Review

Beaterator

By Aaron Koehn
October 13, 2009 12:47 PM PST
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At some point in our lives, the majority of us have flirted with the fantasy of being a rock star or musician, and when our TVs show us the low caliber of contemporary musicians, it only serves to embolden our misplaced delusions (I mean, if this guy can do it, why can't I?) Unfortunately, and as Beaterator demonstrates, creating quality music isn't always a walk in the park, and if you want to produce songs that don't kill pets, or send roommates jumping through windows, it's going to take some time and patience.

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To the Beat

Beaterator is advertised as a professional-level, portable music studio, and while I'm not a professional musician, the depth of this title leads me to believe that their claim is pretty accurate. The title boasts literally thousands of different sounds/instruments that allows users to craft totally original songs while also offering many different pre-composed loops (a compilation of notes, already arranged to sound like a melody or beat), whose utilization more easily allows for novice song construction.

For the music-producing virgins, compiling these pre-made loops serves as the best introduction to how song creation takes place in Beaterator. Add a melody loop, then add a drum loop, and maybe some effects and bass, and you've got yourself a simple song; however, I wouldn't start calling yourself John Lennon yet, and since you'll be most likely creating hip-hop or electronic-sounding songs, you probably wouldn't call yourself that in the first place. Still, it doesn't truly feel like you're creating your own music until you start constructing your own loops, and this is where the title takes a turn for the confusing. Loop creation is done in the "studio" section of the title, where a plethora of menus await the player. These menus will include a number of the aforementioned pre-made loops, as well as individual instruments, which a player can select. The player will then take his or her selected sound into the melody or drum crafter where he'll be able to place a series of the instrument's notes along a scale for several measures. And thus a loop is born! While this sounds fairly convoluted and complicated, like most things, practice and perseverance will slowly allow for the loop construction to become easier.