Mad about Music?  Go Mad with MadPlayer!

January 9th, 2003 at 2:00 PM - Macworld Expo by John F. Braun

Of course the Mac is a great platform for audio and music work, but there may be those who would like to create music, but donit know a sharp from a flat. Sure, you could take some music courses, but thereis a much quicker way to create music on-the-fly. We had a chance to sit down with Viot Damevski, President and CEO of MadWaves, who demonstrated their MadPlayer device. This is the first US Macworld where this device has been demonstrated.

In a nutshell, you tell the MadPlayer device which style of music youid like to create, and it will start playing a tune using that style. The styles you can choose from include Hip Hop, Rap, RnB, Downbeat, Ragga, Manga, Drums&Bass, Jungle, House, Garage, Techno, Trance, Ambient, New Age, Ballad and Bossa. Unfortunately, when your author was queried about his favorite style of music, we started feeling our age since Classic Rock wasnit (yet) included.

Once you select a style, you can then navigate along a "highway" which has bass, drum, lead, riff, sample and microphone "lanes." Once you select a lane, you can then "dive" into it and change that particular portion of the music until it is to your liking. The bass, drum, lead and riff lanes are fairly obvious. The sample lane lets you incorporate your own audio samples into the music, and the microphone lane lets you include audio from a microphone in real time. Although you can use the device on its own, there is also MadWare software, which lets you save your creations to your computer.

The MadPlayer package normally retails for $249, but until January 31, 2003, it can be purchased from MacWarehouse for the special price of $199.