@joe-vazquez

Did you update to MM 2023 or upgrade to it? The former merely involves installing the new version and is free ; the latter is achieved by paying the upgrade price. The new features of MM 2023 are available only if you upgrade.

Jeff
Forum Moderator

I am here with the same problem but I have a stand alone purchase of 2023 Premium with a full installation package downloaded.

Upon trying to navigate what is just an overwhelming mess of sales tactics rather than menus, Beatbox Pro 2 is not installed. It shows as purchased but that's it.
It would be nice if Magix had actually focused on building the application rather than packing it with useless ads. This was my birthday gift and I'm stuck with an app that goes nowhere.

One of the primary selling points is Beatbox Pro 2.
I'm really happy with the major improvements to the sequencer for VST's and a lot of other changes, but this pile of **** Beatbox pro that came installed instead of Pro 2.
It's a worthless, automated pile of **** that wants me to buy more trash to maintain it's uselessness?

I would just drag and drop Beatbox Pro 2 from my 2016 Live! edition if it were possible.

@Jon-Marinella If I remember it correctly the compatibility with the old Object Synthesizers like Beatbox, Robota, Loop Designer etc. was removed in Music Maker 2021.

If you add the current version of Beatbox to your project and if you are able to change the velocity and add 16 extra steps with the plus symbol at the bottom, the installation of fine and Beatbox is working correctly.

@Jon-Marinella

Hi

Is MMM 2023 activated with the new serial number you will have received or is it using the 2016 Live activation?

John EB
Forum Moderator

@Jon-Marinella If I remember it correctly the compatibility with the old Object Synthesizers like Beatbox, Robota, Loop Designer etc. was removed in Music Maker 2021.

If you add the current version of Beatbox to your project and if you are able to change the velocity and add 16 extra steps with the plus symbol at the bottom, the installation of fine and Beatbox is working correctly.

I was expecting it to be relative to beatbox pro 2 but this is beatbox plus 1 and 2.

It's not a horrific change, but I do find it useless since it lacks the ability to drag and drop my own sounds into the modules and Magix wants us to pay for fixed sounds with whatever name suggesting it's for that genre of music.
While it's a major loss, they changed or improved a lot of other components that I desired for years so the app is still worth every penny.
It is just hard to conceive this is a pro grade DAW but the drum machine is now a 3 legged dog.

@Jon-Marinella Alternatively you could get the Independence Free Sampler which can load up to 25 WAV audio files.

It also comes with the ability to draw step sequences or load MIDI files, so you only need to press a key on your keyboard and the drums will play automatically.

The free 2GB library include also a collection of drum sounds.

It might be hard to use at first, especially if you never used a sampler VST before. But you can ask here, if you have any questions.

https://www.magix.com/int/music/free-download/independence-free-sampler-software/

@Jon-Marinella Alternatively you could get the Independence Free Sampler which can load up to 25 WAV audio files.

It also comes with the ability to draw step sequences or load MIDI files, so you only need to press a key on your keyboard and the drums will play automatically.

The free 2GB library include also a collection of drum sounds.

It might be hard to use at first, especially if you never used a sampler VST before. But you can ask here, if you have any questions.

https://www.magix.com/int/music/free-download/independence-free-sampler-software/

The setback for me is using the piano reel style sequencer over a standalone module with it built in the way Beatbox Plus 2 worked. I own 2016 Live! which contains this synth module so that is still an option but also a PITA to export as wav. to import into 2023 and build a drum track. Getting back on my stuio PC with freakishly huge monitors will only slightly alleviate the hassle. Caustic will actually be much better than this and honestly, that entire app seems like it must have been based off an open source virtual drum machine.

Now on the other hand, I am importing my midi from Caustic as well as exporting those patches as wav. audio and couldn't be happier.
These improvements were long overdue, and I was informed they came in 2022. My messy folder full of VST's has no issues the way 2016 did and in that version, I was just loading midi data whereas 2023 it's no longer a needle in the haystack process and I can easily compose midi which I am ecstatic about.

