7 April
Microsoft Readies 'Monaco' Competitor to Apple's GarageBand
Quote:
"Just because users soon will be able to run Windows on Intel-based Macs doesn't mean Microsoft is backing away from competition with the Mac operating system. In fact, Microsoft is aiming straight at Apple with a forthcoming music-making program for Windows Vista.
Microsoft is still pushing full-steam-ahead with a music-making program, code-named "Monaco," according to Microsoft partners who requested anonymity. Monaco would be very similar to Apple's GarageBand application, but would be optimized to take advantage of Windows Vista and the Aero user interface.
Read the rest here
Interesting, I suspect you will likely see this in the Edition of Microsoft Plus! for Windows Vista add on pack or even available as a free download to users who purchase the Ultimate Edition of Vista. I am not really excited about this type of application, I guess maybe I prefer acquiring and listening to music than creating it. It should be a fun application to use especially since it will be utilizing some of the foundation technologies of Windows Vista such as Windows Presentation Foundation. I am not gonna say there isn't anything like this available on the Windows Platform, but easy to use is probably not there, software such as Reason and Sonic are just too difficult to learn and disinteresting. Even Garage Band does not excite me, a similar application is bundled with Toast Titanium 7, I was playing with it and it just turned me off. So, if Monaco is easy to use with a cool inviting interface and great help assistant, I probably might be interested in making some melodies. It should have some advantage over Garage Band with virtual keyboard, should be cool looking too on a wide screen display. :)
工具 
說明
