System Requirements Windows® 95b (OSR2), 98, ME, 2000 or XP Pentium® 166 MHz or higher 64 MB RAM (Windows ® 9x/ME), 128 MB RAM (Windows ® 2000/XP) 40 MB free hard disk space 4x CD-ROM DirectX® compatible VGA graphics card (16 bit colors, 800 x 600), DirectX® compatible sound card (16 bit)

 Ejay is known for it’s easy to use music making software. All you need to do is drag and drop the music samples into place and see how it sounds. All the samples are 180BPM so they are guaranteed to mesh flawlessly. I bought the Rave/Dance Ejay combo pack on eBay so I had about 1000 samples to work with. If you buy the full-blown Rave Ejay you get about 3000 samples. You can always import your own sounds or make some using the Hyper Generator. There are even sound packs available to extend its lifespan even more.

So how to I start?

This combo CD pack is a little thrown together. The autorun will only install one program, I had to explore the CD to install the other. These programs run off the CD so even if you do a full install, you’ll have to keep your CD handy. After the programs are installed, when you launch Ejay, it will bring up the installer again, from there you have to do quick start and you can now begin making music. There is a demo track to show you what the software can do. You have 8 tracks/rows to work with so organize your sound samples wisely! The sound samples are broken into different categories such as drums, loops, sequences, bass, special, voice, effects, and sphere. I’m a bit spoiled by the newer versions of Ejay where you can drag across many instances of a sample to avoid having to drag and drop it over and over again. This version does not have that feature. You can play the samples from the browser area so you can listen to how each one sounds before adding it to your mix. It’s all a matter of dragging and dropping, it is so easy I think that kids and grandmas can make music with this program.

Graphics/Interface

The interface is 2D, nothing fancy but it gets the job done. The software is pretty easy to use and the interface isn’t too bad. The scroll bar is a bit deceiving it looks like an up and down arrow and I was clicking those graphics not realizing I had to drag the whole bar.

Sound

This software is all about sound so it does pretty good in that department. When you’re happy with your mix you can export it into a CD Quality Wav file.

Stability

This by far is the biggest downfall to this program. It has stopped responding on me so many times that I dread using it. Make sure you save your mixes often! Unfortunately there are no patches available to remedy this.

Appropriateness

This program is pretty clean; the voice sound samples did not have any sexual references. I would recommend this for anyone who has patience, in case it crashes.

Final Thoughts

Although this double pack is cheap, I don’t recommend it because it’s just way too unstable. The sound samples are nice and it is really easy to use. It’s just not fun if you have to re-launch it every 15 minutes. I did make a couple songs with it if you want to check them out. Stomp and Rave2Dance.

Final Score

Game Play 14/20 Sound 8/10 Graphics 7/10 Interface 3/5 Stability 1/5 Appropriateness 50/50

Overall 83%