Singing Coach Unlimited

This program enables you to sing into a microphone, see the pitch of your voice displayed on the screen, and compare it in real time to the notes you are supposed to sing.

Pros:
1. The only program available that enables me to actually check if I'm singing correctly.
2. You can download songs to sing along as well as enter your own
3. You can conveniently find out your vocal range.

Cons:
1. Very buggy
2. No customer service
3. Some very user-unfriendly features

I love to sing but I don't have the perfect pitch. So I felt that in order to have a hope of ever learning to sing properly, I would need software that would display whether or not I was singing at the correct pitch. Singing Coach Unlimited does exactly that.
The program includes a tutorial and a number of voice exercises. They are accompanied by animations which some say are silly. I didn't find them too disturbing, but I do wish it were possible to turn them off.
Further, SCU includes songs (examples: US Anthem, Down by the Riverside, Jingle Bells) which you can sing along. You can also download a number of songs from their website for free (was it 10?), and after that it'll cost you a few dollars a song. They have some very good stuff there, only I wish the selection were more varied. For instance, at the time I bought my last songs, they had more than ten songs by Phil Collins (Genesis and solo combined), whereas the entire genre of heavy metal was represented by just one song which was You've Got Another Thing Coming by Judas Priest.

The biggest problem with Singing Coach Unlimited is that it just won't run properly on some computers. For instance, the first time I installed it, it wouldn't let me sing. Whenever I opened an exercise, I was able to see and hear the animations, but the part where I was supposed to do the ecercises myself just wouldn't work. Or whenever I tried to test my vocal range, the program froze. Everything worked normally, except the parts that involved my singing. But singing myself was what I had bought the software for, wasn't it?
So I wrote to the company, describing the problem and asking for assistance. They never answered. In the meantime, I have sent them a couple more emails asking about technical problems, but none of my emails has ever been answered. So remember: after you have paid for Singing Coach Unlimited, you're on your own.
I could never get SCU to work properly on that computer. Fortunately, it did run on another one. On my current computer, Singing Coach Unlimited worked fine for a long time, and then suddenly an annoying bug appeared. In a nutshell, I can sing songs I have entered myself, but I can no longer sing the downloaded songs (that is, I could but my pitch isn't displayed on the screen, so there's no point singing). I haven't been able to figure out what's wrong, and repeated uninstalling and re-installing hasn't worked.
There are a few smaller bugs. For example, the songs I have downloaded just disappear every once in a while. Fortunately, their website remembers my past purchases, so I can re-download them with no hassle.

Yet another thing that I dislike is that the software is awfully user-unfriendly. Some options can be saved, others can't be saved, still others are saved automatically. There is no logic in that whatsoever.
I'll bring you just one example. Any song you open is automatically transposed into what the program consideres the most comfortable key for you, considering your vocal range. It's great, but unfortunately that feature cannot be turned off. So when I practice my choir songs (which obviously have to be sung in precisely the correct key), I must note the key in a separate file, and adjust it manually every time. That gets quite annoying.
It's also inconvenient that although you can view the notes and you can enter music with a simulated keyboard (I have never tried that), you can neither enter nor edit individual notes. That means I have to enter the notes into another program (I use NoteWorthy Composer), save the song as MIDI and then import it into SCU. Whenever I notice that I got one note or one word wrong, I can't edit the song in SCU. I have to 1) change the sheet music with another program, 2) re-save it as MIDI, 3) delete the song from SC menu (because they are not overwritten), 4) re-import it, and 5) re-adjust all saveable options.
As if that wasn't enough, SC often imports MIDI incorrectly. In particular, don't try it to import triplets. They will be totally screwed up. If you want to practice a song that includes triplets, the only way to do it is to adjust sheet music by making all notes 1.5 times longer, and accordingly changing the song's tempo.

To sum up: The best thing about Singing Coach Unlimited is that it is clearly improving my singing. The worst thing is that it's so inconvenient and frustrating to use. Someone wrote that there are other better programs like this. I wish he had named at least one. I would switch immediately.

I purchased the singing coach unlimited, you will find it good if you already have a reasonable voice when singing. Or if your voice is alittle pitchy or out of tune, this will help in time. but if you cant sing, singing coach would be your only friend for a long time until you get any better. i think it really annoying when the helper who represent the CD-rom keeps butting in here and there cos she learning to sing to. so you end up hearing her singing lessons and than you have to do yours. which can be very annoying cos it take twice has long. overall it good if your patient with the results depending how bad your voice is. very good to understand and follow, very little music theory. i have had for three months voice is less pitchy, but i use this along with other voice coaching technique.

I installed this on an XP machine which worked fine until we introduced a second user when the singing lessons stopped working. Despite several reinstalls and an e-mail to the company no response, singing lessons will not work.