Description:
Aimed at the music enthusiast who needs a one-stop MP3 solution, Magix's MP3 Maker provides a full set of features for creating and listening to MP3 files, as well as for burning custom CDs that contain them. MP3 Maker rips to WAV and encodes effectively to MP3, MP2, and WMA. Its standard encoder produces good-sounding audio, but encodes slowly, managing little better than real time. MP3 Maker also includes a 20-file trial version of QDesign's MP3 encoder, which produces higher-quality audio, and encodes more quickly. Serious users will want to upgrade to the full QDesign encoder. A wizard registers you with CDDB, the CD-information database, so that MP3 Maker can tag MP3 files automatically. You also can edit tags manually. Twin players with cross-fade capability provide good flexibility. Each player has a pitch control, and, with the 10-band graphic equalizer, you can adjust the sound of the music to suit your listening arrangements. The equalizer includes built-in presets, but you can't save your own equalizations. More disappointingly, you can't play music while ripping and encoding. A welcome bonus is the Music Editor application, which lets you edit music files. For example, you can reduce noise from a WAV file that was recorded from vinyl before you encode it to MP3 or normalize tracks to ensure a consistent volume range. MP3 Maker's CD-burning features are minimalist, but they're effective enough with supported CD-R/CD-RW drives. Detracting from MP3 Maker's features is a complex and counterintuitive interface that's designed to dazzle. Users who are comfortable with misused controls and the occasional word in German need have no fear, but others might want to look to other MP3-creation products, such as MusicMatch Jukebox 5.0 Deluxe. --Guy Hart-Davis
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