Customer Reviews

Music Creator 2003

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Very solid release from Cakewalk. Especially for the price. Can't beat it. It is very easy to navigate and you'll be making music in no time. But despite the fact that is easy to get started, this is still some powerful software. Plus it comes with a great bundle.

This is a wonderful program that lets you compose your own great MIDI music, and even lets you record both audio and MIDI. It is easy to use and lets you sample notes before you use them. There are over 125 instruments (some of you will be glad to know that Cakewalk calls them "patches") to choose from. You can type in durations to last for as many beats as you want. You should go one day at a time and learn its features like I did. All the stuff I wanted to know weren't even in the manual. But anyway, great job, Cakewalk!

Cakewalk Music Creator is a great program for anyone who wants to compose for any purpose. It allows easy access to a wide range of MIDI and audio functions. It is not at all hard to figure out, and the results sound great.

This is a great product. It has an excellent user interface and good help files. I have been downloading free Soundfonts from the internet (I have a SB Audigy sound card) and playing them with the midi sequencer. Wow.

I just bought this product a few days ago, and based on anticipation from everyone's reviews I was so excited about it. Then, when I got home to install it, the nightmare bagan.

My computer is a top of the line Dell Preformance PC and I have never had problems with any of my configurations. That said, the first problem began with an issue with DirectX Version 9. The program is set up to use with DirectX 8.1 which, as you may or may not know, is not compatible with Windows XP. I have DirectX 9 installed (which is designed especially for XP and a much better version). At any rate, I kept getting error messages everytime I loaded the install program, and it would tell me that the program was installing and would restart, but would never actually install. So I tried to call customer service and that was a joke, some ill-thought hours from 10am-3pm EST or therebout. So I tried the website and found a patch. Note that at this point, I haven't even seen the program interface yet and I've already had to download a patch.

Finally I got the program up and running only to find that now I can play music and sound on all of my applications, but Music Creator 2003 won't play any sound at all. I checked the troubleshooting guide in both the manual and the help files and the only thing it came back with was 'check your speaker connections and restart your computer' and 'your sound card is not properly installed, please remove the card and try to re-install the device driver'. So I'm currently at a standstill because I can't even get through to technical support due to the awkward hours.

I gave this product 2 stars because I hate to not give it any, with such good reviews it must be good (once you get it functioning properly I mean). Honestly, I expected much more, especially for being a byproduct of Sonar also by Cakewalk, which is truly and amazing program although it costs near the $300 mark for the full registered version.

I bought this program to record songs on my computer and to record more than one track to a song. when I first brought it home it was a little hard to use but after about two days it was so easy. I am able to make awesome songs and the sound quality coming from the instuments is good. It hardy ever screws up or breaks down, its reliable, its easy and its fun. For the price its the best MIDI program out there and you can always trust cakewalk, belive me even if you are just a beginner get this.

I bought this program to record songs on my computer and to record more than one track to a song. when I first brought it home it was a little hard to use but after about two days it was so easy. I am able to make awesome songs and the sound quality coming from the instuments is good. It hardy ever screws up or breaks down, its reliable, its easy and its fun. For the price its the best MIDI program out there and you can always trust cakewalk, belive me even if you are just a beginner get this.

This is the best program I have ever seen for music. Not only can I create sheet music of songs I have written I can also create accompanyment CDs for any song I have sheet music for. It is well worth the cost of it.

I'm not a musician, ie, I don't read music very well. I recently joined a choir (I've got a good ear) and bought this program so that I could copy my tenor parts from the scores we sing and listen to them until I got them down pat. I think this program must be directed toward folks who compose using a MIDI interface because it's definitely NOT for folks who want to use music notation. If you get any more complex than 4/4 time the program inserts funny rests, seemingly at random, which can't be removed. You can enter words with the music but it's difficult to line up the words with their proper notes. It's not very happy with notation or accidentals or time changes or key changes. In short, this may be fine for a MIDI composer but you should look elsewhere if you want to "compose" using a staff.

There seems to be a serious problem with the installation procedure for Music Creator 2003 under Windows XP/Home Edition. As always with XP, it's necessary to be an Administrator in order to install the software, and the program works just fine when you start it from an Admin account. No surprizes there.

HOWEVER, if you log in under a non-privileged account, Music Creator dies with a message about "unable to create Staff view music font." Then, rather than exiting, the program hangs with its initial splash screen displayed. It just sits there, frozen, until you kill it with the Task Manager. (Very lame...)

From this behavior, I have to assume that no one at Cake Walk ever tested this software under a non-privileged account. (I probably shouldn't be surprized by this, given that no one ever tested it with DirectX 9.0 either...)

Of course, one workaround is simply to run the program from Admin all the time, but this is a TERRIBLE security risk. Admin-enabled accounts should be used ONLY for system maintenance -- NEVER for day-to-day work. (Unless of course, you really like giving viruses the run of your machine.)

In my case, I think the correct workaround for this problem is to return the software and get a refund...