Product Description

Turn your musical dreams into polished, professional recordings right from your home computer with Music Creator 3—no previous recording experience required. With Music Creator you get the tools, instruments, and effects you need to create, record, edit, and mix your audio and MIDI projects in one integrated software solution. Creating music on your PC has never been easier, more fun, and more affordable. All from Cakewalk, makers of the # 1 selling music software in the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2283 in Software
• Brand: Cakewalk
• Released on: 2006-02-24
• Platform: Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Dimensions: 2.20 pounds

Features

• 14 studio effects including EQ, Delay, Chorus, Reverb, and more
• Software for creating professional recordings right from home computer
• Create audio and MIDI tracks using any instrument, vocals, or audio loops
• Up to 160 total tracks--32 audio and 128 MIDI; professional audio quality
• On-screen mixer seamlessly mixes all audio and MIDI tracks

From the Manufacturer
Turn your musical dreams into polished, professional recordings right from your home computer with Music Creator 3--no previous recording experience required. With Music Creator you get the tools, instruments, and effects you need to create, record, edit, and mix your audio and MIDI projects in one integrated software solution. Creating music on your PC has never been easier, more fun, and more affordable.

Features:

• Up to 160 total tracks: 32 audio and 128 MIDI
• Professional audio quality up to 24-bit/48 kHz
• On-screen mixer to seamlessly mix all your audio and MIDI tracks
• Create audio and MIDI tracks using any instrument, vocals, or audio loops
• Create backing tracks using included ACID-format loop library
• Browse, preview, and purchase additional audio loops right from Music Creator using built-in SamplePort plug-in
• Take the mystery out of home recording with comprehensive video tutorials that explore all of the features in Music Creator
• Play and record using thousands of instrument sounds with included Virtual Sound Canvas and Dreamstation
• 14 studio effects including EQ, Delay, Chorus, Reverb, and more
• Add more instruments and effects with support for DirectX and VST instruments
• Expand your sound using ReWire-compatible applications including Project5, Kinetic, and Reason
• Navigator Pane to get a bird’s eye view of your entire project
• Easily identify what is on each track with hundreds of built-in Track Icons
• Never miss a take again with Confidence Recording
• Keep perfect time and tune your instrument using built-in audio metronome and tuner
• Detailed editing views including Arrange, Console, Piano Roll, Loop Construction, and Drum Editor
• Integrated notation tools to create and print your own musical scores and sheet music
• Share finished projects using the included Pyro Express CD maker and WAV ripper

Customer Reviews

Great software, but make sure this is what you need.
I purchased this software about 2 weeks ago, and I have to say that it is far superior to any other product in its price range. I will admit that it's not nearly as intuitive as they say it is, but the learning curve (to me) isn't that steep. I say that with some reservations, because I went to school for media production and probably have a little better knowledge base to work from than the average beginner. To make matters more difficult, Cakewalk products have (from my experience) always had very poorly written manuals. With Music Creator, they seem to have made an effort to improve in that area. It's the first Cakewalk manual I've seen that actually has screenshots of whatever the particular topic is. Thank heaven for small favors.

To avoid experiences like the other reviewers apparently had, I would recommend the following

1. Buy the boxed version instead of the download from the website. Yes, it's ten bucks more and you have to pay for shipping, but with the boxed version, you do get a manual (with pictures, no less) as well as a separate CD of video tutorials, plus some other extras. Do the CD tutorials first. If you get stuck after that, the info in the Help section makes alot more sense.

2. If you don't have a background in recording, get yourself a home recording how-to book. There's millions of them out there, and they can be extremely useful if you don't really have an understanding of the jargon. One thing about Cakewalk is that they say you don't have to have any experience to use their products, but somehow they assume that you're familiar with the terminology.

If you're just looking for some backing tracks to jam along with, or drag and drop MIDI sequencing, this will do the job, but is probably alot more than you need. If you're like me and are looking for an all-in-one solution that can take a song from the melody knocking around in your head to a finished, mastered product on CD or MP3 (and you don't have the cash for ProTools or Reason) this might be just what you're looking for.

Good for PATIENT beginners...
Help files are not helpful, nothing's intuitive. I have to keep notes for myself just to find out what things do.
This is NOT for impatient jammers who just want to plug in some chords and have everything magically play!
Songs have to be constructed, slowly, painfully, and without any real help.
Overall, I wouldn't reccommend it for beginners. Intermediate writers with a good general knowledge of MIDI and notation will find it useful. Professionals will use Sebalius or Finale or Apple's product.
I like it because it's CHEAP, and gets the job DONE if you're patient enough to fumble around for days or weeks. You get what you PAY for, and for me, this is fine.

Great Product- Getting bad rap.
If you love MS Paint but hate Photoshop don't buy this software. Cakewalk is not for people who want the software to do everything for them. This software replaced all my music gear and an old $250 version of Cakewalk. I now do not have to pull out my synth modules, drum machine, and digital recorder anymore. This does it all. I am totally blown away by what you get and the price you get it for. Yes, I am old school. I do actually create and modify the music. I do know what midi is and how it works. I did spend a little time learning the software. This software is not for wimps. It needs to be learned and it is not that difficult.

The only thing I need to let you know that the internal synths do not sync with external but that was expected. There is a time lag between internal and external; realize that the computer has to do more math for the internal to work. No big deal. Just use the internal or nudge the track to make it sync.