5 day Poll: Magix Music Studio 2005 Idiocy

[pannewb]

Does Magix Music Studio 2005's separation of Audio and Midi too stupid or does it have any redeeming qualities that make it worthwhile?

[fishbowl.tucson.az]

Does Magix Music Studio 2005's separation of Audio and Midi too stupid or does it have any redeeming qualities that make it worthwhile?

I don't think it's a huge problem personally. I really like Audio studio. I think it's the most underrated piece of software out there, next to fruityloops.

I don't think I'd like the Audio interface as much if it was cluttered with Sequencer features.

[useruseruser]

Doing that has a long tradition on Magix. (They do this since the first versions with different license products.)

Therefor I wouldn't describe those products wit "pro". This are very obviously consumer market quality products...

The AudioStudio is (and was never) nothing different than a "downsampled" version of the state of the art Samplitude(TM) audio editor. Whatever, the "clone" crashes all the time...

And MidiStudio (midi sequencer) a third party product (changing the supplier all the time). Currently a crapy Logic(TM) PC license.

(The word "crapy" don't imply, that Logic(TM) has the same quality !, but rather that the Magix clones never worked right ( - buggy as hell - and very limited ) up to the latest versions ...)

In fact I personally think, that it is impossible to work with this software at a "pro" level (meight also not to be intended). Even due the missing professional features and the endless bugs. (I remember, that one of the last version of the MidiStudio (2003) did'nt even startup right and work, because a wrong initialization file for the sequencer - They never took the products from the market and also did'nt give any useful user support to solve th problem!)

It are two completely different products randomly "stacked" together.

The entire distrubution philosophy of Magix don't even try to connect those two different things in any manner (In fact I am missing any innovation here).
So you also could buy your favourite midi sequencer and an audio editor as completely different products - of course then without those numerous bugs.

The product support is the most terrible I ever seen from a company claiming to produce "professional level" music software.

Much fun with the purchase of the 3000 bucks Sequoia from Magix...

[pannewb]

Very good points gentlemen. Are there any tricks or programs that you use to work around this pothole? For example, a program which converts midi to wav?

[jens]

Does Magix Music Studio 2005's separation of Audio and Midi too stupid or does it have any redeeming qualities that make it worthwhile?

it's two completely different applications, you know?! (Logic and Samplitude) - they can't simply
stick them together with a bit of chewing-gum

[_niko_]

I am only using the so-called e-version of audio studio, and while it is crippled to only record at 16 bit, it can edit, import and export at 24 bit/96k and is IMHO the best wave editor you can get for that little money. It has a ton of cool editing features and thanks to its mixer you can use dx plugs in realtime when editing. It has problems with some wrapped vst plugins (wrapped with the cakewalk adapter) but other than that it's been pretty stable for me.
I wouldn't want to use it as my main software though (using Sonar for that) and yes I'd definately find it to be a pain to switch between audio studio and midi studio all the time.

my 2 cents,

Niko

[fake]

Don't expect a £50 piece of software with a sequencer and audio studio to be for the "pro" as it is aimed mainly at the beginner. Although it does have some pro features.

I have used it for 2 years now, first was 2003dlx and now 2004dlx that has been upgraded and all of my midi tracks have been done on it.

I have never had the audio studio crash and the midi stuidio a few times but that has been down to a rouge plugin or two. Zynaddsubfx for instance and some synth edit stuff. So no stability problems here with the host itself.

I can't see the problem with having the audio studio and midi studio seperate as I use the audio studio for mastering and burning to disk. For any other audio processing I use sound forge. I don't think logic or cubase have a audio editor integrated either. You can however open up the audio studio from within the sequencer and edit an audio file.

Limited yes, in the way you can only have sends for fx and no inserts but there are ways around that.

I still think it was worth every penny and I enjoy using it. There is one hidden bonus, the files can be imported into Logic so if you ever do want to go pro you can edit the work.



fake

[fishbowl.tucson.az]

Doing that has a long tradition on Magix. (They do this since the first versions with different license products.)

You're really harsh. Magix is the only audio software that has ever really worked well for me. I don't really follow where your objections are coming from. I do wish they would publish a demo version, so that people like you could evaluate it and decide they don't like it, before paying $80 and deciding they've been ripped off.

Between Magix and Fruityloops, all my problems are solved.

[pannewb]

Does Magix Music Studio 2005's separation of Audio and Midi too stupid or does it have any redeeming qualities that make it worthwhile?

it's two completely different applications, you know?! (Logic and Samplitude) - they can't simply
stick them together with a bit of chewing-gum

Yes, but it would be nice if there was a way to transfer .mid samples into the audio studio. Then you could use midi studio to make loops and put them in audio studio. Currently I record from my keyboard into Audio studio and have ditched midi studio completely. If there was some more "seamless integration" like Magix claims on the box, I would gladly shell out 50 more bucks or more.
If anyone could tell me how to get a sample onto the web for free, I could let them see what is possible with such a limited setup(I hear).
The blind man cannot dream of color.

