What a superb GAOTD!

First, lets be upfront with regards to the biggest drawback concerning todays giveaway: it is a 680MB download. For me, on an 80Mbit fibre connection its not so bad (a couple of minutes), but I can see that anyone on a slow DSL connection this is an issue.

Once downloaded, unzip the software. Two files, the installer and a readme with the installations instructions, which are simple enough; double click on setup.exe and follow the on-screen prompts. Choose default or custom installation. Custom allows you to specify the installation directory, and directories for the software to store soundbanks, project files, etc. Very handy if you want the core program on your C: drive, for example, and sound files, project files, etc, stored elsewhere. In my case, I had the software installed into the usual C:\Program Files, and everything else on a different physical drive.

It doesn't appear to use the GAOTD wrapper - thankfully, as this has historically caused problems for many users, me included, on an irregular basis.

The program ran fine on my machine (Intel i3770K, 32GB RAM, Win 7 64bit). It opens on its own screen, using the full width of my desktop (dual monitors, 5120x1440), and on startup loaded the supplied example 'song' (? music? sequence? riff? I'm not a musician! Let's stick with 'song'). The supplied multi-track song is a great demonstration of the software: simple instrumental loops, including drums, bass, strings, and a vocal track showcase how easy it is to arrange groups of sounds to produce a song.

Easy, of course, if you have an ear for music. A few minutes of playing and I had very easily created a car-crash of a song of horrendous proportions. But I had fun doing so!

I did encounter one initial problem; no sound. Music Maker uses ASIO low-latency audio, installing the ASIO driver and defaulting to outputting it's audio to the ASIO device. I hadn't delved into the manual (and still haven't) to configure this to map to my speakers, so was getting no audio. A gear icon on the top menu bar opens the Configuration menu, Audio/MIDI tab has options for Audio playback, setting this to Direct Sound resulted in sound!

Looking at the interface, the program has a very simple menu layout on the top menu bar; new project, open project, save project and config icons, then standard menu items for File, Edit, Effects, View, Share, and Help. Each of these has just a few drop-down menu options, leading to a simple, clean, and slick interface. The menu tools cover what needs to be done, and rather than try to describe them, it's simpler to say that MM is like a text editor, but for music: cut, copy, duplicate, paste, insert for single objects (samples), ranges, or entire tracks. Change pitch, tempo, volume. There are some audio effects such as a 10-band equalizer, compressor, echo, reverb. And an interesting menu item called "Video Effects", which I haven't yet tried...

The Configuration menu, briefly touched on, has 4 tabs covering
General Options - how the Arranger works; project auto-save every x minutes; program UI options (dim the interface, hide/show news, text size); hints on/off; Medial Pool options

Import - sample previews; auto-stretch samples to match bpm; working with Remix Agent; pitch control of wav file; midi editing options; import formats (extensive!), VSTi synthesizers, MIDI files; preview of files (including audio, video, images, and 'soft' files)

Audio/MIDI - primary sound drive and advanced options (from 8bit mono at 11.025Khz to 16-bit stereo at 44.1KHz), support for pitch control, playback rate, sync, volume, L/R volume); audio driver selection (wave, direct sound, ASIO, WASAPI); audio buffer size; MIDI configuration and control; and options such as wave file size, undo size, MIDI keyboard

Folders - the locations of folders chosen by custom or default installation, in case you want to re-configure later.

Quick, clean, intuitive, and above all slick and easy-to-use.

Instruments, and loops, are controlled via a panel on the right hand side of the screen. Instruments are grouped by category, such as bass, drums, keys, strings, etc. Click on a category, and the sampled sounds for each are shown in a panel below. Clicking on an entry plays it. Drag a sample from here onto the multi-track screen drops it into your song. This really is drag-and-drop song creation, a visual music composer. Once on the track, samples can be edited, e.g. pitch changed, stretched, shortened, etc. Its actually so easy to use, it's a challenge to describe!

The real skill is of course, having a musical ear to drag, drop, arrange in a way that produces something pleasing at the end! But even if you are not a musician or a composer, this is simply endless hours of fun!

Finally, at the bottom of the screen is an on-screen keyboard. Guess what, clicking on a key produces a sound. Useful for keyboard composition. The sound produced depends on what sample is loaded.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of todays GAOTD is the $30 coupon. Instructions are included in the readme, but essentially clicking on the Store button loads the various extra soundbanks on offer. Excellent, one doesn't have to leave the software to purchase extra soundbanks. And there are lots of them. Lots and lots! The average price is $14.99 per bank, with some collections available for $34.99 - excellent value, as they consist of 5 standard packs.

The range of banks on offers is huge, including 80s (3 different banks), dubstep, R'n'B, pop, 'metal', techno, house, latin, just to name a few music categories, and atmospheric banks such as sci-fi, fantasy, adventure, 'forbidden', e.g. 'mood' tracks suitable for films. Each may be previewed, albeit with an - unobtrusive - audio watermark. I spent an hour just exploring and listening to these very high-quality samples. I'm spoiled for choice here!

All in all, I've only touched the surface of the software. It does what it says on the tin, and does it very very well. Hugely recommended. This is another fantastic GAOTD, so thanks to the team at GAOTD for securing it, and MAGIX for making it available, especially the $30 store credit.

Alan Lewis  –  9 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+23)

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Looking at the Homepage, the version featured here (425 sounds etc) is free for everybody. So in what way is it a special GAoD offer?

tomcat  –  9 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+21)

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Big download, sort of. Almost 700 MB, but it moved at a good speed.

Easy install & activation on Win 8.

This is a fun tool, reminds me a bit of apple's GarageBand in it's functionality. It's been about 6 or 7 years since I had a mac though and that may no longer be true.

Nice thing from the read me "The Coupon Code is valid from April 13 until May 31" - a rare approach and one I like!

I'm looking forward to making HORRIBLE music with this :) (only horrible because of my talent level - not because the software has flaws!).

Noah Body  –  9 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+11)

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Just restarted my computer and got a popup advertisement in the system tray. This is a deal breaker for me. Can this be turned off?

Stephen  –  9 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+10)

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Seems to have installed okay, the coupon purchase went smoothly, but I get no audio through the program. Something is supposedly playing, but I don't hear anything. And an online search and search of the help files hasn't yet revealed any real troubleshooting documentation, mostly tutorials. Helpfile crashed. I am sure this is a simple settings issue (my speakers working fine elsewhere). Can someone please help me sort this out? There is one post I found in their forum, but it appears to be for another version or something.

Brandi Jasmine  –  9 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+3)

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Brandi Jasmine, NM Found it in the settings ;-) ... click on the gear button (settings), then Audio/Midi, then under Audio Playback click "Advanced" to find your speaker options. A little counter-intuitive, I'd do away with the "Advanced" button and put the speaker options in the drop-down box.

Brandi Jasmine, NM Found it in the settings ;-) ... click on the gear button (settings), then Audio/Midi, then under Audio Playback click "Advanced" to find your speaker options. A little counter-intuitive, I'd do away with the "Advanced" button and put the speaker options in the drop-down box.
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Brandi Jasmine  –  9 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+8)

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