Magix Music Maker Deluxe Generation 5

Can an $89 audio editor really give you what you need? Just mmmaybe

by Randy Alberts
July 14, 2000

Summing it Up Magix Music Maker Deluxe offers a suite of handy audio and video/graphics tools -- and Web collaboration -- all for under US$100. But advanced users, especially those who make extensive use of MIDI or signal processing, will find Music Maker Deluxe sorely lacking. So while Music Maker Deluxe may not be a complete audio/MIDI solution, that's not its mission -- which is a big bang for very few bucks.

PC users have always enjoyed a wider selection of affordable software options than their Mac counterparts, both on the business side and -- more recently -- in music applications as well. Adding to this inequity is the Music Maker line of software from Germany's Magix Entertainment, most notably Music Maker Deluxe Generation 5. Whether or not you're happy with your current PC music software, you may find Music Maker Deluxe's $89 sticker a small price to pay for its streamlined user interface and a cool assortment of music and video tools.

Music Maker's colorful GUI sports a scalable AVI video playback window.

Music Maker Deluxe's main features include:

• Audio recording and editing
• Effects
• Software synthesis and sampling
• MIDI
• Integrated video editing with realtime video effects
• Web collaboration
• Auto arranging features

We'll also take a short gander at MM Deluxe's newest big brother, Music Maker Professional 1.0, and see how the two compare. (See Why Upgrade? Music Maker Professional 1.0.)

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Randy Alberts is a freelance musician, engineer and writer who has been on staff with Keyboard, Electronic Musician, Mix, EQ, and Radio & Records.