Listen to music, watch videos, tune in to radio, burn CDs and more from one convenient player! AMP is an application that works outside of the AOL client, and can be used to play audio and video content on your computer when you are not connected to the Internet.

Download AOL Media Player 0.6.1.7 Beta in Softonic

Harmony Assistant is a all-in-one software product with digital audio capabilities. Its harmonizing capabilities enable the composer to build quickly and efficiently tunes that include accompaniment, multiple instruments and drum patterns. Its full page edit and engraver modes will ease editing and page setup of your scores.

A wide range of music symbols will enable to edit scores of great quality: notation capabilities are immense. Using the page mode, you will edit the score just as it will be printed on paper. The Engraver mode will make look it nice. Score input can be performed through the mouse, computer keyboard or an external MIDI keyboard.

Harmony Assistant comes with its own embedded software synthesizer (SoftSynth), which provides high quality output on basic sound cards, even without any external MIDI device, and includes hundreds of different instruments. Harmony Assistant can load and save in many formats (MIDI, WAV, AIFF, MP3, OGG, TAB, ABC...).

With MyrScript, the embedded programming language, you can add your own features to the program

More features:

• Complete score editor, with unlimited number of staves
• Page mode editing
• Automatic harmonizer
• Accompaniments & drum patterns in a few clicks
• Tablature calculation for miscellaneous string instrument
• Tablature calculation for Harmonica, diatonic accordion, wind instruments...
• Completely scriptable application. Many open-source scripts are available.
• Embedded softsynth : does not need any hardware other than a sound card.
• Midi, Kar, MOD, S3M... import
• Digital tracks (possible to import WAV, AIFF, MP3, OGG...)
• Wav-to-note pitch tracker, noise reduction, formant-compliant pitch change, ...
• Gregorian notation
• Chord diagram library for various instruments
• Enables to build custom instruments from digital recordings
• Lute tablatures
• Street organ card printing
• Karaoke and multi-voices lyrics are actually sung.
• Enable visitors of your Web site to view, transpose, play or print your scores

Download Harmony Assistant 9.4.6 in Softonic

If you are the type of person who always changes your mobile ring-tone, this application is a must-have for you. EZ Ringtone allows you to convert music, either from CD tracks or mp3 file, to different ring-tone formats compatible with all modern devices.

The interface is really clear and simple: you just have to open an audio file to have an image of the right and left channel. Then select the part of your music you would like to convert to a ring-tone and press the format button compatible with your mobile. That’s it.

It’s annoying though that the trial version limits the duration of ring-tones to 5 seconds and it is a shame that there is not even a simple editing tool. It would have been good, for example, to have the possibility of mixing different parts of a song or maybe different titles as well. A fading or echo effect to end the recording would have made the final ring-tone a bit more ’professional’.

The tool that compresses MP3 files size from 30% up to 70% is also useful, saving valuable space on your mobile phone in case it’s not yet as capacious as a proper MP3 player.

Don’t be bored with your ring-tone ever again and drive all your co-workers mad with your favourite songs!

Download EZ Ringtone 1.7.0 in Softonic

RGB MusicLab is probably the most strange – or should I say original – music software tool you've ever seen.

Instead of letting you compose music by using your computer keyboard as a music keyboard or writing notes right on the tablature, like you may have seen in other music composition apps, RGB MusicLab creates music automatically from any image you load on the program.

Yes, that's what you read: music out of images. RGB MusicLabs reads any photo you load on it, turns it into a mosaic and creates the music all by itself based on the color, brightness, saturation and other elements from the picture. Being an automatic composition there's not much you can do to change it (and sometimes you do feel like changing it because it sounds really bad). Luckily there are some settings you can tweak, such as the number of tiles in the mosaic, the length of notes and the kind of instrument, which can help you improve your musical piece of art.

RGB MusicLab provides you with a whole new way to create music, where you don't have that much control over the creating process but which proves to be really original.

Download RGB MusicLab 22 in Softonic

In an age of multiple media players all with different codecs and formats, it's nice to know there's at least one out there that can play just about anything.

