Z-Maestro Anyone?

I've released the beta 2 of my main project, Z-Maestro. I hope people will find it useful. Basically, it is a music composition program similar to Apple Garageband or Acid Pro. I hope that it is easier to use than Acid Pro and that it will eventually have more features than Garageband. Right now, it works mainly with MIDI. I have split MIDI functionality into two parts: instrument and drum. There is also an audio ability where you can import WAV files and use them along with the MIDI stuff, but right now it doesn't do much. Eventually, it will have advanced audio editing capabilities such as being able to time-warp the audio, converting of audio into MIDI data, and more. Right now, you can export the instrument and drum tracks to a MIDI file, which works quite nicely. Once I finally get audio perfected, I'd like to move it away from MIDI into realtime audio instruments using something similar to SoundFonts. Then, you could apply audio effects and filters on instrument and drum data. It is a ways away from that right now, but I don't think it will be too many versions away.

WIX

I have been using WIX for a while and I must say that it is great. If you don't know, WIX stands for "Windows Installer XML". It is basically a way to script a MS installer file (.msi) using a simple XML based language. It is perhaps the best way you can possibly write a MSI file. It is free, open source, and MS has been using it for years. In fact, most of their products' installers were written with it. The second best choice is probably to buy an installation-maker such as InstallShield. However, the prices for these types are programs are generally through the roof and even then they don't offer exactly what you want. WIX is many times more powerful than any program I've seen and it has better results. MS could practically sell it; it is that good (of course, it wouldn't be as good if it wasn't free).