| Product: |
Computer Music |
| Date: |
23/01/01 (44 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Free content packed cover CD's, has useful reviews, interviews, articles and tutorials, nice design and layout, concise, appealable to all levels of computer musician-ery; no bloat or show-off, nice amount of ads
Disadvantages: Costs a fiver a month, even with a subscription you'll question whether you'll want it regularly or not
With the advent of the computer and hard disk recording, every me, JC and Dave has wanted more than ever to make and record music and be a big rock star (well, maybe). People like Moby can make records in their bedroom with some instruments (even virtual software ones), and it's not only cheaper but more convenient too.
Even if you're just a singer with an acoustic guitar you can still use computers to your advantage, you don't have to be Fatboy Slim or whatever to want to merge music with computers; that's a big misconception. Computer music doesn't exclusively refer to electronica, dance, industrial or whatever. It's simply making music of any kind, whatever you want using your computer. You can even use it for pure evil like Steps...
Now unless you've had any grounding whatsoever in music technology (I did it for A-level), most computer users won't know too much about computer music, and so you'll have to rely on your friends, books and even software instruction manuals to merge your creations with machine at any level; thankfully one of the best monthly magazines out there is Computer Music.
Unlike many dumb guitar magazines (I think they're dumb anyway) and other computer music type magazines etc., CM has a very apt name and it's not just wads of big producer experts telling you how great they are and how you should be like them, and millions of reviews and adverts on what you should buy, infact it's pretty empowering. And yes, because 'computer' is a generic term, there's even a very healthy coverage of stuff for Mac users.
CM is geared for beginners to professionals which is a rare thing in computer music mags, and so is digestable to everyone. They tell you what products are out and tell you if it's useful to you, not that it's something you must have, there's extensive tutorials rather than people just boasting (although allowed on star interviews), and there's a dis
tinct community vibe in the magazine (lots of reader input from letters to tips, CD demos, and prize) and even the whole art and layout of this fiver glossy montly. It's a refreshing, enjoyable and rewarding reading. Maybe a fiver's a bit much for any mag, even a montly one, but if you think of this as a kind of never ending book in installments (and ads, not a vast amount though) you'll find the price is justifiable, and coupled with a CD packed full of useful shareware software, freeware essential, demos, samples, music and even full fledged old but very usable packages being given away a free. I'm not a subscriber, but that's only because I really only buy it for the cover discs or certain articles on occasion; but I would like a subscription, I wouldn't mind it. I think subscribing saves you some money though too! It maybe monthly but it's always as concise and up-to-date as possible; hell it might be the kind of computer music mags, it probably is!
So what are you wannabe computer musos waiting for? Scream a sound into your wave editor, save it, and head down to your local newsagent ASAP!
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