Here is my review of MasterWriter, a collection of writing tools for songwriters.
First of all, I give MasterWriter two big thumbs up. It has been an invaluable songwriting tool for me since the day I bought just over a year ago.
MasterWriter is a powerful Windows and Mac compatible suite of songwriting tools. MasterWriter is an educational, creative and organizational powerhouse for the professional songwriter and songwriting hobbiest.
When you open MasterWriter, you’re presented with a database of your songs. There’s a robust search engine with filters and grouping capabilities – I’ll be extremely happy if they add Mac OSX Spotlight support. A simple double-click on the song title and you’re in the Lyric area – a fully-functional word processor. You can see your completed lyric sheet or go straight to the Sketches area where you can write and store bits and pieces of your lyric. You can screen-split the completed lyric and the lyric sketches for better editing.
But what I like most about MasterWriter is the Collected Area. Here is a special window that shows your completed lyric or lyric sketch and all of the rhymes and words you’ve collected in MasterWriter’s thesaurus and many dictionaries. The Collected area is where most of your writing will be done. It’s laid out well visually. All of your lyrical choices are right before your eyes.
The rhyme dictionaries are fantastic and thorough. I still pull out my trusted Roget’s Thesaurus from time to time though. There’s something about looking through classes of intellectual thought and the kinesthetic feeling of paper under my fingers that stimulates my creativity. With MasterWriter, you can search rhymes for any word in a number of categories. MasterWriter filters rhymes by Primary, Secondary, Pop-Culture, and a list of your favorite rhymes. It even gives you alternate pronunciations for even more rhyme choices. MasterWriter’s unique rhyming feature is “Sound-Alikes” – a family rhyme tool. MasterWriter also includes rhymed-phrases, an alliteration dictionary (the only one in existence), a pop-culture dictionary, a thesaurus and more.
I also use the stereo hard disk recorder to capture ideas. Unfortunately, you’re limited to 5 minutes of audio at a time but you can record multiple takes. It’s great if you don’t feel like booting up another program and you need to capture an idea fast. Plus, it keeps all of your audio within your song file which is nice for organization. You can even set audio markers for quick location and there’s a MIDI drum loop player with quite a few useful loops (over 250) to keep you inspired.
Another unique feature of MasterWriter is Songuard, their online date-of-creation song registration service. You can keep track of all your song publishing and copyright information in one place and feel secure that you have a solid record of creation.
If you’re serious about becoming a better songwriter, MasterWriter can definitely help. The flash tutorial that comes with MasterWriter is very inspiring and will get you using the program in only minutes.
Best of all, I’ve negotiated a $50 discount for you when you use discount number 2070. Download a free 30-Day Trial at http://www.masterwriter.com or call Toll Free 1-866-892-8844. Remember to use discount number 2070. Full Disclosure: I get a kickback when you use my code. But I seriously use it every day! So if you don’t want me to get the referral, just don’t use my code. But if you appreciate my review, maybe you can help me pay my hosting bill. Cheers!
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about graham
I have a question about the hard disc recorder. In your review you stated:
“I also use the stereo hard disk recorder to capture ideas. Unfortunately, you’re limited to 5 minutes of audio at a time but you can record multiple takes.”
My question is: Can you save the audio in a separate file elsewhere on your computer so you don’t lose multiple ideas? Is that what you mean by “multiple takes”?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Jeff
Hi Jeff. You can record as many ideas as you want within MasterWriter. But each recording has a 5 minute limit. I’m not sure why it does this. It seems silly to place a limit on the recording, but it does.
I talked to Matt from MasterWriter at NAMM and he said there is an update coming soon. He wouldn’t give me any more details unfortunately. Maybe that’s remedied.
But don’t let it be a deal breaker. It’s nice to have a simple little recorder in there in case the moment strikes you and you don’t have a sequencer or some other audio recorder open. But it’s meant to be a tool for words, not audio.
I stopped using the recorder totally. Now I have LogicPro open all the time and I’ll capture everything musical there. You could grab a copy of Audacity and record as much as you want. And it’s free.
I still rely on MasterWriter for all my lyrical needs. It’s simply the best app available right now.
[...] spent a solid 30 minutes with Barry DeVorzon of MasterWriter discussing the new update coming out in a couple of months. I wish I was at liberty to talk about [...]