Roxio Creator 2009 review

A useful application suite that offers digital music management and more

  • £50
  • $99.95
Creator 2009 lets you do more than just burn CDs.

MusicRadar Verdict

This well-equipped digital media suite keeps getting better.

Pros

  • +

    Easy to use. Lots of different applications.

Cons

  • -

    Beat-matching feature is limited.

MusicRadar's got your back Our team of expert musicians and producers spends hours testing products to help you choose the best music-making gear for you. Find out more about how we test.

Creator 2009 is the latest in Roxio's long-running series of disc-burning software packages that was once known as Easy CD Creator. However, these days, burning CDs is the least of its abilities.

Video capture and editing, CD ripping, photo management, data backup, conversion to portable formats - Creator does it all with a simple interface consisting of big buttons and lists of tasks that can be performed.

The main hub interface invariably loads one of Roxio's dedicated programs, so all these tasks are essentially performed by different bits of software, enabling the user to perform multiple tasks at once. Helpful wizards are on hand to assist with the majority of jobs.

The only thing we found slightly disappointing was the auto beat-matching feature, which can be used to automatically create seamless mix CDs. This actually speeds up or slows down the tracks gradually (complete with nausea-inducing changes in pitch) rather than sticking with one tempo, and as such is best suited to mixing music that's already within quite a narrow tempo range.

Computer Music

Computer Music magazine is the world’s best selling publication dedicated solely to making great music with your Mac or PC computer. Each issue it brings its lucky readers the best in cutting-edge tutorials, need-to-know, expert software reviews and even all the tools you actually need to make great music today, courtesy of our legendary CM Plugin Suite.