System Requirements Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP 450MHz CPU 192MB RAM 600-1.1GB Hard Drive Space 4MB Graphics with OpenGL Direct X Compatible Sound
Do you like Dance Music? (If not there are other music versions.) Have you ever wanted to create your own songs without even playing the instruments? Dance Ejay 5 lets you do just that! All you need to do is drag and drop the various sound samples into whatever order sounds good to you. You even have rights to the music you make; you just need to credit www.ejay.com as the software you used in making it. So it?s ?mostly? royalty free.
So what kinds of sounds are there?
There are 5,000 sounds packed into these 2 CDs (hence the 1.1GB install). There are a lot of Drum and Bass beats to make your speakers boom. Guitar riffs and piano tunes are a mouse click away. To make transitions easy there are sound effects and other extra sounds. There are synthesizer sounds too that can either over power or give your song a delicate touch. Male and Female voices are included too, but they mostly sing about love. You can import your own MP3s and Wavs to keep your collection growing. Their website offers a weekly sound pack to add more flavor to your mixes.
Can I make my own sounds?
Yes! There is a recording studio where you can record your voice or other sounds. If you don?t like your voice, there are voice generators, but they sound robotic and cheesy. There are Groove (drum), Bass and Chord generators for making your own tunes. The keyboard interface could be a little more intuitive. I wish there was a virtual piano for recording the sounds and not just the pitch.
Is it really just drag and drop?
Yup. All their sound samples are in A minor and have a consistent tempo (140BPM) so they sound pretty good together depending on your style of music. You can always adjust the pitch and tempo by using slider bars to make your music sound a little different. Dance Ejay 5 sports a 48 track arranger so you can have lots of levels of sound. I haven?t run out of room combining sounds yet!
Stability
The graphics are nice in Dance Ejay 5 but they are also very unstable. I have noticed when I delete a lot of sound samples from a mix it crashes. I have learned the hard way to save early and often. Even with the latest patches this program still crashes often. I have used previous versions of the software without the graphical prettiness and it has worked much better. This is a major downfall to this program in my opinion.
Appropriate?
There?s nothing really bad in this software. The vocalists sing about love and not the by products so that?s good. I did notice a robotic voice saying respect the deities but that?s about it.
Conclusion
Other than the stability problems, this software is easy to use and I would recommend trying the demo to any music enthusiast. The sound samples are great and make you hunger for more. Making songs is fun (provided you don?t lose your work!). To date I have made twelve songs and you can check them out at http://music.ccgr.org
