Review – PlayerPRO 4.5.9 

PlayerPRO 4.5.9
Author: Antoine ROSSET
Shareware: $99.00

If you looked at the hefty $99 shareware fee listed above, you might be in shock. You might even think to yourself, “99 dollars, you say? That must be a typo!” Trust me, that’s not a typo—it’s actually a great deal on the best music players/editors/converters for Macintosh (or even Windows). PlayerPRO is the all-around best program for beginners and advanced musicians alike.

Not Overpriced
The $99 shareware price will not only get you the shareware program, but a CD crammed with more than 4,000 songs, 500 sampled instruments (for use in your own songs), the latest PlayerPRO software, other music shareware, and the PlayerPRO development kit. No other software package comes close to PlayerPRO’s impressive CD.

But we’re all not music professionals, and the registration information didn’t mention any way to register PlayerPRO without buying the entire CD package. The only listed way to register PlayerPRO is to order the CD, which may cost too much for casual users.

The Perfect Player?
PlayerPRO is digital audio heaven.

To start, it can play files in just about every popular music or audio format, including MOD, S3M, Midi, MTM, MADx, OKTA, snd (System 7 sounds), MINS, WAV, XI, AIFF, AIFC, MED, 669, IT, ULT, and XM. PlayerPRO can also convert files to several of these formats.

In addition to its support for a vast array of file formats, PlayerPRO also has a host of other features with which to see your music. For instance, the mesmerizing oscilloscope and spectrum views are great visual aids while listening to music. There are even enough views to satisfy veteran digital musicians. The digital synthesizer, song track, instrument list, pattern/partition view, wave preview, and music adaptor windows all provide easy access and views for advanced features (especially suited for composers). It also features a music list, which is automatically saved when you quit and restored the next time you run PlayerPRO (music lists can also be saved as individual files).

Speaking of eye candy, PlayerPRO also boasts several full-screen viewing modes. ‘FullView’ is a visual delight, showing the oscillograms of each instrument (also outlining their loop regions, and highlighting them when they play), real-time oscillograms of each channel, and general song information—all while scrolling some personal messages from the author along the bottom of the screen. The ‘ScreenSaver’ mode is very similar to FullView, but it shows different real-time 3D audio-sensitive displays (basically polygons that move to the music). It also shows the credits and advertises PlayerPRO with a cool snowfall animation. The other two features are basically useless. The flawed ScrollText mode requires exactly 256 colors on exactly a 640 x 480 display, and the 3D cube option is disabled on my computer; I don’t know what it does.

Completing PlayerPRO’s ensemble of features is its editor. Even here, PlayerPRO provides astounding variety. Music can be written and edited in 4 ways: the digital editor, the box editor, the piano, and the classical editor. The digital and box editors are very similar, although the latter is easier to use. In both windows, holding various modifier keys (like option and command) allow you to do things like preview the sound at a certain pitch. The piano input method is very self explanatory. It is essentially—surprise!—a piano-like keyboard, where piano keys are assigned to keyboard keys (clicking the mouse also works). However, pianists may not like the fact that PlayerPRO’s piano keys are all side-by-side; the accidental (black) keys are not offset in any way from the rest. Lastly, the classical editor is just like a musical score; notes are laid out on a staff. This editor will probably be the most familiar and popular one for most musicians who aren’t familiar with digital music trackers.

B Minor
‘B’ is for ‘bugs’. Although PlayerPRO is the most robust digital audio solution, it still has its share of minor bugs. It also has a small memory leak which can be remedied by quitting and opening the application again when an ‘Out of Memory’ error comes up.

The Summary
If you’re looking for the most advanced, robust, and compatible music editor, player, and converter on the Macintosh, PlayerPRO is the way to go. Its $99 CD will include everything you need to enjoy digital audio at its finest. But if you just want to get your feet wet in the massive realm of digital music, PlayerPRO’s price might just be a bit too steep.