Music Maker Humble - Getting The Most Out of It

dark_spartan wrote on 12/22/2017, 2:25 PM

Warning, long post.

Alright, with all the discounts going on, I thought I'd share what I did to take advantage of the various promos I could find...

Saving Cash --- Being Cheap & Going from Humble to Premium:

As some of you may know, in Humble you are able to get 2x Special Editions (normally worth 80 CAD).  This grants you 2 instruments in addition to the 3 free instruments, and 6 soundpools plus the 7 free sound pools. This may seem like a lot, but if you are trying to do something commercial with this, it means you really only have 5 instruments to select out of. But hey, it is a great start!

So, I chose to leverage the hefty discount for Premium currently on the website (you'll see why later on the Samplitude end). In addition to the current promo, you can get a further discount by applying for the upgrade pricing instead.  Altogether, this gets you 5 more instruments, 3 more sound pools and 1 sound pool collection. This also includes Samplitude which comes with another 6 or so instruments (it is more reliable than Music Maker, seems like an old Cakewalk Sonar age product, but doesn't seem to sound as good with MIDI devices).

Note my caution below so you don't make the mistake I did, don't buy any instruments or soundpools until all the software is installed with the default packs they come with - or like me you'll end up paying for instruments you get for free in this process.

You can potentially get a total of 14 instruments, and 19 soundpools for non-commercial use with this.

Coupons:

If you buy premium, at the top it says you will get a 45 dollar coupon --- this is not true.  You will get 3 x 15 dollar coupons, but hey coupons are coupons. Coupons are not stackable, so you'll need to find a bunch of 15 dollar things to buy (there isn't any really).

In addition, if you put something in your cart, the MAGIX website will eventually try and add the MGXSOFTWARE coupon a single time to get up-to 20 dollars off on a coupon.  Yes you can use this to buy a 20$ product and pay nothing. Useful for another soundpool.

Finally, if you sign-up for the newsletter (this didn't work the first time for me, I had to signup a second account to get the coupon) you get an additional 15$ coupon --- HOWEVER this one only works on their website, not in the MAGIX Store inside Music Maker. This means you cannot use it on instruments - the only thing that really matters to me anyway.

But, this stack will give you about 80 dollars in various coupons.

Tips for other Premium Purchasers:

Do NOT select any soundbanks or instruments until you have installed ALL the software - this will take days, their web-downloader is terrible.  There are faster ways to install the trial versions - I won't share those here - but installing everything first, and running it to install even more of the included content is very important before proceeding.

The software that installs with the premium version is Samplitude - it will unlock a bunch of instruments.  You want these to install before you begin purchasing, otherwise you will do what I did and waste credits on a bunch of instruments you get for free anyway.  When you finally launch Music Maker, it will request a Serial for the Instrument (it will appear locked), simply use your Samplitude product key, and the annoying nag will go away (for now).

Note as well that I found PREMIUM does not include enough credits for all the features, nor does it provide enough credits for all the presets. All the Soundpools provided are non-commercial use - and you cannot use your coupon codes for the commercial versions of for those. So if you go the soundpool route, be prepared to start forking out a lot of cash. To license all 19 soundpools you unlock with this, you would need to spend an additional 949.81 and spend a lot of time searching to find the real names of the soundpools - only to have your tunes sound like everyone else. So if you can, get a cheap midi keyboard, and just add write the tracks yourself :)

Anyway, that is it for me, but I feel like I did pretty good on the haul - so big thanks to Magix for the options and hopefully they sort out making coupons a bit more useful in the future.

Did anyone else take advantage of all the offers to upgrade to premium? Did you find a smarter path than I did?

Comments

ReplicantX wrote on 12/22/2017, 6:28 PM

I didn't get Premium and will likely just go a la carte with the features I need. The path I took from the Humble Bundle was:

1. I got the Creative Suite in the in-app store to unlock VST support. This is a must. Was going to use the e-mail coupon on it, but after discovering the 'web store' only use, I used it towards another soundpool instead.

2. I did a search for VSTs that fit the style I want to work in and found a bunch of free ones to use for now (and they're actually not bad). Note that if a VST comes in both 32 bit and 64 bit, I've found that the 64 bit one won't work, so opt for the 32 bit version.

