If there's something I really hate, it's when a program has major good points counterbalanced by major bad points. It makes it really hard to write a proper review! Unfortunately, I'm in this situation with MusicTuner. This app finds and downloads audio tracks and allows you to listen to and save them to playlists and your hard drive. It also acts as a music player based on Windows Media Player.
In the past, MusicTuner was a free application, so it was easier to overlook some of its flaws. Since our last review, however, the application has become shareware, with a ridiculously short 12 hour trial period. All features seem to be fully functional, however, so you can search for and download tracks, play and organize music already on your computer, browse the internet for new music from within the program, edit your track information and back-up your playlists. There are a number of configuration settings, including hotkeys and a range of skins, but I found I could only change MusicTuner's skin once.
That's a pity, because the MusicTuner interface is horrible. It's non-standard, user unfriendly and the skin I was stuck with made it difficult to view text. I also found some of the program's menus buggy and, in all, using the program just wasn't very pleasant. That aside, MusicTuner makes it easy to search for music, and even features tutorials that you can use to get acquainted with the program. It searches quickly and presents results clearly, and from that point of view was quite good. Unfortunately, I really didn't enjoy using MusicTuner and can definitely say that I wouldn't download it myself.
MusicTuner has lots of potential, but some serious wrinkles to iron out.
