Muzy CM Studio- Any good?

[product53]

Can anyone tell me more about CM Studio aka: "Unique sequencing package based on the Full version of Muzys". This a demo? (In another forum, someone said they couldn't get the full version for some reason.)
I'm trying to find an inexpensive host...
Presently, I mostly use Psycle which I like for it's modular VST routing - but I don't really like spending time using a tracker to sequence.
I guess what I want is a real-time, MIDI, DSP, etc., but more like a beat-box or drum machine so I can quickly sequence a song.

[G-Ro124]

energyXT

[LBN]

It's worthless. It was worthless when it was new. It's 10x worthless now. Go with energyXT plus the millions of freebies out now.

[jPod]

Can anyone tell me more about CM Studio aka: "Unique sequencing package based on the Full version of Muzys". This a demo? (In another forum, someone said they couldn't get the full version for some reason.)

That's ComputerMuzys, which is basically the full version of Muzys 1.?? included on the CD that comes with Computer Music magazine. You can't get the later versions anymore because it's been discontinued.

It's not bad as a beginners sequencer. Yes, it's limited, but you can record and sequence midi and audio, use VST(i)s -- all the important stuff. Considering that it comes with several very nice CM specific plugins I'd say it's a long way from being worthless.

I guess what I want is a real-time, MIDI, DSP, etc., but more like a beat-box or drum machine so I can quickly sequence a song.

What hosts have you looked at? The stock reccomendations for pattern based sequencing are FL Studio and Orion. EnergyXT is a fine sequencer, but it doesn't do beat-box style pattern sequencing "out of the box."

[product53]

I have tried-out the Energy XT demo and was quite impressed by it. I have also tried Mad Tracker and the FL Studio demo, both of which sounded good but neither one were as easy to use as I would like. Mad Tracker was very in-conducive to writing songs in a practical sense. FL Studio I hear doesn't have a very good piano roll and I was not that impressed with its capabilities for the dollar.
In general, as far as soft-drum machines go; Bram Bros do a good job. I sometimes use Hammerhead to compose drum-loops… I like the Tuareg2, though I wish it was a little more flexible. Specifically, I think the phrase-sampler, drum machine (Rage) and the beatslicer (Variator) should be more integrated. I like that drum beats can be placed anywhere within a measure in Tunafish, but not much else. Tuareg2 is a much more useful program in my opinion.

[grymmjack]

Can anyone tell me more about CM Studio aka: "Unique sequencing package based on the Full version of Muzys". This a demo? (In another forum, someone said they couldn't get the full version for some reason.)
I'm trying to find an inexpensive host...
Presently, I mostly use Psycle which I like for it's modular VST routing - but I don't really like spending time using a tracker to sequence.
I guess what I want is a real-time, MIDI, DSP, etc., but more like a beat-box or drum machine so I can quickly sequence a song.

I love muzys and the concepts behind muzys of being a simple break away from the standard to make things easier. It was initially a little difficult to learn, but once I did, I was stunned how solid the product was. Add to this it's ability to be skinned (important for me because I am one of /those/ people), and a straight forward approach to how to work, and IMO Muzys is great. It's great for CM to bundle such an awesome program which definitely helps people learn the basics. I would say that having tried most sequencers/hosts out myself in the past month or so (for evaluation purposes to see what (if anything) I have been missing), Muzys was the easiest/most fun to actual start becoming productive using. Initially I felt "this is garbage" trying to understand it, because it broke the rules, and the first instinct of someone doing an "evaluation" is to look for even the tiniest flaw, and then keep looking for these flaws.

