Anti-Windows Catalog

Audio Software Roundup

Written by Gordon Fecyk, 4/9/2005

AFTER ANOTHER ARGUMENT with a software vendor, I decided to survey this vendor's competition and see how much bad design is out there. The result is the Anti-Windows Catalog's first Product Roundup. To make things simple I visited The Ultimate Collection Of Winsock Software, better known as TUCOWS.

I wasn't surprised to find a lot of bad design among the audio editor offerings. What surprised me was the amount of good design I found. Roughly one-quarter of all products surveyed worked without fault on Windows 2000 and Windows XP with all of their safety features enabled.

I also compared these products with Roxio's Easy Media Creator. Roxio earned the Designed for Windows XP logo so I knew it would work in my tests, but it was important to compare it to these shareware offerings because of the suggested registration fees. Some of these products demanded as much as $70.00 US, compared to Roxio's $99.95. I had to see if they were worth it.

THE NOMINEES FOR WORST DESIGN ARE...

(after a weekend of Juno madness in Winnipeg, I'm entitled.)

• AAA Wave by Virtual Worlds Limited: 3/5 Tucows rating, $29.00, Pass.
• Acoustica 3.1 by Acon Digital Media: 4/5 Tucows rating, $29.00, Fail.
• All Editor by First Benison Co.: 3/5 Tucows rating, $39.95, Pass.
• AVS Audio Utilities by AVS Media: 5/5 Tucows rating, $29.95, Fail.
• Blaze Audio Wave Creator by Blaze Audio: 3/5 Tucows rating, $19.95, Fail.
• DART XP Pro by DARTECH Incorporated: 3/5 Tucows rating, $199.95, Fail.
• FlexiMusic Wave Editor by Fleximusic.com: 3/5 Tucows rating, $15.00, Fail.
• iMagic Audio Editor by iMagic Audio Editor Software Corporation: 5/5 Tucows rating, $29.95, Fail.
• IntelliScore MIDI Converter by Innovative Music Systems: 4/5 Tucows rating, $79.00, Fail.
• MP3 Edit Magic by Audio Edit Magic Soft Incorporated: 3/5 Tucows rating, $39.95, Fail.
• MP3 Surgeon by MP3Surgeon.com: 4/5 Tucows rating, $19.95, Pass.
• MP3 Workshop by Audio2x.com: 4/5 Tucows rating, $19.95, Fail.
• MySoundStudio 2.0 by Stomp Soft: 3/5 Tucows rating, $69.95, Pass.
• Neuratron AudioTune Professional by Neuratron Limited: 3/5 Tucows rating, $99.00, Fail.
• PC Sound Recorder and Editor by Pc-Sound-Recorder.com: 4/5 Tucows rating, $29.00, Marginal Pass.
• SoundEdit Pro by R.M. de Boer Software: 3/5 Tucows rating, $39.95, Fail.
• SoundLandscape 2.0 by SpecSound Studio: 4/5 Tucows rating, $39.95, Fail.
• TabTrax 2.0 by 2112design: 3/5 Tucows rating, $29.95, Pass.
• TS-MIDI Editor 1.00 by TallStick Software: 3/5 Tucows rating, Free, Fail.
• Wave Flow 5.1 by Xavier Cirac: 5/5 Tucows rating, $25.00, Fail.
• WavePad 1.09 by NCH Swift Sound: 3/5 Tucows rating, $76.00, Fail.
• XG-Wizard 2.0 by Midiweb DE: 3/5 Tucows rating, $35.00, Fail.

SIX OUT OF TWENTY-TWO PRODUCTS run without fault. One of these six has a minor settings problem, though the program seems to operate without a hitch otherwise. That isn't bad, actually, because I can demonstrate to the other sixteen vendors that some of their competition does it right.

I also considered the license agreements of each of these products, because the vendor I argued with complained that multiple users on one computer was a violation of his license. He should check his competition, then, because most of these vendors explicitly permit single computer, multiple user installations. As long as the software was used by one person at a time, supporting multiple users and limited users in Windows XP is just fine.

Therefore, I want to thank Virtual Worlds Limited, First Benison Company, MP3Surgeon.com, Pc-Sound-Recorder.com, Stomp Soft and 2112 Design for giving me ammunition to use against the rest of these people.

Related Links:

• Product Roundups
• There's a reason for this testing.
• If Microsoft sucks, lazy vendors suck more.
• Your computer is a power tool. Use it safely.
• Did your product fail? Learn how to fix it here. -- Everything2

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