Best Computer Recording Sampling Software
For version 5, Steinberg has added amazing new instruments, a new granular synth engine, stunning effects, a wicked slicing mode, and more. Wide range of high-end audio effects, including Reverence convolution reverb, VST Amp simulation and many more.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"As far as programming new synth sounds, I'll leave that to all the techie synth sound programmers."
"However, they sound just like my Yamaha Motif XF(which are close, but not good enough). Sample slice options are easy to understand, as usual, with more editing tools. Halion 5 commands most of my projects at home, and I am getting ready to use it on stage using Cantabile."
"I have been using Steinberg products for a long time."
Heads up! Not MachFive: for tasks such as sound searching and selecting, and basic on-the-fly sound tweaking, MachFive 3 is uniquely effective and efficient.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"In fact, this has become one of my main go-to instruments (and I have a lot!). The fact that it will read and import from so many different samplers, including hardware samplers is a huge plus. Lots of additional synth modules, including FM and analog!!"
"It plays back all of my old Gigastudio instruments and works with WIndows 7 just fine."
This sampler is beefed out with awesome instrument sounds - everything from acoustic/electronic beats, synth soundscapes... acoustic instruments... just the quality goods that every musician and recording guy or gal wants and needs. Easy-to-use yet powerful premier music and production workstation for synthesized sounds and breathtaking recreation of acoustic instruments.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"beautiful software, i love it. however be prepared to fork over an extra 40$ if you don't have the elicenser usb key."
"Before I purchased halion sonic I was using all sorts of VST's."
Best Computer Recording Synthesizers Software
New Core library The massive new 7.4GB core library in Stylus RMX has thousands of cutting-edge grooves and sounds that were created by Spectrasonics' international sound design team, and produced by Eric Persing. Xpanders" libraries, Retro Funk (authentic vintage sound, feel, and classic grooves), BackBeat (live acoustic "straight-ahead" drum grooves), Metamorphosis (21st Century remix grooves), Burning Grooves (maximum impact, aggressive live drum grooves), and Liquid Grooves (unique acoustic drum. technology (Spectrasonics Advanced Groove Engine) Realtime auto-sync to the beat so grooves are always in time, even when performed live Groove Control is always active for optimum sound quality at virtually any tempo Massive, cutting-edge 7.4GB core library, with nearly triple the sounds of the original Stylus (the original Stylus core library also included) Includes "S.A.G.E.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"If you need an immense repository of great drum sounds and grooves, RMX is your ticket. The core library mainly focuses on electronic drums and percussive elements. Liquid Grooves gives you laid back drum and percussion sounds."
"Spectrasonics understands the needs of ambitious musicians and follows through in quality, inspiration and technical support."
"This product was such a big deal to me that when I moved from pro tools on imac with tiger to logic on macbookpro with snow leopard the first thing I installed was RMX and when upgrading support directed me to the proper place with no hassle and quickly allowing me to get rolling with my music right away."
"(one of the very few times that I've found it beneficial to me, the customer, to register a product, vs. simply providing the manufacturer with customer data) Spectrasonics customer service is terrific (and they were back then also, with general questions I had). However, it is neither of these extremes - it truly is a 'rhythm module', playable like an instrument."
"I'm not so good at writing reviews but I must say Stylus RMX is one top notch product! Even without using all the features I have done tracks used for library music used on tv and radio."
"But it's now 2015 and Stylus' grooves, sounds, and sonic quality are not top notch anymore."
Best Recording Software
Unlimited audio, instrument and MIDI tracks and up to 256 physical inputs and outputs.Full Control Room integration, including talkback and four different cue mixes.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Thankfully, I was able to get a free upgrade to 9.5 after activating the product, as part of the Steinberg grace period program."
"Good item."
"It works seemlessly and relatively easily."
"Great Software for Prosumers."
"Installation was easy, though I should point out that downloading the application took nearly an hour. After installing this application on my HP Desktop, it took me less than twenty minutes to produce an nice, workable guitar track."
"As a voice actor I do a fair amount of recording from home, though nothing on the scale of a fully produced piece. I wanted to try something new to see if I'm missing out on features, and Steinberg's Cubase Elements 9 is definitely a different DAW all together."
"I'm a long-time Cubase user and was interested to look at Elements to see if it's a worthy subset of the full-fledged Cubase, and it is. This is Cubase "light", so you can't expect to get all the bells and whistles as with the complete Cubase, but it's powerful enough to give you basic tracking and mix-down functions."
"It will almost download all the way and it will stop, giving you a damaged zip file. If you search this online you will see a lot of bad reviews because of this."
Best Recording Looping & Remixing Software
Mixcraft Pro Studio 7 is a powerful music production and multi-track recording workstation with over 8900 music loops and dozens of audio effects and virtual instruments. Combining 250 MB of high quality Steinway Model D piano samples with advanced physical modeling, Pianissimo recreates the warmth, response, and playability of a real grand piano. Burn directly to an audio CD!
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It has all the bells and whistles one would need to do professional work with; and right now it's on the brink of taking on the professional market. I come from Hollywood, and I have no problem using this in a professional setting."
"After using it for a week, I have to say that I am really impressed with this software."
"[UPDATE(1/23/17): Mixcraft Pro Studio 8 is now available with some great upgrades; this review applies pretty much equally to this new version.]. I am a professional music producer and Mixcraft Pro Studio 7 is my go-to DAW. In particular, there is only one feature not included which forces me to occasionally resort to Ableton: continuous transposition of audio files. They might be referring to the number of underlying synths that are used to create various virtual instruments, but there are many, many virtual instruments from kotos, dulcimers, Irish bagpipes, pianos, guitars, banjos, timpani, glockenspiels, glass harmonicas, accordions, bassoons, oboes, and pretty much everything else!"