The flaws I found were it's interface (but I have come to love/appreciate it's simplicity and it's goal); it was initially odd mostly due to the terminology used. "Players" didn't make sense to me without RTFM but after I read that, and regardless of some snide remarks about the language quality of english in it the documentation is better than most free stuff you will find, I understood 90% of the stuff I was thinking "that's dumb." about. The other flaw is it's limitations -- 8 VSTi's, but really I don't think this is necessarily a BAD limitation. I think limitations are good and FORCE you to be creative. This goes against much of the More=Better mindset, but if I think of it, I NEVER use more than 4 or 5 VSTi's at once. And if I ever wanted to, I could always do it in chunks anyway since my CPU would probably catch on fire otherwise

The other flaw is the way it supports audio recording. It is definitely not as intuitive or powerful as tracktion, or cakewalk or sonar, but it CAN do it -- it's just an adjustment to find out how and where to access the tools to do so.

These two flaws aside, which I can definitely overlook myself for the sake of productivity and creativity, the program is rock stable and lean and minimal. It's a great breath of fresh air. Some may say "fresh air my ass, it's a time machine back to the 90's" while this may be somewhat true, I think that much of the new stuff is not as important to me as it is others who do music for a profession for example.

Muzys rocks for it's minimalism and it's elegance. I'm building a skin for it too which is going to be the ONLY host I have tried that I can say is skinnable. The extensibility of the product is the most important to me because I find 90% of the existing GUI skins to be horribly bad, save the Survival one (but only keen to that because of my youthful upbringing in FLStudio land).

Computer Muzys is /not/ for someone who wants an all-singing-all-dancing-crap-of-the-world host. And it's definitely not for the closeminded people who are comfortable with all their more robust hosts provide them. It's also not for people who are more=better people, or for people who want features added as the product is no longer supported (or even sold!) which is a total bummer because I would have bought it and tried to do so even buying a used copy from the one person I saw here who used it. Also computer muzys is not for somebody who wants a robust crazy hub for their outboard studio gear. Also because the program no longer is supported your support for VST/VSTi plug-ins is frozen (meaning if they come out with like VST3 spec, it wont be supported in Muzys).

The other cool things about Muzys are it has a sort of rebel feel to it. It's free, and has so much to offer if you put some time into it, you can do so much with it that you would have to pay for otherwise. In some cases Muzys does things BETTER than commercial applications.

Really I cannot say enough good things about it and I /have/ tried the big guys and own Cubase and Cakewalk hosts both along with FLStudio. Had I found muzys sooner, it could have saved me tons of frustration/time wasted/and money.

In the end, try it out. Give CM a week. Look at what you have accomplished and then make your decision to try something that you have to pay for to do something you cannot do in CM. In the few days I have had it I have done more than in other hosts I've been evaluating -- partly this is because the CM is limited and partly it is because I push the other hosts harder trying to do things that are more complicated because they SHOULD be capable enough to do it if I am going to spend hundreds on them.

I should note also that I have tracking experience with ScreamTracker v3.21, and Impulse Tracker v2.14x as well as MadTracker and Renoize, so this may help you understand a little more who these words are coming from. Needless to say my mind is more open because of my experience in tracker land

HTH and good luck with your music!

[grymmjack]

I have tried-out the Energy XT demo and was quite impressed by it. I have also tried Mad Tracker and the FL Studio demo, both of which sounded good but neither one were as easy to use as I would like. Mad Tracker was very in-conducive to writing songs in a practical sense. FL Studio I hear doesn't have a very good piano roll and I was not that impressed with its capabilities for the dollar.
In general, as far as soft-drum machines go; Bram Bros do a good job. I sometimes use Hammerhead to compose drum-loops… I like the Tuareg2, though I wish it was a little more flexible. Specifically, I think the phrase-sampler, drum machine (Rage) and the beatslicer (Variator) should be more integrated. I like that drum beats can be placed anywhere within a measure in Tunafish, but not much else. Tuareg2 is a much more useful program in my opinion.

There is a project called ReViSiT that lets you track in any host using VSTi's you love It's the shit. Check it out here on KVR. Also for spit and polish, you cant go wrong with Renoise. It's about the prettiest, most intuitive, feature packed tracker ever built. MadTracker is also awesome and I am the owner of both - those guys deserve my money, just like Jef Lim did when I sent him the donation for the WAV writer for Impulse Tracker so long ago.