[useruseruser]

Doing that has a long tradition on Magix. (They do this since the first versions with different license products.)

You're really harsh. Magix is the only audio software that has ever really worked well for me. I don't really follow where your objections are coming from. I do wish they would publish a demo version, so that people like you could evaluate it and decide they don't like it, before paying $80 and deciding they've been ripped off.

Between Magix and Fruityloops, all my problems are solved.

Sorry Guy.
But your assumptions are wrong!

I bought *every version* (Deluxe) of this package up to version 2004 for educational purposes!

So in that time since the very first release of the MIDI Studio - six versions in order or so...(note, that the first versions of the MIDI Studio were not a Logic license, but a completely different sequencer!) I payed probably much more on money in that time, what a professional level Sequencer and Audio Editor would ever cost!!!

Each time I thought, they must have improved it, else thy wouldn't sell it...

If It worked for you, so I am really wondering, but it didn't work for us.

Each release *had* a brunch of the (old and new) bugs and didn't work right with the (at this time) state of art soundcards in general (Soundblaster AWE, Live, and others - massive problems with Audio to MIDI synchronisation).

Merely MIDI worked (sometimes). There was a Deluxe version out, which had a wrong initialization file, so that MIDI input from a keyboard was not able. We needed weeks to find fix the problem - without any helpful ideas from the MAGIX support, but those buggy versions were selled further, without fixing that ever ...

Thus (all in sum) finally made teaching our course members in "Multimedia Production" in special areas a hell !!!

[useruseruser]

And my experiences with the support on Magix I rather don't want to tellya here...

In the meantime, we do our Multimedia courses with Steinberg products (Cubasis and the Wavelab clone GetItOnCD).

(The choice of "consumer level" products for our courses is very simple: The people, who are more interested in can buy it for relatively low amount of money themselfes for completing their course lections at home...)

[kovacs]

Magix Music Studio 2003 "Deluxe" (rather stupid term since they only had one version anyway) was my first attempt at using my computer for music production, apart from using notation software and very basic midi programs.

I found MS2003 to be so incredibly unintuitive (plus it crashed my computer and would not work well with my soundcard) that it lasted about 30 days on my PC.

I then bought FL Studio 3, which soon after became 4, and it was a competely different world. It is so much more powerful. Yes it was slightly more expensive (I now have their XXL license which covers all their plugins) but it has free lifetime upgrades. And the support is marvellous.

But I was not too comfy with FL Studio's approach to working with audio (like no modulation overlays, which they are FINALLY getting in FLS 5 which is due in about a month). So I bought Tracktion since I found it easier to work with. It was a watershed for me - I suddenly understood a lot more about how sequencers work.

Then when Ableton Live 4 was launched I got a very good offer to upgrade from a Delta version which came with my soundcard so I went for that.

I also have Reason 2.5 which I use at work to create sound tracks for Flash movies etc.

So now I use Ableton Live as my main sequencer, FL Studio and Reason as plugins (FL as VSTi, Reason via Rewire), and master my tracks in Tracktion's great FinalMix plugin.

It did cost more than the initial $110 I paid for Music Studio but if that piece of software had been more user friendly in the first place I'd probably not have looked further. But thanks to Magix I now have a plethora of different products...

I think a price comparison shows that Magix is not as cheap as it might seem - almost no discount for upgrades makes it an expensive product.

Magix Music Studio: $110, almost no upgrade discounts

FL Studio Producer Edition: $149 with lifetime upgrades and lots of plugins

Tracktion: $80, free updates until v2 comes out, upgrade pricing is promised

Ableton Live 4: $499 (but I got it for $299)

Reason 2.5 (well, doesn't count, I didn't pay since my job owns the license)

[Cordelia]

My friend Dan bought MS 2003 and had no end of problems. He sent an email to support to ask some questions. About a month later he got a reply that said only, "If it works, it works, if it doesn't, it won't."

[useruseruser]

Magix Music Studio 2003 "Deluxe" (rather stupid term since they only had one version anyway) ...

Not entirely true, but it meight been different in other countries than Germany.

There were in fact two versions in each release (normal and deluxe) The Deluxe did cost nearly the double amount of money in Germany, offering some more features (higher number of tracks, more plugins, removing some limitations and so on).

Finally: Hopefully the *bad* experiences of many (obviously not all) people did give them at least a clue, how music production works...

But this had been also the case, if the Magix products would really fit their claims.
I see this company acting in pure "marketing manner" without any interest to really improve their products and to satisfy their existing customers.

But very strange, that this behaviour actually works for years now, maybe because such stupid ppl like us, buying this crap again and again in hope, it would finally work anyhow ...

[useruseruser]

AND not to forget, what a *big* demage this company did cause with delivering such bugy licensed versions of a Logic PC !

OK, many users even didn't recognize that tis was nothing else than a downstripped Logic sequencer...

But probably some of them actually did recognize it ...

Would they ever really decide for a full version of Logic Audio after that experience ???
Ok. we all know, what happened with Logic for PC
( it's *not* intended to imply any direct corelations here )...