Overall, it's primarily a run-in water transferring songs over from Caustic in various ways to rebuild them in MMM so they have a commercially viable sound. Caustic is amazing but overcoming it's sonic and bit-rate limitations within the program itself are beyond me be it patience or skillset.
I have some really amazing songs that will truly come to life now in MMM2023 and I am confident along the way, I will find a suitable new VST or workaround but it's hugely disappointing to see Beatbox Pro 2! as a marketing tool only for it to be a huge piece of shit that requires I buy drum sets which will never suit me.
I compose a lot of melodic death metal, thrash and elaborate instrumentals on guitar. Aside from not wanting to shell out money I do not have, no stock kit built by musicians and programmers outside my genre is going to be suitable at all.

@Jon-Marinella The Music Maker MIDI Editor also has a drum editor view similar to the old BeatBox.

SP. I know. I have been pretty deeply engrossed at times in MMM over the last 15 years probably longer. It's still a piss poor GUI in performance though compared to BBPlus or an app like Caustic. I am so ecstatic over the new changes anyway that I'm already working around the missing piece a proper drum machine provides.

If they would just give us an update to MMM2023 with the ability to load our own sounds into BBPro, it would solve a lot of problems and I was really disappointed that BBPro has this TBH, a money grubbing lack of features. This was a brand new purchase and the app is incomplete when you consider the league of composer they are seeking to attract. What they gave us is a novelty in dire need of custom drum kits.
There's not a chance on earth I will pay for the dreadful kits they build. My primary genre as a musician is melodic death metal and elaborate instrumentals. That requires custom drum kits.
I have an 8 piece acoustic kit to sample off of in the first place.

@Jon-Marinella The only other cheap (but not free) alternative except Independence might be Samplitude Pro X5 from Humble Bundle.

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/king-content-creator-bundle-software

I think you should be able to drag and drop the Beatbox SYN file directly into the track and it should work like the old Music Maker 2016. But that would cost you another $25.

I had already reached a point I was going to buy an outboard drum machine but made one last search effort on Google Play quite a few years ago and found Caustic. I have gotten fluent with BeatboxPlus, but in all truth I still wasn't crazy about the speed at which I assembled beats and really found my own masterful ability with Caustic as well as G-Stomper. G-Stomper is a better app for beats on a tablet, but I still prefer Caustic for it's ease of use and it's free on Windows. I also do plenty of work with it by tablet just as well.

I think I'm set with MMM2023 in general.
ATM I am on a laptop with a dual core intel running 2023 lol.
Runs great now that it has 16 gigs of RAM and I have it plugged into a projector and it's a touch screen, but in the home studio I have a 65" 4K smart TV and a 32" monitor a foot in front of my face. Having a couple apps and half dozen windows open in that environment is actually a lot of fun aside from making the work painless and quick.
The is getting setback up today with a couple computer rebuilds etc., so the minor frustration I felt over BeatboxPro won't matter where it actually counts.
Magix made the improvements I was hungry for and the reality to people who think it's a goofy toy is I have learned many DAW's to a significant depth, and side from them being mostly the same always except for a small handful of features, the automation and intimate functions of magix once you learn them are insane.
Nobody else has them.

@Jon-Marinella

Hi

. . . . the reality to people who think it's a goofy toy is I have learned many DAW's to a significant depth, and side from them being mostly the same always except for a small handful of features, the automation and intimate functions of magix once you learn them are insane . . . .

I agree with this, for what it does it is 'powerful', however calling it a DAW is a common misconception, it does not have many of the capabilities required of a true DAW such as Samplitude.

Are you going to showcase some of your creations in the Media section of the forum?

John EB
Forum Moderator

@Jon-Marinella

Hi

. . . . the reality to people who think it's a goofy toy is I have learned many DAW's to a significant depth, and side from them being mostly the same always except for a small handful of features, the automation and intimate functions of magix once you learn them are insane . . . .

I agree with this, for what it does it is 'powerful', however calling it a DAW is a common misconception, it does not have many of the capabilities required of a true DAW such as Samplitude.

Are you going to showcase some of your creations in the Media section of the forum?

John EB
Forum Moderator

It's still a DAW regardless. The issue it lacks in that regards though is an object editor which is a huge deal granted it's not something I use much. The package I bought included Soundforge which I admit is a huge PITA to bounce audio clips between 2 DAW's rather than just being able to do it right in Magix like you could in the past.