Haihaisoft Universal Player supports almost all popular digital media formats and can also play digital media files protected by DRM-X. Amongst the players it can emulate are Windows Media Player, Real Player, Adobe Flash Player, Apple QuickTime Player, PowerDVD and Flash Video (FLV) Player. Whatsmore though, this player embeds itself into Internet Explorer meaning that whenever you are presented with a format compatible with any of these file types, you can watch it instantly. The number of formats it can play is mind-boggling, including those protected by DRM such as WMV(Windows Media Video), WMA(Windows Media Audio), ASF, WMS, DVD, VCD, SVCD, MOV, RM, RMVB, AVI, MPEG, WMV, 3GP, FLV, SWF, MP3, AMR, M4A, ACC, OGG, MIDI, GIF and JPEG file format. Best of all, the program is constantly updated with the latest codecs so you don't need to worry about it suddenly not being able to play files.

A completely free player that supports just about any format imaginable and embeds itself into IE perfectly.

Download Haihaisoft Universal Player 1.0.7.1 in Softonic

Reading or writing music is one of the trickiest parts of being a professional musician but software like Melody Assistant can make your life considerably easier.

This program features a wide range of musical symbols that will enable you to create and tablatures including even complex scores such as Gregorian notation. You can input music through the mouse, computer keyboard or even an external MIDI keyboard. The program comes bundled with its own embedded software synthesizer (SoftSynth), which provides high quality output on basic sound cards, even without any external MIDI device, and includes hundreds of different instruments. In addition, you'll find a complete score editor, tablature calculation for miscellaneous string instruments, a chord diagram library for various instruments plus the possibility to allow visitors to view, transpose, play or print your scores. If you're completely new to composing music too, there's a host of very handy video tutorials on the developer website to help you get the most out of it.

Easy to use and with input possibilities from MIDI devices, Melody Assistant will help you write tablature and musical scores in no time.

Download Melody Assistant 7.3.4 in Softonic

If you thought that MIDI files were all but obsolete nowadays you'd only be half right because the MIDI format still lingers on long since we all converted to WAV, MP3 and OGG format.

MIDI Converter Studio is designed to be extremely simple to use (which generally it is) but also powerful enough and attractive enough to be used by demanding professional users. The program accepts most major MIDI formats which can be MIDI 0, MIDI 1, Karaoke MIDI, RIFF MIDI 0, RIFF MIDI 1. When converting the MIDI files, users have an option to alter the bit rate, frequency and Mono/Stereo settings as well as insert tags if required. In addition, the program has it's own media player so you can test the conversions instantly without reverting to a third party application which is useful. If you need to convert multiple files at once, you can use the batch conversion feature which simultaneously converts multiple tracks into the format fo your choice. Where MIDI Converter studio can really help though is in avoiding the need to buy an expensive audio card to make MIDI files sound natural. You just have to download an appropriate SoundFont from a free repository and use it to convert the MIDI into WAV (or some other format) with MIDI Converter Studio.

Whether you're an amateur or a professional, there's something in MIDI Converter Studio that will appeal to both sets of users.

Download MIDI Converter Studio 6.0 in Softonic

Ableton is known for making excellent audio software, with Ableton Live one of their star apps. This program will allow you to manage all the processes of audio production, from beat creation to adjustments, recording and live sets.

The application, which could compare to a powerful combination of sequencer and sampler, comes with a library full of instruments, MIDI and audio effects to start working with. Ableton offers two sorts of views, arrangement and session, the first being like a traditional timeline, while session lets you add and play around with effects. One thing that impressed me is that you can associate any key on your keyboard with any effect, which makes for a really intuitive track creation process.

Ableton Live includes real-time stretching and warping of audio and even video import to sync audio to video.

Although you'll definitely need some technical knowledge to use Ableton I found the application very well detailed, with the info view box on the bottom left giving clear explanations of everything. Ableton Live also comes with loads on tutorials to master the program.

