MAGIX ENTERTAINMENT MP3 Maker 2005 ( Windows )

Rating:
Summary: Exciting program, when you figure it out
Review: I'm a disgruntled Windows Media Player user. I like WMP's intuitive interface, song organization, and ratings. I HATE the fact that I can't burn WMA discs with my Lite-On CD AND DVD burners! That makes the program completely useless for me.

Seeking an alternative, Magix's MP3 software was one of the few I found. Another website found it the program to be quite useful, but extremely hard to learn. I concur.

The program is EXTREMELY non-intuitive. Although the program installed easily, using it after the fact made my computer (Windows XP) crash several times, presumably because I forced the program to do a few things it didn't want to.

After a few days of intermittent use, I'm getting a handle of the program, and I'm finding it very useful. Consider the following positive aspects:
1. For those of us with lots of music on our harddrives in a "My Music" folder, the program quickly finds the music you've ripped for use. From within the program, you can do anything to cut, copy, and paste and otherwise organize your music, and the corresponding changes will be made in real time, as you will find if you went directly to the folder from "My Documents," for example.

2. The Music Editor portion of the program has been immediately helpful for deleting dead portions of silence in songs that might buffer the last numbered track of a CD and a hidden track. There's lots of good music in these places on CDs, and now you'll be able to add them to mixed CDs.

3. The program supports WMA, WAV, and a couple different types of MP3 files, and easily converts files back and forth. The program, however, doesn't seem to want to burn, rip, or edit songs in WMA format. Therefore, all of the Windows Media ripping you've done will have to be converted to MP3, which as of now seems to be only a minor problem.

4. Categorization of music, an important aspect of any media player, is time consuming and not completed as quickly as with WMP. Regardless, it's possible, and that's a plus.

5. Overall, the program works smoothly when you figure it out. I've been able to burn an 80 minute, CDA. format CD on my Lite-On burner with no problem. I've not yet burned an MP3 disc for use in my Pioneer, MP3 compatible player in my car. My opinion of the program would change drastically if there's a compatability problem somewhere in this process. But, knock on wood, I don't anticipate any problems.

In sum, if you've got time to give this program a try, you probably won't be disappointed. If you're like me, and you want to organize your music in a number of different ways, you want to edit silence and other non-sense from long tracks, and you want to work and burn discs in useable formats, you'll probably like this program. Give it some time, though.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the CD it's on
Review: This is the second MAGIX product I have purchased recently. The first one was the MAGIX DVD maker which I returned after finding out that all the error messages were in German and the program crashed my very stable computer every time I used it. The MAGIX MP3 Maker isn't much better. The user interface is probably the worst I have come across. You have to think like the morons who wrote it to make it work --sometimes. Help is just a copy of the same useless users guide, which tells you what each icon is supposed to do and that's about it. I am amazed that such companies even exist putting out garbage like this and getting paid for it too.