Magix MP3 Maker 11 review

Magix's MP3 Maker gathers all forms of PC-based music together under one user-friendly roof. It can convert to and from CD, MP3, WMA, AAC, Ogg Vorbis and Wav formats, and does a fine job of keeping large digital music collections organised.

The software includes a well-ordered web radio directory with scheduled recording and timeshifting. It supports podcasts, too, with options to download episodes, subscribe to shows and, unusually, to stream episodes for instant playback. The software also handles transfers to portable players, printing playlists as CD artwork and even basic audio editing.

When ripping tracks from an audio CD, the software consults an online database of CD track lengths to fill in the artist, album and track names and various other details. There's nothing unusual in that, but it can do the same with existing MP3 albums; this is a lifesaver for those of us who have MP3 collections with missing tags. Track numbers are omitted, though. If the software can't recognise a particular track by the existing information, it analyses the audio content and checks this against another online database, with limited success in our tests.

A DJ button analyses all the tracks in a playlist and can adjust them to a constant tempo and mix them together. In practice, it does a good impression of an inebriated amateur DJ; sometimes it lines up the next track very pleasingly, but more often tracks crash in abruptly, sometimes at a ridiculously inappropriate tempo.

MP3 Maker 11 is a great program, and the fact that it supports all the major audio formats makes it a tempting alternative to free players such as iTunes and Windows Media Player. Even so, £30 is more than we'd expect to pay. More concerning is the fact that MP3 and AAC encoding requires online registration and can be done only once. Upgrade your PC and you'll need to buy the software again.