Magix Mufin MusicFinder base review

Mufin MusicFinder is music-playback software that claims to know what you want to listen to before you do.

It analyses the musical content of your MP3 collection and tries to construct playlists in a similar mood. This 'base' version is free, and we can see no reason to opt for the £15 version, which adds barely any extra features.

We doubt that a computer algorithm exists that can measure the amount of anger, joy or existential despair in a track, but Mufin's playlist generator is doing something right. Analysis took about 10 hours for our 10,000-track library, but this needed doing only once. We then specified a Dizzee Rascal track to start the playlist, and the software picked out Missy Elliot, Eminem, Pharell Williams, Busta Rhymes and a sample-heavy Beck song - we can't imagine a more consistent playlist. Starting with Tom Waits, it selected Bjrk, Bat for Lashes, Antony and the Johnsons, an Elvis ballad and a mellow Black Sabbath track. It was sometimes a little too efficient, playing different versions of the same song next to each other, while other attempts were less coherent. An aggressive R'n'B track from N*E*R*D followed by the Scooby Doo theme tune was particularly unfortunate, although on reflection, there was a certain bizarre similarity.

Mufin is simple and straightforward to use. Music is arranged by artist, album, year, genre or playlist, and browsing is extremely quick. CDs can be imported in any of eight formats, and playlists burnt to audio CD or transferred to MP3 players. Tracks with incomplete ID tags are cross-referenced against the AudioID online database, which uses the audio to identify artist, title and album information. Magix's weakness for bafflingly complex dialog boxes and right-click menus is kept to a minimum, though there are a couple of exceptions.

ITunes and Windows Media Player integrate better with online content, include video support and are more polished in places, but Mufin's simplicity, good format support and intriguing playlist generator are an appealing combination.