You may be wondering why you found a review of MAGIX Samplitude 11.5 Producer on a graphic design podcast blog? Well let me explain. Rookie Designer as you may or may not know is a podcast as well as a blog about graphic design that I cohost with Kitty of Asterisco, S.A. Part of my responsibilities as cohost is to do the audio clean up for the podcast. So when MAGIX approached me to do a review of Samplitude 11.5 Producer, I thought it was a great time to try out an audio editing and producer tool that is much more powerful.

I will start off by saying I am definitely not an expert in the audio producing world and only have experience working with audio tools in order to produce both Rookie Design and Rookie Photog podcasts. However, I thought I might be able to provide a unique perspective for someone who is getting into podcasting or who has been doing it for awhile and is looking for a software that can step things up a bit. Up until using MAGIX Samplitude 11.5 Producer over the last few months, I was an avid Audacity user. The biggest reason was the fact that it was free. This is a classic example of you get what you pay for. Audacity is a very limited software.

Samplitude 11.5 Producer is a very, very powerful and a bit intimidating. When I first opened up the software the interface was overwhelming with showing multiple tracks, visualisation and transport. Since this software was such a step up from what I was using, I made sure to watch some of the demo videos included with the software and do some searching with in the help menu. First thing I noticed was the ability to have different work spaces and I decided to start with the “easy” work space. I felt I was ready to import my first podcast track and off I went. Importing and removing tracks was a pretty easy task. I was able to import into specific locations, which can be really important if you are working with prerecorded intros or advertising spots. It was really impressive to me how easy it was to slide entire tracks or smaller sections up or down a few seconds in the timeline. Making it quick to line up where I wanted the show to start as the intro music faded out. I think this was one of the nicest features for me with working on my podcasts because of the different pieces I have to put together, from the intro to the intro music to the main recording and then on to the end music.

Another area that I was really impressed with was how simple it was to split a section and adjust the volume of a specific section. So if there was a loud pop or someone got a little too excited during recording, I was able to balance that out right in line. While I do use Levalator it was nice to be able to make minor adjustments rather quickly. Samplitude 11.5 Producer is definitely about details and it is very obvious when you go to work with your tracks. As well as splitting and making adjustments to the split section, you can make very, very specific changes. While this was not something I really felt I needed to work with too much, it was nice to know that I could work on a specific pop or a shrill area if I wanted to. Also the Visualisation was nice during recordings because it allowed me to keep on eye on how hot I was while speaking and if I started to get too hot I could back away a bit or calm down a bit. Just a minor thing that helped save me a bit of time while editing.

While I know there is a lot more to MAGIX Samplitude 11.5 Producer to dive into. From the work I did on my podcast files, it was really impressive. Definitely overwhelming for a new audio producer such as myself but there are a ton of videos, tutorials, how tos and many other resources out there for this software. Not to mention the help that comes with the software. If you are a podcaster or someone who likes to play with audio I would definitely recommend that you check out Samplitude 11.5. Down load the trail and dive right in. I think you’ll find that there is some awesome power with in this software and for it’s $199.99 price tag, it is very competitive to some of the other pay audio producing software tools.

Overview
Manufacturer: MAGIX
Price (RRP): $199.99
Platforms: Windows XP (32/ 64-bit), Vista (32/ 64-bit), 7 (32/ 64-bit)
Requirements: 4GB free hard drive space, 1024×768 graphics card, full duplex 16-bit sound card or ASIO-enabled card

If you are interested in other MAGIX software reviews, please be sure to check out my reviews:
XARA Photo & Graphic Designer 7 and Designer Pro 7
XARA Web Designer 7
XARA 3D Maker 7