Now on the other hand, I have gotten very good with Presonus One, Pro Tools, Ableton etc. in the past and one day as I had Presonus open, was disgusted that there were dozens of massive drop down menus and then within those, more huge dropdowns and you literally would need a college course to get into them professionally. Many of these operations also being useless in the grand scheme of producing and releasing commercially viable music or audio in generally. When I am just looking to flatten frequency response, compress etc. I want it done in minutes rather than an hour but also with that point made, those other DAWs have processes like that automated.

Ultimately MMM is still a much faster and efficient way to produce a commercially viable song. I remember probably a whopping 15 years ago a guy on TV showing how he made bass hits for performers that got on MTV and other mainstream outlets. It was the most irrational thing I have ever seen. He inverted it, isolated harmonics, compressed it, EQ'd it and so on adding an absurd amount of work every time he introduced new beats for whoever he was working with; 90% of what he achieved doing this was in his head.

Anyway, I will have some uploads soon.
If Magix enables us the ability to load our own samples into Beatbox Pro 2, what it lacks will then be beyond irrelevant to me. A step sequencer drum machine that's dumbed down compared to Beatbox Plus was a turn off, however, I use them a lot in Caustic and the ability to do things fast, orderly and artistically still exists in this new synth module. Lacking the ability to load my own samples though means I'm building beats in Caustic which adds a lot of work.

@Jon-Marinella

Hi,

The issue it lacks in that regards though is an object editor 

You mean this one, Object Effects?

John CB

@Jon-Marinella

Hi,

The issue it lacks in that regards though is an object editor 

You mean this one, Object Effects?

John CB

 

 

An object editor not effects editor. Audacity is a good free one. Soundforge is another and came with my most recent magix purchase. Soundforge and Audacity are also full featured DAWs, but you isolate a sound clip, or portion thereof, and can edit it as an object .
You can trim it, you can add a volume swell to part of it, you can pitch and time alter it or just add some simple compression and reverb.

The current version of Magix allows you to do these things but only within the multitrack view. It makes some things way easier and faster, others you need an outboard DAW with object view/edit to do precision work.
One of the things I always liked about Magix is the volume editor in the track for fading levels as a track starts or volume swells in a small portion of an entire track. Their option makes this easier and 90% of swells, fade in/out etc. doesn't need object view and skimming around to find your edit points to do precision work.

It's bizarre to me that they removed it from Magix just the same. Anyway, my current drum machine exports mesh perfectly with MMM so I'm just getting into the limitations and advantages with the newest release. Mostly what I am seeing is they have focused on it performing as a mutitrack song editing/arranging/building/processing/mixing/mastering and with lots of automation.

@Jon-Marinella

Hi,

Soundforge and Audacity are also full featured DAWs, but you isolate a sound clip, or portion thereof, and can edit it as an object .
You can trim it, you can add a volume swell to part of it, you can pitch and time alter it or just add some simple compression and reverb.

The object effects tab in MM does exactly that - to the object, not the track, that is why it's called Object Effects. In MM you can trim each object, add volume (your volume swell) and pan curves (to the object as well as the track), look at the other items in the window - VocalTune, Temp pitch/resample, Compressor, 10-band EQ, Parametric EQ, Stereo Processor, Reverb and Echo and add plugins - all to the object.

Look at my image below. I show the volume envelope on the object. Everything that is under the Object Effects and more can be applied to the Object. I showed that I added RX 10 Repair Assistant which is a VST3 plugin - to the Object.

In other words, you don't need to send the object out to an external audio editor (Sound Forge) unless you need something that you cannot do in Music Maker, like spectral editing (not even available in Sound Forge Audio Studio but it is in Sound Forge Audio Cleaning Lab).

John CB

Hi, just wanted to come back and put book ends on my previous observations.
My declarations about the limits of the object editor in MMM stands, but I now have a deeper grasp on what has gone on with their DAW.
It was somewhat reinvented with the GUI, and a lot of stuff that seems missing for people use to older versions is still there. Aside from some complaints, they still hit the ball out of the park on this one. The limitation of a single audio object being incapable of having distortion for a couple bars then only deep delay for the others is something I am only likely to need when doing vocals and physical instruments, but almost exclusively vocals.

The limitation of a single audio object being incapable of having distortion for a couple bars then only deep delay for the others is something I am only likely to need when doing vocals and physical instruments, but almost exclusively vocals.

@Jon-Marinella You can circumvent this problem by cutting the audio object into multiple objects. Or you could use the AUX channels and automation. But this ability is limited in Music Maker compared to full featured DAWs.