Im a DJ! And I dont even know how to mix! (eJay)

Member Name: ste231191

Product:	eJay
Date:	17/08/05 (1910 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ease of use, quality, range of features

Disadvantages: songs can sound alike after a while

Ever wanted to go out to your mates with your CD player and say to the have you heard this new song by DJ flip flop and they will listen to it and say wow this really great where did you get it and then you reply I made it then you stand up and look proud? No? Never wanted to do that? Well let me tell you I have, and when eJay came out I thought this is really my chance to make some decent music without learning to play an instrument so surely enough I went to buy it for £20.00ish and now I am about to write a review about it also eJay have numerous different types of software i.e. dance eJay, hip-hop Ejay but the product I am reviewing is eJay special edition which has dance eJay, rave eJay and hip-hop eJay all in one program, and also I think I should clear up that I am not a rubbish typer in writing eJay like that with a capital J that is just how they do it like eBay….

*-*-* What is eJay? -*-*-

Well although eJay is a program he is also a professional DJ but I am reviewing the program (eJay special edition) not the professional DJ this program can sometimes be known as Ejay studio… So I'll carry on… eJay is a program for computers that allows you to create your own music, in this case you can create your own Dance, Rave or Hip-hop song. To use the program you don't need any knowledge of music you don't even need to know what a crotchet is! Because all of the built in sounds are already times so you can't extend or compress them or … anyway I will come to that later on in the review.

-*-*- This sounds so complicated… -*-*-

Ejay (it was really annoying me to type a capital at the middle of the word…) is not complicated at all, all you need is a little bit of imagination. When you start up the program it comes up with the options of which song you would like to create after you have picked a funky looking stave comes up (for those who don't know a stave is the thing which you use to write music on) so on the stave there is a little more than five lines for the simple reason that all the different instruments all go on the same stave and above the stave there are numbers to help you with the timing for your piece I will try and do a little diagram…. (I have tried this before on my keyboard review)

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Obviously it will have a few more lines on it and that would be the main part of the screen but the second main bit of the screen is the instruments which you need to put on… There is a little instrument menu on the side that you will see with different kinds off instruments I will list them and what kind of instruments they have in…

Loop - In this section you will get a variety of well loops as you may of gathered from the name of the category so in here you will find some nice beats to start off your song or to put in the middle if you know a little bit about music then in this section the are different types of beats like 4 by 4 and 4 by 3 etc.. This category is just to get the beat through the song basically...

Bass- Then second category is the bass section in all good songs there will be a bass although you may not hear it very well there more than likely will be a bass this is the heavy thumping sound that you will hear, also there is a couple of bass solo's you can add to your song..

Synthy - This is the section that the synthesizers come in this is some of the light layers that you sometimes hear in clubbing music if you take faithless the band for example they use a lot of synthesizers in their songs sometimes for the solo's in songs like insomnia..(I love that band)

Drum - The drum section my favorite and for the different types of song you will have different samples for example if you were doing the hip-hop song you might have a slow little beat or if you were making a dance track you would have quite a fast hi-hat and snare the samples in these categories will direr depending on what type of track you are doing.

Special - This category is quite funny this is not an instrument category it is full of silly noises and sounds like maybe a scratching of a record, talking in an alien voice (which is a load of hibbeldy jibberish ) and other voices like that.

Voices - This section is for the built in (women) singing voices for example if you were doing a dance track you could add a woman saying something like this is a dance machine or welcome to the vibe or some other rubbish like that (as you may of gathered I don't use this section a lot)

Rap - Now I think this section is named properly because its still a load of (men) singing voices and they don't do wrap at all in fact its nothing like rap its just for example if you were on hip-hop it will say something stupid like 102.9 Jibberdy FM… as if you would like that in your song either (you may of also gathered that I don't use this section very often here either)

Wave - This category is yours if you decide to purchase some of your own samples or download then of the internet then you upload them onto Ejay then they will appear in this category also this category will stay the same for all the different types of music (Dance, Rave and Hip-Hop) and also you may of noticed I don't use the Rave in any examples this is for the simple reason that the rave tracks are just too fast for me that would be the only let down for me… although I'm sure other people in the world will be able to manage it…

So you know the different types of instruments and beats that are available and you know how to use them on that special stave all you do is drag and drop them and fiddle about with them to get your timings right, there is also a little menu at the bottom that allows you to stop, play, rewind, fast forward etc.
-*-*- I have created my first song! Oh yeah the songs are saved as .MIX files -*-*-

Once you have fiddled around with it for a little while and you eventually create your first song you can save it and it will be saved as a format called .MIX which is a special Ejay format.. so arm.. how do I get it to my CD? Well the answer is you have to export the mix and you can still do this with Ejay you just simply click the Export button at the bottom and it will give you a few options on how you would like it to be saved as .mp3 of .wav? This is your decision, to put it on CD you need to create it as a .WAV file but if you burn your CD'S with Nero this has a feature which turns your .MP3 into .WAV and will burn it no problem. There is also a feature where you can import tracks but they must be imported as a .WAV file…

-*-*- The technical stuff -*-*-

So you like the program so far? Well now its time to see if your computer can handle it Ejay is a very co-operative program and it need very little requirements all it need is an operating system that is windows 98 Se or above and you need 25MB of space for a minimal installation and 80MB for a full installation and you only need this if your CD - Reader is a bit slow so this is all you need.

As I mentioned earlier I got the program for around £20 only last year so it will be around that price or lower now, is there any disadvantages? The answer not really but there is a small one because there are only a limited range of samples available all the songs you make sound the same if you don't import any of your own, If you make a really really good song and you are well proud of it and after you have shown it to your mates, then you can publish your song on the Ejay website but I have never done this for the simple reason none of ,y songs are good enough, on the menu screen also there are other little buttons that I didn't mention like the volumes, open, save etc. If you get stuck on using the program there is a very good help section that is installed..

Anyway I hope this review has helped whatever you are going to do,
Please check out my other reviews,
Cheers,

Ste231191 ©

Summary: Ejay is a great program if you want to make music!

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