Z-Maestro
Z-Maestro is our flagship music composition tool. Imagine being able to compose,
record, and mix a piece of music all in the same program. Z-Maestro offers all this
and more with a friendly interface and professional features. Whether you are mixing
audio for a home movie or composing the next top hit, Z-Maestro has what you need.
Slick Interface
The user interface in Z-Maestro is nearly as beautiful as the music you can make
with it. Graphically lay out and mix your projects in the project timeline. Parts
can be looped or lengthened with a simple drag that snaps to common note values.
Fades and pans are also easy to achieve using the dynamic mixing controls, which
provide a visual way of animating values like volume and panning over time.
Fast Editing
Quickly edit any type of part using Z-Maestro's fast editing environment. Using
the roll editor, instrumental and percussion parts can be edited without any knowledge
of musical notation. Meanwhile, the audio editor provides an extremely powerful
interface for working with any audio clip. Effects can be applied with just a few
clicks and are completely reversible. Performing simple edits such as deletions
and rearrangments is a breeze.
Adaptive Audio Parts
Not only can simple audio clips and sound effects be inserted, but actual instrumental
recordings and loops are simple to add as adaptive audio parts. Simply import or
record the audio as you would normally, but by telling Z-Maestro the tempo of the
recording, the part will be automatically and non-destructively stretched to match
the project's tempo. If you change the tempo later, it will be automatically updated.
Live Audio Effects
Apply non-destructive realtime audio effects to audio tracks. For example, make
an entire track echo in one go. Effects have default settings that sound great for
most tracks, but their parameters can also be adjusted manually. Effects include
chorus, echo, invert, decimator, and level. Since the effects are non-destructive,
they can be added and removed at any time without changing the original audio.
Spectrum Editing
In addition to the excellent waveform view in the audio editor, you can also precisely
edit an audio clip's frequency spectrum. It's easy to remove high-frequency hisses
over an entire clip or even to adjust the volume of an individual sound or note
in the audio. The spectrogram's colors are completely customizable and the spectrogram
can be exported as an image.
SoundFont Rendering
Even the best composition can sound off with the wrong instrument. Z-Maestro gives
you the power of the SoundFont 2 format, an industry standard in patch storage.
A SoundFont file is usually built using recordings of actual instruments. When it
is used to play instrumental and percussion parts in Z-Maestro, you get the sound
of the original instrument. You can find literally thousands of free SoundFont files
on the internet, many of which sound as good as a real orchestra.
Instrument Selection
Select from the 128 different instruments in an included MIDI General Music standard
set. Download new SoundFonts to add, change, or improve the quality of the instruments.
In the instrument library, Z-Maestro will play a simple arpeggio in order to help
you on your journey to finding the perfect sound.
Roll Editor
The roll editor features live previewing of notes as you place and edit them, great
for getting a chord just right. The piano keys to the left of the editor are also
fully functional.
Recording
Turn your computer into a recording studio using Z-Maestro's recording abilities.
Record audio through any available audio input device. If you have a MIDI-compatible
device such as a keyboard, you can also use that for recording instrumental parts.
Don't have a MIDI keyboard? Not to worry — Z-Maestro will let you use your
own computer keyboard as a piano.
Full Project Export
When you have finally completed your masterpiece, it is easy to export the entire
project to the outside world. Export formats include MP3, WMA, and WAV, ready to
be burned onto an audio CD and shared, or into the MIDI format.
Included Loops
Z-Maestro comes bundled with a small library of instrumental and drum parts to help
you get started and to provide creative inspiration.
Z-Maestro Pro
While we do make a free (Lite) version of Z-Maestro available out of the kindness
of our hearts, Z-Maestro is not freeware. The free version has some limitations
built-in and it cannot be used for commercial purposes. Purchase Z-Maestro Pro for
$29.99 to experience the full extent of Z-Maestro's offerings.
See the feature comparison chart
To see a full list of all currently planned major features for each version, see
the Z-Maestro Roadmap.