Ableton is a highly flexible and powerful audio solution for music production. Fitted with a great interface, a wide library of effects and loads of help, you won't find many programs as good as this.

Download Ableton Live 7.0.7 in Softonic

If you're looking for not only a media player but also a recorder aswell, then JetAudio basic is a super solid solution that's packed with features.

It's secret lies in the ability to not only reproduce formats but convert them and even record audio and video. You can convert among all the major audio file formats and convert analog audio to various formats. There are also several visualization features including Sound2Vision tag editing for MP3, OGG, and WMA files plus you can add basic sound effects including wide, reverb, and x-bass. It would have been nice to have had a few more sound effects here but it's not really big on graphic equaliser effects. You can control the speed of audio playback and also perform cross-fading between two songs which is useful if you want to use it as a party and turn yourself into your own DJ. There a re a few skins to change - there should be more - and karaoke fans are not left behind either as there is an options to used synchronised lyrics with kareoke audio files. You can even search for lyrics via "Leo's Lyric Database" although the number of songs is very limited and sometimes the lyrics aren't correct anyway.

A very useful all round player for anyone that would like to do more than just playback their audio files.

Download JetAudio Basic 7.1.0 in Softonic

TuxGuitar is a full featured music composition tool that can be really helpful to musicians, whether they use their computer to compose music or not.

The program looks really complex at first sight – at least for a music newbie like me – so I have the feeling it may overwhelm more novice users. But the amount of available tools, along with an extensive help section and documentation really encourages you to give it a go.

TuxGuitar features a nicely designed interface with clear, simple lines that turns your music composition tasks into a lighter work. Besides composing right on the tablature, you can also have a virtual guitar fretboard or piano keyboard to make composition even easier. What's more, the program lets you play the songs you just composed, using one of the many instruments included in it.

In spite of a confusing first impression, TuxGuitar well deserves a chance from all music composers: it's nicely designed and features many interesting tools.

Download TuxGuitar 1.0 RC3 in Softonic

What's better than learning to play a musical instrument to unwind from a busy day? Although my advice would be to take an instrument and start playing it learning bit by bit, more methodical and expert users may advise you to follow a guide and practice theoretical exercises.

aGuitar Pro lets you manage your guitar or bass progress with exercises on the notes and on the accords. There are many advanced lessons you can follow and surely it can be helpful for advanced students as a reference point. The program features testing tools to sample your knowledge of the harmonic world.
Unfortunately, I don't see it as an easy tool for beginners. This is because of the way information is displayed which seems to be too technical. It would have been good to have a simple mode display for beginners so to ease things when learning and testing basic notes.

The tab reader and tab editor are also interesting as they can modify or create music sheets with text and notes of your favourite songs. It would have been good to have a function to search for songs online in free databases, but you will have to do it manually.

aGuitar Pro can be useful to study and test your knowledge of guitar theory if you are already a medium experienced player. It also includes a tab reader and editor, which ease the transcription of songs for professionals.

Download aGuitar Pro in Softonic

MagicScore lets you precisely tune up the notes' sounds and their timing features, process the effects and the dynamics. In this program, you may use both general and extended sets of musical symbols and as well create your own symbols, terms and chords for complex compositions with a peculiar or a non-standard grammatical solution.

Special tools such as: virtual piano, virtual fingerboard for six and seven-string guitars, notes performance editor, real-time notes play-back editor and the navigator let you easily and efficiently record and work with both single pieces and large musical compositions.

The basic features of the Maestro version are as follows:

• Automatic spell-checking of entered information
• Extensive editing capabilities (copy, paste, delete, transpose both single notes and selected blocks)
• Note entry using the virtual piano
• Score entry using the Chord Builder
• Capability to bind comments, links, and other appearance elements to all score elements
• Adjustment of volume, balance, and effects for each track (of an instrument's score)
• Reading from MIDI files and writing to MIDI files
• Play-back of the entered notes both by a single instrument and by the entire orchestra
• Printing scores, including previewing the scores
• Drag & Drop support
• Capability to cancel the running operation
• Score recording from a MIDI device

Download MagicScore Maestro 5.325 in Softonic

Making a din on a piano is great especially when that piano can replicate multiple instruments in much the same way as a professional keyboard.

