Fun with Video

You wouldn't expect an $89 music program to integrate audio and video support, but Music Maker Deluxe does just that. It comes with more than 600 license-free video and graphics files, ranging from clips of live footage to tripped-out graphics animations. BMP, PCX, JPEG, TIFF, and PCD formats are supported.

Like audio and MIDI, video and graphics objects can be edited for length and faded in and out of the program. Adding special effects such as color cycling, sculptured glass, water, mirror, fisheye, and optical echo is a snap. It's also easy to sync video playback to song tempo.

My First AVI Project

I tested Music Maker Deluxe by creating an arrangement that utilized some of the integrated audio and video files found on the CD-ROM. Beginning with a dense, filtered drum 'n' bass loop, I instantly established a song base. I added various effects, as well as elements from the instrument plug-in modules (see A Closer Look). Deluxe's Song Wizard -- a handy interface that offers automated arranging tools -- sped the process considerably.

The Vocoder offers control over carrier signal, pitch, and white noise level.

With my basic arrangement in place, I used the programs' built-in effects -- along with some third-party DirectX plug-ins -- to process the tracks. You can use your mouse to graphically control track volume, auxiliary effects (from the onboard mixer), and two types of filters. This graphical approach is a great way to perfect your volume and filter levels.

Built-in effects include Volume, Distortion, Reverb, Echo, Filters, Normalize, Surround, Resampling, Time-stretch, Pitch-shift, Vocoder, and Gate/Reorderer (which is a valuable a tool for coming up with alternate drum/instrument patterns and rhythms).

The gate reorderer effect divides the selected WAV file into color-coded segments that you can set to control either filter or volume; you can also rearrange segment order.

The Vocoder comes with seven carrier signal waveforms. A detailed filter-drawing window lets you determine how the carrier and modulator signals interact.

Effects

While Music Maker Deluxe offers some cool effects, their realtime implementation leaves something to be desired. Only a few of the built-in effects will work during playback, and access to DirectX plug-ins is strictly offline, a major disappointment. You can, however, audition the DirectX effects before processing the file.

One might consider any form of DirectX support a plus at this price range, but the lack of realtime control and individual parameter automation can make finding the right settings time consuming and tedious.

Where's The MIDI?

Music Maker Deluxe offers plenty of audio and video editing muscle, but lacks even the most basic MIDI functionality. (This same complaint also applies to Music Maker Professional.)

Standard MIDI files can be loaded into and saved as part of any arrangement, but cannot be saved individually or exported as MIDI files. Imported MIDI files can be transposed, tempo-changed, and played back on external MIDI devices, but there is no way to edit individual MIDI events and --as mentioned elsewhere -- there's no support for external MIDI input. If you rely on MIDI for your bread and butter composing work, you may want to look elsewhere.

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