3. I also found some other sound pools from other sources, where the free samples of the packs are royalty-free and can be used commercially. I may never make any money or use them in a commercial project but it's less stress worrying if I have to re-do a track later just to remove a sample. I also have several old cds of loops but I've yet to dig them out of storage.

4. I plan to get More Tracks and Formats for unlimited tracks.

My music experience is mostly from Acid, and Acid 2.0 at that. I first explored making electronic music with the MTV Music Generator waaaaaaaaay back on PS1. And with an ear for dance music, by the time I discovered Acid, I was well adapted into using samples and loops. I competed in a few AcidPlanet contests and had built up a large library of loops. But then I moved, had a computer crash, updated my computer several times since then and got busy with life, as we all do.

Then a few years ago I popped in Acid 2.0 and thought about getting back into it and discovered I was now locked out of the program because once it connected to the internet it converted to a demo version of the current release. Frustrated, I tossed the disc aside and gave up on ever making music or mixes again. It was one of those moments where I had a spark of inspiration but it was easily dampened.

When the Humble Bundle appeared, it seemed like the perfect jumpstart I needed to revive my interest in music mixing and seeing the 80s synthwave stuff featured, I was excited to have that available right off the bat.

But then more frustrations (documented in other posts already) came about. I eventually came to terms with the limitations put towards me and decided to focus more on using the instruments to make my own sounds. Coming from more of a loop and sample mixing background than an actual music composing background, I'm now learning how to make my own rhythms and melodies.
When I used Acid, I could take almost any loop or sample and make it sound totally different, but give me an instrument and all I could make was a cool drum beat or percussion. Or a really nice sounding FX.

I'm planning to get the extra tracks feature. At first, I didn't think I would need it, but as each track can only handle one instrument and changing the effects on the instrument for one section seems to change the settings for the whole track, I think I will.
Of course, I could just make the effects section in another project, save it as a wav and then load it back into the first project as a loop. But I think having unlimited tracks would be less time-consuming and I'd be able to fine-tune that section (or change it out completely) without feeling committed to the original idea.

Also, I'm still new to Music Maker and there may be a way to add an echo to just the last beat of a section of a track without the need of a whole other track, but I haven't gotten that far into the manual, yet.

Some things I've learned:

Even with loops and samples in my soundpool folder, Music Maker won't recognize them unless they're official Magix soundpools. So I need to open the folder and drag a sample into the arranger directly.

Adding an instrument from the library causes it to initialize with a set sound and when playing will reset the sound of the instrument back to the first one (that it initialized with) when the loop restarts. I've learned to always add the instrument from the left "+" on the track to avoid this issue.

Right clicking on the track details to create a track allows you to change the bar length. Very useful if you're wanting more than one bar to work with in the midi editor.

The BPM apparently can't be locked. This can be frustrating, as you could start a project with a desired BPM, add a sample or loop and not notice the BPM change right away. I'd much rather have the project BPM take precedence over the loop's BPM. The documentation says this is a benefit but I really don't see it. If I'm working on a 100 BPM song and want to add a 120 BPM drum loop, I'm doing it because of how it sounds at 100, not at 120. A simple 'lock BPM' switch would be nice.

The text to speech is nice. However, after playing the text if you click in the text field to make an edit it selects all the text. Meaning you can erase the whole thing by accident to add a comma or a period. Always click in the text field until it's no longer highlighted before editing.

The Default Piano is too quiet in the midi editor and I have to change to another instrument to hear the notes I'm laying down. There's probably a setting to fix this but I'm not sure. Outside of the editor, the piano sounds fine using the keys under the arranger.
Another workaround I've found is to do a midi recording and play a few notes then go into the editor, isolate the note I want and move it into position.

MarethyuSounds wrote on 4/23/2018, 6:00 PM

Thanks both for those long comments they truly helped me understand something more...
However, is there anyone who knows where can I find an in-app purchasable content (the More Tracks & Formats ) but in the web store so I can purchase it with the 10 euros coupon I got from the newsletter ?