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| Above: Magix Music Maker 2015 Premium and the superb Mastering Suite 4. |
SYNAPSE CIRCUIT
MAGIX MUSIC MAKER 2015 PREMIUM REVIEW
COST: £89.99
Goodhour, Synapse Circuit Readers! It’s been a short while! I have missed you
and I hope that all is well in your world! I also hope your tech projects are
going well! What’s that? You fancy creating some Dubstep? Huh? You want some
royalty free music for your multimedia project? If it’s music composition is
what you are interested into you ought to check out this review!
MAGIX Music Maker is one of my favorite DAWs of all time; it’s one of those
programs that grows with you! Well, it has certainly grown with me! Let the Music
Maker 2015 Premium begin…
#Magix #MusicMaker2015Premium #MusicMaker2015PremiumReview
GET YOUR BEAT FREAK ON!
WHAT IS IT?
Music
Maker 2015 Premium is a digital audio workstation (DAW) that allows you to
compose music in two distinct ways:
1. Drag ‘n’ drop sample
loops from the vast default library.
2. Musical instrument digital
interface (MIDI) with the wonderful array of virtual music instruments that
comes with Music Maker 2015 Premium and Steinberg’s virtual studio technology
instruments (VST) if you have them installed on your PC system. If you are
getting into computer music for the first time it should please you to know
that a wealth of free VST instruments and effects can be downloaded for free!
Of course, you can compose using a mixture of sample loops and virtual
instruments.
Here’s a listing of the built-in instruments in alphabetical order:-
Atmos
Analog Synths
Bass Machine
BeatBox 2 – drums / percussion
Celtic Harp
DN-e1 Synthesizer
Drum Engine – drums / percussion
Electric Bass
Electric Piano
Jazz Drums
Lead Synth
LiViD – drums / percussion
Loop Designer – drums / percussion / bass
Pop Brass
Power Guitar
Revolta 2
Robota – drums / percussion
Rock Drums – drums / percussion
Saxophonia
Space Pad
String Ensemble
Urban Drums – drums /
percussion / bass
Vibraphone
Vintage Organ
Vita 2
Vita Sampler
World Flutes
World Percussion – drums / percussion
Vocal Tune 2
Loop Designer – drums
/ percussion / bass
There are a number of new additions such as the Urban Drums which is great for
Dubstep artists / producers! The effect listings is just as impressive! Magix
have got you covered! There’s even a guitar amplifier and effects unit! This is
FANTASTIC stuff! You will not get such a massive DAW for under £100 these days!
Music Maker 2015 Premium is superb value!
INTERFACING
You will be pleased to know that Music Maker 2015 Premium is optimized for
touchscreen computers so that you can play the instruments via the virtual
keyboard. Naturally, if you have a MIDI keyboard or prefer to use the computer
QWERTY keyboard & mouse to input notes / beats then you will LOVE Music
Maker 2015 Premium!
Above: Music Maker 2015 Premium utilizing the hefty Sugar Bytes Egoist synthesizer without any problems whatsoever! No crashes!
The virtual music instruments that come with Music Maker 2015 Premium are
superb! They sound great and it could very well be that you won’t feel the need
to use compatible VST instruments (and effects). I must stress to semi-pros and
pros that the MIDI implementation on Music Maker 2015 Premium (and on previous
versions) is excellent! You can utilize advanced techniques such as
‘automation’ whereby you can record the movements of the synthesizer and
effects knobs to make the music come alive!
As you would expect, this is the best interface overhaul yet! Sure, if you
happen to be coming from the 2014 version you will not notice much until you
start using it! Gone are the redraw problems that allowed for some of the
interface to stick upon the screen!
THE BENEFITS
What I appreciate about Music Maker 2015 Premium is that it is completely
self-contained. What do I mean by that? Let me explain…
You may or may not realize that there are many digital audio workstations on
the market aimed at the professional studio environment. Some of these DAWs can
cost around £500! And even at that price the software makers still entice the
user to purchase more software (and sometimes hardware) to complete the “pro”
set-up. If you are the parent of a budding artist / producer son or daughter who
have (more than) hinted that he / she would like Propellerhead Reason or
Steinberg (the inventors of VST instruments and effects) Cubase this Christmas
the cost of these DAWs could make you think about remortgaging the house or
selling the car! If your budget won’t be able to stretch that far then Music
Maker 2015 Premium IS the answer! It has everything one needs to compose and
produce professional sounding music!
As well as the virtual instruments there are a fantastic range of effects to enhance
the sound! And the biggest glistening jewel of this amazing cost effective,
£89.99, DAW crown is the Mastering Suite 4! In a nutshell the Mastering Suite
adds the sonic sheen to the finished track(s). Mastering, at one point, was
considered to be a specialist area whereby one would take a finished track to a
mastering studio and pay anything from £100 a track to be “mastered” for the
purpose of CD production. The Mastering Suite makes mastering a track so very,
very easy! There are presets for just about every audio situation – the most
important one is the CD mastering if you or the intended is seeking to release
the music commercially.
COMPARISONS & ADVANTAGES
In short the Music Maker 2015 Premium can be compared to Apple’s Garage Band.
You can, if you are thinking of purchasing Music Maker 2015 Premium for the
budding artist / producer, feel confident that it will be appreciated and not
as a gesture!
I would also go several steps further and state that Music Maker 2015 Premium
is up there with the best of them i.e. the aforementioned Reason and Cubase in
that nobody will be able to hear the difference between music produced on them!
The advantage over Reason is that Music Maker 2015 Premium (and Standard) is
able to utilize external VST instruments and effects to extend the usability /
productivity to the highest standards. Reason is a closed off system.
The advantage over Cubase is that a)
you’ve just jettisoned over £400 of expenditure. And b) you or the intended user aren’t encouraged to make more
purchases to complete the potential for a more professional sound. Once again,
Music Maker 2015 Premium has everything there! Of course, you can always
purchase more virtual instruments and sound loop collections (Soundpools) from
the Magix website. And with the money you have saved you can also purchase some
high quality instruments, effects and sound loops from other sources. You may
still have money left over to purchase a web design program such as Magix Web
Designer 10 Premium to get selling your music over the web!
It’s also important to note that you are able to import video and images on any
of the tracks to assemble a video! Perhaps the video can be a rough sketch that
you can fill out using Magix Movie Edit Pro – review coming soon!
CONCLUSION
As always, Magix have done it again with the latest Music Maker Premium. As a
professional computer musician I recommend the Premium version (as reviewed)
over the cheaper Standard version that costs £59.99 simply because you have
more options and the Mastering Suite 4 is a must have!
Some DAWs have a distinct sound to them that can get in the way of sound
production; I feel that Music Maker 2015 Premium gives you a nice neutral sound
for you to colour with effects such as equalization, compression, distortion,
etc. Thus you are able to create your own distinctive sound production!
WHOLEHEARTEDLY RECOMMENDED!
DOUBLE PLATINUM!
MAGIX MUSIC MAKER 2015 PREMIUM
PRICE & AVAILABILITY:
Music
Maker 2015 SRP £59.99
Music
Maker 2015 Premium £89.99
For
more information please visit: http://www.magix.com/gb/music-maker/
THANKS FOR READING...
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