MusicMatch Jukebox- Slow But Free!?
Written: Nov 25 '00 (Updated Nov 30 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Free all in one tool
Cons: S L O W encoding
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| rpllingrock's Full Review: Macmillan MusicMatch Jukebox Full Version for Mac |
Much more than a basic MP3 player, it can rip CD's, make MP3's, and burn your finished product, with little effort.
My search started when the need arose to make a CD from MP3's while away from home. My normal choice of application would be Adaptec's Easy CD Creator.
What Is It?
First and foremost it's an MP3 player, and a decent one at that. I still prefer WinAmp for its no nonsense approach to accomplish a simple task. I don't need skins or visualizations to listen to MP3's. Just play my music!
This review is for version 6.00.0255
Installation and Setup
Being a hefty 8.6 Meg download, I was hoping it would be worth my effort. Upon installation you're prompted for a few marketing question. Not anything too deep here. They ask if you would like them to track your music preferences. If you're paranoid about them knowing what you listen to, just leave the box unchecked.
Listen to Barry Manilow too much and they can make your life miserable if they find out your taste in music! ;)
Features I Liked
· What attracted me to this program was the ability to rip audio from CD's and encode them into MP3's, albeit at a snails pace when compared to Xing's AudioCatalyst. This speed slowdown (25%) is due to it being the Freebie version. On my system it was 1.4 times normal speed. On AudioCatalyst, 10 times. Way less than the 25% decrease they claim. One must also take into consideration that the 1.4 times includes the actual ripping and encoding process, where as with AudioCatalyst it's just ripping speed.
MusicMatch Jukebox Plus will set you back $19.99, or a lifetime of free upgrades for $29.99. My preference would be to opt for the lifetime deal since new versions are coming out frequently.
· The ability to burn Audio CD's from MP3's. With the unregistered version, your speed is restricted in which you can burn. The speed increases up to 6 times upon purchase. My particular CD burner is only 2X, so not a big deal for me. I can see it being a pain if you owned a 10X and had to wait. I hate to wait!
· The fly out feature of the play list and buttons below the player. It doesn't take much to amuse me nowadays! ;)
· The documentation is extensive and covered just about any question I threw at it. This was a big improvement over earlier versions of this software.
· The ability to "normalize" audio so songs from track to track play at the same volume level. This is a feature that should be mandatory for any audio ripping recording software.
I Could Take It Or Leave It!
· As I said before, skins and visualizations are not a necessary part of any player. Sure they enhance the experience, but for me it's just a feature that I never fully utilize. I did try it though. It includes about 4 such visualizations with the opportunity to download others. If I had to pick a favorite, it has to be "Amazing Colors" and the default skin "Neutronium".
· Being force-fed information in the display window. This is much like the Channel windows found in Real Network and Microsoft products. To me it's just a bandwidth "sucker" and not really needed. Much of this advertisement goes towards making these software titles free.
· Just as we have browser wars, although it's more like a squabble nowadays, media players want to take over who will be the default player for specific media types. A format that was once opened by WinAmp, has been taken over by MusicMatch. Upgrade MediaPlayer and it too will steal back their WMA format. Most times you're at least allowed to choose what each player will be allowed to handle. Be quick and pay close attention to the dialog boxes!
· One problem I did notice was when changing some options. The volume would increase to an eardrum rupture level with each change. Couldn't figure this one out.
· I could have done away with the scrolling message telling me I could increase performance by purchasing an upgrade.
Burn, Baby, Burn
I tested this feature for several CD's and can safely say it is competent burning software. It is recommended that you cache the music file to your hard drive prior to burning.
Overall
The program is nicely done with just enough options to get everything to work properly. You won't be bombarded with mysterious prompts. And that suits me just fine.
The jewel case creator, if that's what you want to call it, is lacking big time! But if you're interested in just printing a list of songs, it'll do the job.
If you're looking for a free way out, I recommend this all in one tool for all your ripping, listening and burning needs. But would I spend the $19.99? Yes! If I had a faster CD and didn't want the wait associated with this free version. If you plan on getting down and dirty with configurations and options, well, you better look elsewhere.
It did run fairly stable on Windows ME, 500 MHz P3 with 128 MB RAM, but much slower than on Windows 98SE with the same memory and slower processor (Celeron 400 MHz).
Recommended:
Yes
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