And if you're learning the piano and can't afford your own instrument, then this is a brilliant solution. Well, it's better than nothing anyway. Virtual HS Piano is a simple MIDI piano which simulates everything from traditional piano to honky-tonk, marimba or an accordion. It also backing from a drums and other percussion so that you can really feel like you're making sweet music. You're certainly not limited by choice - there are 128 instruments to choose from although the sound effects selection is pretty poor - 12 to be exact - and there are only 3 melodies for which you can play to. However, the keyboard features all 36 notes you expect to find on a keyboard so it's very realistic in that respect although the MIDI sound effects can never be a substitute for a real piano. The interface and design are pretty flimsy and basic looking but it's very simple to use and does the job it's built for.

A simple and flexible tool for anyone that loves that MIDI sound or needs to familiarise themselves with the piano..

Download HS Virtual Piano 1.0 in Softonic

If you've just erased a very important file by mistake, don't worry: first, you're not the only one who makes that kind of mistake and second, there's still hope.

This hope comes with Easeus Photo Recovery, a data recovery software tool that's been specially designed to recover multimedia files. According to the author, the program can recover deleted images, audio files and videos from removable devices, corrupt partitions and even formatted drives, which is pretty impressive. However we couldn't fully test it because the trial version doesn't actually recover files – only finds them.

Easeus Photo Recovery features a simple interface, not really very attractive but easy to use. The main page lets you choose between three types of recovery (Deleted file recovery, Complete recovery or Partition recovery) and then it all works as a simple step-by-step wizard that guides you through the whole recovery process.

Before resigning yourself to losing those accidentally deleted files forever, try using Easeus Photo Recovery and maybe you'll be able to save them, although you'll need the full version to actually recover files.

Download Easeus Photo Recovery 2.1.1 in Softonic

Jay Brain is a very original audio player both in its graphical design and functionalities. It supports many popular formats and also Internet streams, which can be conveniently added to an auto-saving playlist.

The program's functionality is a bit tricky. All tasks are showed under the same window, even when you browse Windows File Explorer to add music to the playlist. This can sometimes lead to confusion but once you get used to it it's no big deal.

Audio quality is good and what's more, can be tweaked with some special effects. The program can also find the lyrics for the song you're listening to on the web.

Jay Brain is meant to be a basic audio player that can be extended with more features by means of plug-ins, but unfortunately I couldn't find any. I would have specially appreciated a new skin, as the one included by default makes menus hard to read. Hopefully more coders will join the project in the future (thanks to the GPL licence) and we'll see a super-powered Jay Brain later on.

A small audio player with support for many formats and very promising features.

Download Jay Brain 1.1 in Softonic

Organising photos is an increasingly difficult task with so many digital media from phones, to cameras to video camera now able to take your favourite snaps.

I've tried every program going and whilst this is not the the best looking, it's certainly simple enough for anyone to use from parents to children and brings some semblance of organisation to your photo collection. The program works very simply - just select the pictures you want, select a template and watch Album Express assemble your creations in no time. You have some pretty basic navigation tools to look through your photos. However, it's not just aimed at novices because it also allows scripting plugins for those who know how to although the instructions about how to do this are frustratingly hard to find. If you can however, it allows you to build your own templates and display styles. One extra added little touch is that you can link photos to MIDI and WAV files for an extra touch of class.

It's all here for anyone who wants a simple but functional photo viewer although it's not really a touch on Picassa.

Download Album Express 4.0 in Softonic

If you've always wanted your own orchestra in your bedroom but can't play a single instrument then this is the program for you.