But with ReViSiT you get your cake and eat it too. And thanks to a kind gent here on KVR who walked me through the setup (because I was not able to get it setup on my own due to a. being lazy, and b. the docs are a dissertation and didn't really tell me how to do it 1-2-3 fashion, and c. the project itself is a thesis project). If you want help setting up ReViSiT some of us can help you with it.

http://www.nashnet.co.uk/english/revisit/

[AL GEE]

Fruityloops has a great piano roll!where did you hear this?fruityloops can be very deep.for the price it is an amazing bargain especially for what it has to offer.

[grymmjack]

Can anyone tell me more about CM Studio aka: "Unique sequencing package based on the Full version of Muzys". This a demo? (In another forum, someone said they couldn't get the full version for some reason.)
I'm trying to find an inexpensive host...
Presently, I mostly use Psycle which I like for it's modular VST routing - but I don't really like spending time using a tracker to sequence.
I guess what I want is a real-time, MIDI, DSP, etc., but more like a beat-box or drum machine so I can quickly sequence a song.

One last point to make about CM reading your desires...

CM has a unique way of composing that you either love or hate. It's a little odd at first, but you compose in loops, and songs, the difference is outlined in the manual. Then from there you can use the "playroom" to simply create a masterpiece composition by trigering the small more-atomic songs and loops (sorta how ableton live and flstudio LIVE mode works). So you may find this odd way good if you come from tracking -- it was very at home for me because of that fact, the same reason FLstudio was -- they work in patterns -- but can also work linearly like the big guys (cake/steiny).

The piano roll in CM is my favorite part of it, as it is no nonsense logical and simple. I also love how you can automate and draw right under the notes (a feature some bigger guys lack forcing you to use automation clips (which isn't better or worse since you can see usually the notes in the part in the arranger window in each piano roll part)) for any parameter you map to a VST plug or standard MIDI controllers, etc. I also liked the simple way that automation control is setup with outboard MIDI controller gear -- very similar to FLstudio, right click, learn, wiggle, done. No fuss

[grymmjack]

FL Studio I hear doesn't have a very good piano roll and I was not that impressed with its capabilities for the dollar.

I have to disagree here. FLstudio's piano roll is probably the best piano roll of them all. It's got the most functionality with the least amount of nonsense. Once you learn to keep one hand on the keys and the other on your mouse (as most of us do anyway), you can do editing MUCH faster than in rival products. The ghost notes, colorizations, functions for modification of existing data, the visual quantizer, etc are a few of many great things about it. It's the shit. Who told you that it isn't "very good"? They need a ticket to ride on the clue bus.

Also FLstudio is very flexible in terms of price point. You can choose which size best fits your needs, and IMO having used the product for years, the add-on generators are great. Sytrus, and simsynth rock, as do the FL exclusive effects and generators. And if you spend the extra couple bones on lifetime updates option, you NEVER have to pay for another upgrade ever again. Which other product on the market, with the amount of flexibility and features can say the same?

FL is a bargain for what you get, regardless of what size you order it in. I started small, and then kept adding and adding until I reached XXL producer edition status. Through the years I was never gouged in price, on the contrary, I had crazy amounts of discounts and thus more incentive to keep growing my FL to the XXL size. I think I probably paid more over the years because of the pricing changing and so on (I bought before there was a "producer edition" way back when it was called Fruity Loops TS-404) but I dont regret it. FL is worth it IMO.

I think you should try it for yourself before just going with the pack. You may find that FL is just what you are looking for. It is definitely a product you cannot afford NOT to evaluate if you are thinking of buying a host. It wouldn't be fair to yourself to skip it.

[digstar]

I have to disagree here. FLstudio's piano roll is probably the best piano roll of them all.

