Creative Applications
Creative has included their own bundle of in-house developed software for customizing and utilizing the Sound Blaster Live! to the best. These include software to help beginners create music quickly, as well as essential applications like the configuration program and mixer.
Current shipments of the Platinum include Live!Ware 3, the latest update to the drivers and utilities for the SBLive! (as of this writing).
Surround Mixer
With early versions, users need to access 2 separate applications to change volumes (mixer) and Environmental Audio presets (Environmental Audio applet). From Live!Ware 2 onwards, Creative has improved the mixer application and added the Surround Mixer. This introduced the concept of super environments that can be saved to a file. These super environments cover both the volume settings, as well as the effect settings, and both settings are accessible with the surround mixer (pictured below).
The bar on the left has buttons to change between Effects, Speaker and Spectrum modes. With Effects (pictured here), you can position each of the sound sources in 3D by dragging the icons around the grey person seated. The 2nd tab, Speaker, allows you to change the configuration of speaker modes (4-channel, 2-channel, Live!Surround and Headphone) and generate a sound test to make sure every speaker is working. The Spectrum is a spectrum analyzer. Overall, the mixer is easy to use and visually pleasing.
PlayCenter
PlayCenter is similar to the Media Player included with Windows, but has more features like playlists, the ability to change Environmental Audio presets, and load up LAVA! with a click. It is able to play nearly every media type supported by Windows, including WAV files, AVIs, VCDs and MIDI. New versions from Live!Ware 3 onwards support
VBR (variable bit rate) MP3 files, as well as automatically loading a SoundFont bank when a MIDI file is loaded.
A unique time-scaling
feature is included to speed up and slow down the speed of the sound being played, without altering the pitch. Normally things would go very high if you speeded up the playback.
Launcher
The launcher has also been improved. The SBLive! is able to do so many things that new users may be overwhelmed. Therefore in the new Launcher (introduced in Live!Ware 3), it comes with Live!Task, which is a preset list of tasks that users can choose from, depending on what they want to do. For example, you can choose "I want to watch movie" and the PlayCenter application will pop up, plus instructions to guide you through the process.
I guess many people actually like the Launcher, but another group of you would agree with me that having all the controls of the sound card in the system tray would be much cleaner. Each time I move up my mouse to the top of the screen, either to close a maximized window or just by accident, the whole thing pops up and it covers the application below it!
MiniDisc Center
 The MiniDisc Center is a playlist manager to facilitate organising of tracks to fit into a single MiniDisc (MD). It doesn't actually control anything on the MD recorder. You still need to set it to synchro-record mode, then manually press record in the MiniDisc Center to start recording.
Since most SBLive! products only come with a coaxial digital output, while many MD equipment has optical inputs, you may need to get a digital I/O card that has coaxial outputs.
Recorder
 The Recorder is a simple and easy to use
application that facilitates easy and quick recording of wave files. It is similar to Sound Recorder in Windows, but has much more features!
Without loading up the mixer, you can quickly choose the source you want to record from, and also monitor the volume levels of the sound being recorded.
AudioHQ
 AudioHQ is like a Control Panel for the SBLive! It includes important applications like:
- SoundFont - load SoundFonts and modify SoundFont parameters.
- Device Controls - switch between SBLive! cards if you have more than one, enable S/PDIF passthrough, etc.
- AutoEA - automatically set the card's sound settings to correspond to the application that is used.
- Environemtal Audio - changes the effects being applied on the sounds played through the card.
- Keyboard - a mouse-activated MIDI keyboard.
- Speaker - change the speaker configuration according to the speaker setup.
- Mixer - set the volume of the different sound sources.
WaveStudio 4
This is Creative's classic wave editing software that was bundled with earlier Sound Blaster products as well. I wonder why Creative included a wave editor when the included Sound Forge XP is better. (Except for European versions, that do not come with Sound Forge XP.)
[Picture from Creative]
Keytar
You can use the computer keyboard to play guitar, therefore the combination of the words keyboard and guitar. A novel idea, but it takes some time to get used to it.
[Picture from Creative]
Rhythmania
Allows you to play music and the software will automatically add the background accompaniment like the chords, bass and drum sounds. Works very similar to home music keyboards like Yamaha's PortaSound products.
[Picture from Creative]
TextAssist 2.1 & VoiceAssist 2.1
Includes a voice synthesizer which reads out your text files through the speaker, though the sounds are a bit "robotic" and unnatural.
LAVA!
 LAVA! is a visualization application that analyzes the sound being played and generates interesting 3D graphics that dance to the music! You can check out the LAVA! web site to download a version that works on all sound cards.
[LAVA! Web Site | Our LAVA! Review]
SoundFont Showcase
This showcases some of the SoundFonts you can buy from third parties. Some nice MIDI tracks that make use of SoundFont samples are included. You can hear for yourself how good MIDI can sound on the SBLive! with the right instrument samples!
Vienna SF Studio 2.3
Vienna is a SoundFont editor - a staple of most musicians who compose on the SBLive! and the older products based on the EMU8000. You can import wave files, tweak the various parameters, and assign them to notes on a musical keyboard.
Digital Audio Center
Based on MusicMatch Jukebox, Creative has provided users with the ability to playback, encode and manage their MP3 library. You can choose to encode up to 320kbps, at "up to 5x MP3 acceleration", which means that it encodes as fast at 5 times the speed of the playback time of a track. This acceleration depends on the speed of your CPU. The EMU10K1 is not used to encode or playback MP3 files.
An interesting feature not available in the retail MusicMatch Jukebox is the ability to add Environmental Audio effects to the encoded MP3 files.
[MusicMatch Web Site]
MediaRing Talk 99
Creative included a microphone in the Platinum package. So what do you do with it? Call people up through the net! MediaRing has a very unique feature that allows you to call the other party even when they are not logged on to the net. When the other party detects a unique ringing pattern, it will connect to the net and both parties can talk without incurring hefty phone bills.
You can also use Creative VoicePersona to modify the pitch of your voice. This uses the EMU10K1 on the SBLive! to do it.
[MediaRing Web Site | Creative Chat]
EAX Demo
This is a simple demo to showcase the occlusion and obstruction features of
EAX 2.0. A helicopter flies through the scene and passes behind walls and gates. As it moves, you'll notice the muffling of the chopper sound when it is behind an object.
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