I'm upping my estimation of the product (from two stars for Mixcraft 4, to four stars for the latest version) because even though the software is buggy (in my experience, what software isn't?), it's got so much potential if you stick with it and accept its limitations (whatever they happen to be with your OS and computer capabilities).
There were two problems I experienced:
1.) Even after upgrading to Windows 7 and then Mixcraft 5 with all its cool new features, I still could not use Mixcraft's piano roll editor (see original review, below) without eventually crashing, corrupting my entire file and wasting many hours. However, I'd already invested so much money and effort into the software I decided to continue on with the usable features (which really ARE cool and user-friendly).
2.) I had to buy a microphone other than the Logitech that made me sound like I was singing into a tin can, so I got a . I will not go deeply into the enormous frustration I experienced trying to find the right combination of Mixcraft driver/latency/buffer preferences in order to prevent the popping/breaking/lagging I got when I tried to add vocals to my instrumentals with the Samson. Suffice it to say, I spent hours attempting just about everything Acoustica, Dell, Microsoft and Samson advised and it was still a no go. There are just too many things to take into consideration when using products not specifically made to work with each other, and I felt like only an expert in both computers and mixing software could possibly understand it. The conceptual learning curve, if you're a novice like me, is steep.
(I did come up with an acceptable work-around, the details of which are at whimsilly on blogger, as is the song I made, in case you'd like to hear what a novice can do with this software and a little persistence!)
Despite the problems I experienced, I really enjoyed playing with all the loops, and my final product (the song) is more than satisfactory. If you are looking for software to create royalty-free background music for your project (that's why I got it), this is the product for you.
Original review for Mixcraft version 4
All of the rave reviews about Mixcraft are true. The product is easy to use and does a lot for the money. My OS was Vista 32-bit, however, and whenever I tried to use the instrument track to create a piano tune, my computer crashed. I contacted Mixcraft support and they were perfectly patient and tried to be helpful, but after weeks of back and forth with "does it do this when you do this?" and "try doing this and let us know what happens" I started to feel like a beta-tester, and got highly frustrated at losing all of my musical creations as they became corrupt after each crash. Nothing solved the problem, so in desperation, I upgraded to Windows 7. Now Mixcraft crashes at random. I would rate it much higher if not for the fact that the software obviously isn't fully compatible with Vista or W7.