Totally agree, just played with Sonars piano roll and it is awful compared to FLs. The comment you heard its the worst is way off, i think its pretty recognised if that even if people hate FL, the piano roll is pretty cool.

[fandango]

Out of all the hosts I've tried, nothing is faster than FL for Piano Roll usage. Not only does it simplify the whole process of re-sizing, copying, slicing, quantizing, group-selected property modifying, manipulation (strum, flam) and controller data, but also it leads the way in allowing you to do everything in the piano roll via Ctrl/Alt/Shift modifiers without having to click once on toolbar icons.

[mellotronaut]

Computermuzys has it's limitaions, as Grymmjack described, but it's great for doing weird stuff and for loop-production. And soon will come a new affordable host from its developper.

[> DiGiT <]

Mutools

im a longtime muzys user, and i must say that i like it quite a bit. only lately have i been on the quest again for some sophisticated audio environments... i think software like energy xt and plogue bidule offer promise in combination with muzys/mutools new beta. which btw im very much behind, in light of what happened to muzys. jo and crew are developers with a vision of quality software that puts a fresh spin on the piano roll idiom. im not a cm user, i have the full version 3.14. jo was kind enough to give it to me before muzys' demise. i was very pleasantly suprised indeed! i often use the internal synth 'muzynth', a semi modular with an awesome modulation matrix! as someone said earlier in this thread, it has rebel appeal lol! its quite stable in my experience as well. there may be a few things to wish for, but what a great writing environment! you can certainly export wavs if you prefer to mix and add audio tracks with better ease...

the new mutools beta is getting more and more exciting with all the talk going on in their corner of kvr. check it out

anyway, you can be creative with anything, it might help to mold yourself to the app rather than expect it to hand you something easy. there is everything to be said for working for your music. only those willing to work for their music will have success with their musical goals--iffin you askin me

[G-Ro124]

FL Studio I hear doesn't have a very good piano roll and I was not that impressed with its capabilities for the dollar.

I have to disagree here. FLstudio's piano roll is probably the best piano roll of them all. It's got the most functionality with the least amount of nonsense. Once you learn to keep one hand on the keys and the other on your mouse (as most of us do anyway), you can do editing MUCH faster than in rival products. The ghost notes, colorizations, functions for modification of existing data, the visual quantizer, etc are a few of many great things about it. It's the shit. Who told you that it isn't "very good"? They need a ticket to ride on the clue bus.

Also FLstudio is very flexible in terms of price point. You can choose which size best fits your needs, and IMO having used the product for years, the add-on generators are great. Sytrus, and simsynth rock, as do the FL exclusive effects and generators. And if you spend the extra couple bones on lifetime updates option, you NEVER have to pay for another upgrade ever again. Which other product on the market, with the amount of flexibility and features can say the same?

FL is a bargain for what you get, regardless of what size you order it in. I started small, and then kept adding and adding until I reached XXL producer edition status. Through the years I was never gouged in price, on the contrary, I had crazy amounts of discounts and thus more incentive to keep growing my FL to the XXL size. I think I probably paid more over the years because of the pricing changing and so on (I bought before there was a "producer edition" way back when it was called Fruity Loops TS-404) but I dont regret it. FL is worth it IMO.

I think you should try it for yourself before just going with the pack. You may find that FL is just what you are looking for. It is definitely a product you cannot afford NOT to evaluate if you are thinking of buying a host. It wouldn't be fair to yourself to skip it.

FL STUDIO HAS THE BEST PIANO ROLL OF ANY HOST. THERE IS NO DOUBT ABOUT IT

I disagree, however, with your statement about FL plugins being good. They don't use much CPU in FL, but that's the only good thing about them. There are much better, even free synths, that sound better than any of the FL plugins. Sytrus is hopelessly overpriced (Big Tick's Rhino is MUCH less and MUCH better).

But yes, FL is worth it[/b]