"Comes with a lot extras including completed projects and thousands of loops and sound effects."
"I was a bit skeptical at first about purchasing Mixcraft Pro Studio 7, mainly because of the large price difference in comparison to high-end DAW's such as Pro Tools or Cubase."
"Excellent home studio software!"
Best Recording Audio Plug-Ins Software
The UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt QUAD Core comes with UA's "Analog Classics Plus" plug-in bundle, and provide access to more than 90 plug-ins from brands including Ampex, Manley, Lexicon, EMT, Empirical Labs, Neve, Roland, Fairchild, Pultec, Studer, SSL, and more (sold separately). Run UAD Powered Plug-Ins via Thunderbolt or Thunderbolt 2 connection on new Macs, Dual Thunderbolt ports for convenient daisy-chaining of Thunderbolt peripherals.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The Best Plugins ever and a very good price!"
"Top quality Brand I'm a satisfied client."
"ultimate digital analog world."
Best Recording Production Stations Software
Powerful time-stretching, arranging and sequencing capabilities let you quickly create and capture musical ideas, turn them into finished productions, and take them to the stage. Powerful and creative MIDI sequencing of software and hardware instruments.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Bought it for 21 year old college student in Audio Engineering."
"It is exactly what i expected it to be and the serial number works perfectly allowing you to download the 64-bit version from their website."
"It's an amazing program."
"With the right add ons it is a great product."
"use this for music backgrounds for animations."
"The program is great but the serial number that comes with it its invalid."
"It was just as stated and works perfectly."
"I used to use adobe audition for mixing and propeller heads reason for music making, but this is an all in one software."
Best Recording Virtual Instruments Software
The software is downloaded and managed via Native Access, which also maintains all NI softwares and plugins with serial numbers in one location. An Internet connection and a graphics card which supports OpenGL 2.1 or higher are required to download and activate MASCHINE software.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Boyfriend bought this to make beats for personal music projects."
"my son luvs his pre birthday gift."
"Excellent buying experience, from beggining through end, brand new, latest model, and manufacturer direct access, with added bonus, 110% satisfied!!!"
"An incredible instrument that is as extremely deep or as shallow as you'd like to explore Very well made."
"Awesome tool, especially if making beats is more of a hobby for you."
"Perfect gift for my teenager son!!"
"Right out of the box this Maschine is all I expected and even more and it is easy to use."
Best Sound Editing
Vegas Pro 13 takes giant steps toward making the total multimedia creation experience faster and easier than ever. The app provides a comprehensive review system within a gesture-driven control surface and represents a genuine breakthrough in project collaboration and control.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I was frustrated with the limitations of my low end video editing software and wanted support for 4K and also the XAVC-S format that my Sony camera uses, I remembered that my older version, a really old version of Sony movie studio was very easy to use and I had read that Vegas Pro was easier to learn than some of the other Pro level editing software."
"The GUI shows the signs of aging, especially when compared to the latest DaVinci Resolve."
"This is a very good upgrade from the Sony Movie Studio 11.0."
"Great product !"
"Yes it did and I'm loving it!"
"Everything was in great condition and the program worked perfectly."
"Worth every penny."
Best Music Creation & Sequencing
![Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 Platinum Edition [OLD VERSION]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51P41H10AZL._SS600_.jpg)
Offering the most powerful set of integrated digital media tools available, Roxio's Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 Platinum gives you the creative control to capture photos and video, create DVD movies or photo slide shows, organize your music library, and fix photos or save important documents on CD or DVD.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Been using Roxio for years, but found Corel Movie Factory 7 easier."
"The program provides a couple dozen menu themes, but there doesn't appear to be any way to create use a custom theme, and the provided themes seem to be based around a familiar chapter-style interface--more traditional menu navigation (ie, "Play Movie/Set-Up/Special Features") doesn't seem to be an option. Fortunately, the program seems to be able to handle just about anything you throw at it where content is concerned: I mixed MPEG files with raw DV footage, including a variety of resolutions ranging from 160 x 120 to 752 x 480, and the program just workhorsed its way through the job at the click of a button. Addenda: I discovered the drag-to-modify nature of the track markers which allows the user to easily move or delete existing tracks simply by tugging on their flags. I also discovered an unfortunate glitch where the track markers are concerned: it seems that sometimes a tiny, split-second piece of your track will inadvertently get attached to the track marker, resulting in a short burp of sound right before the actual track begins. This would be bad enough to be a show-stopper, except that it's easily corrected: if you have a burping track marker, delete it and create a brand new track marker (with no associated burp) in exactly the same spot."
"V6 is near perfect for my use of convertsions CD, WMA, MP3, and label creation."
"After reading all the horrible reviews I was very sceptical and sought advice from my computer 'gurus' who weren't much of any help but I still went ahead and bought it."
"Useful, but your OS should have everything that you need these days."
"It will not recognise drives on my system so I emailed Roxio with my situation (quickly as the free tech support is only free for a very short period). In the mean time my dell got hit by lightning and I installed it on my new 2.8 W/ gig of ram."
"I've used every version of Roxio's CD software - back to when it was from Adaptec and I really liked every version - until this one."
"After installing Roxio 6, I experienced so many problems with my installed software that I had no choice but to abandon the Roxio 6."
Best MIDI
Band-in-a-Box 2017, RealBand 2017, Over 1,800 RealTracks, Over 150 MIDI SuperTracks, Over 2,000 MIDI Styles, Over 300 MIDI Soloists, Over 200 MIDI Melodists, 21 Nature Sounds and Percussion Loops,98 Artist Performances, 1000 Dubstep, Modern and Top 40 Loops.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This is what you see and hear in the videos!"
"Been a fan of this product for years."