 stays in place. I don't know why this happens but it causes a sound problem when music is played back.

One other thing that I really don't like is that wave sounds are not called waves, but RPP files and can not be accessed or played like waves. There is some special set up that Voyetra has inserted that keeps you from using any of the sounds and effects that come with the program. Bummer.

The program may be hard to work with but I have not noticed as yet. I think that Digital Performer prepared me for it.

I like this program, especially the piano roll editing, and really wish that Voyetra would concentrate on improving it by maybe intergrating a form of Music Write with it, making it good for universal use, like reading and accepting all types of audio files, adding a little color to the track lines, grouping the sliders, and charging more for the good product that it is and can be. Just now, it is like a toy but very useful. It is a good place to jump off

good product for the price
I bought this program to do midi sequencing and audio recording for guitar and voice. Overall I think it's a really good program for doing standard musical recording tasks on an intel-based system (on a Mac I'd expect more and pay more too). It's totally replaced my 4-track cassette recorder system since Record Producer also records midi. I'd used MOTU's FreeStyle and Digital Performer before (for college coursework), so I wanted something that would work kind of like these programs but didn't cost so much. Record Producer doesn't have the same slick setup for midi instruments that FreeStyle has - doesn't recognize my Alesis QS6.1 banks - but you can still access all the banks.

The program has a reasonably good interface for recording and overdubbing audio and midi tracks, and it's pretty easy to edit things as well. It's also very quick from startup time to recording your first track - very nice if you're in the heat of inspiration. The audio editing isn't perfect - could use some more work to give you finer control. You can edit midi data directly, and you can easily edit midi controllers and related parameters (volume, tempo, etc.). It lets you do punch in/out recording for midi and audio which I've found to be very useful. Does NOT let you edit in the musical score - you'd better go with Finale or something like that if you're looking for notation-oriented software.

I must admit I haven't tried many other sequencer programs for the PC. I just read reviews, looked at their specs, and decided on this one. I tried Jazz (a free program) and it's not bad, but not as full-featured and a bit more difficult to use.

I found the online help (mostly the FAQ from Voyetra's website) to be a lot more useful than the manual. The FAQ/online help answered all of my questions about step recording, audio recording latency (needed to set my onboard audio card to full duplex mode and updated my audio driver).

One important note though: a fast, modern processor (I'd guess at least a 2GHz Pentium/AMD) and a separate soundcard (probably any modern soundblaster thingy) would be really nice. Otherwise, you won't be able to record and playback lots of audio simultaneously (a problem I'm having with a 1GHz-equivalent AMD machine using the motherboard's sound chip (a K7SEM motherboard), though not too bad for me since I usually only record 2 tracks of audio and the rest is midi).

I sympathize with the earlier review - this program takes a fair bit of work to set up, and you have to play around a bit to get the right drivers, the right midi interface, etc. But once you do that, it's full-featured. I didn't have nearly as many problems as that reviewer did, so this is probably very hardware-dependent.

I do not recommend getting the cheaper version of Record Producer (the non-deluxe one) - it doesn't let you record your stuff to CDs and doesn't have all of the audio editing tools. The deluxe version just makes the music-making process a lot more fun.

If you've got a couple hundred dollars more, I'd suggest moving up to the more professional programs, or moving to a Mac (which is much better for doing anything audio and has much better software out for it). But this is a good intro program if you're not sure what you want yet.

Be wary of buying this product!!!
Be wary of buying this product. It is very difficult to use and even the simplest things seem to be a problem. When I use the software, the registration page seems to pop up even after I registered. I also had problems getting technical support help. There is no phone support, and the website and FAQ is severly lacking in any help. Save your money! ... Read more