This program is a hell of a lot of fun if you're a music lover. The samples feature full recordings, lasting from 1 to 8 bars, playing along in perfect sync with the other Band-in-a-Box tracks. They sound like a real drummer, because they are genuine recordings of a real drummer - not just MIDI tracks. And adding a real instrument to the mix makes all of the Band-in-a-Box parts sound more authentic. There's a huge library of RealDrums styles and a superb "Chords from MP3" feature (Audio Chord Wizard) which automatically figures out the chords from any MP3, WAV or WMA audio file, and displays them in Band-in-a-Box - great for learning songs on your instrument. There's also a new soundtrack feature allows you to generate new royalty-free music of a specified length of time for use in home or corporate videos, soundtracks, etc. The "Reharmonist" feature figures out a chord progression for any melody which allows you to create a new chord progression or enhance an existing one. Other great features include save your creations as an MP3 and batch MP3/WAV/WMA generation. The only problem I had was exploring all the features which seem to go on an on. Once you've tried this though, you'll be hooked. The latest version features even more realistic instrument sounds such as even better acoustic guitars and saxophones. It also features a new "multistyler" which bascially allows you to create compositions with far more depth. Note that this demo version is fully functional except that the Save features, Notation, Soloist/Melodist, and accessory plugins have been disabled.

This is a music program with incredible range and features although it does take some getting to grips with so prepare to immerse yourself.

Download Band-in-a-Box 2007 in Softonic

Synthesia is the new title of a game previously known as Piano Hero… until Activision told its developer it was not a good idea.

Naming anecdotes aside, the game is described as a fun method to learn to play the piano but honestly, I have to disagree on that. Synthesia is by no means an easy method to learn the piano: I have some very basic piano notions myself and I found it extremely difficult. It could be because I was using a standard computer keyboard to test the game, and not a real music keyboard as recommended by the developer.

On the upside, I especially liked the default song selection the program includes to get you started (they're all popular theme songs from very well-known videogames). Also, note that you can use just about any MID file with Synthesia, which turns it into pretty much a never-ending musical entertainment.

With Synthesia you can practice your piano skills on the computer, but forget about learning how to play it: you'll need some prior basic knowledge.

Download Synthesia 0.6.3 in Softonic

Remember those old Casio keyboards that were so popular a few decades ago? Well, now they're back, at least in your PC.

Electronic Piano emulates one of those electronic musical keyboards on your computer, using each keystroke of your PC keyboard to produce a different sound. Just like the original instrument, this software app supports a wide range of different sound styles, enabling you to emulate almost anything from a piano to a guitar, including trumpet, bass, organ, harmonica, violin, cello and a lot more.

Of course, you'll also get the special effects section (typewriter, helicopter, applause, gun shot and so on) and finally the drums, with even a wider selection of sounds.

The program is really easy to use, as it displays the note chart on its interface so that you know what you're playing at all times. On the downside, the keyboard seems to have a slower response than expected, which makes the whole experience a bit disappointing. Also, I notice one note was out of tune, which is certainly not something I would expect from a music program, even if it's not a professional tool.

Electronic Piano is a simple, MIDI digital keyboard that lets you play some basic tunes on your PC. That said, don't expect professional output. This is just for fun.

Download Electronic Piano 2.5 in Softonic

ICoolPlayer is more than just a music player. It also includes an audio converter, CD ripper, audio CD recorder, sound recorder, radio and even an online editor for karaoke lyrics.

It is compatible with the most popular music formats, and its futuristic interface makes it attractive and accessible. However, this sis till very much a project in the development stages and so expect to experience bugs and unexpected crashes. The iCoolPlayer's library of media and online radio channels are all organized into one easy to use and manage interface. But the most unique aspect of this media player is the ability to create lyrics for karaoke, tailoring each sentence at the exact moment of the song while you listen and then reproducing the whole thing complete with audio and lyrics in iCoolPlayer. This is a great little tool because although there are hundreds of karaoke sites out there with ready made files and lyrics, invariably your favourite songs are never included. Using this software, I was able to sing Mr Boombastic by Shaggy simply by copying and pasting the words from a lyrics site.

A great little player with excellent karaoke function let down by the fact that it often crashes because it's still being developed.

Download iCoolPlayer 1.0.1.0 in Softonic