BeatCreator 3

Before reviewing BeatCreator I'd been a regular user of Zero X's other product BeatSlicer which I reviewed for HRC earlier in the year. I was blown away by the simplicity of the programme, and just how useful it was. Open a drum loop, bass loop, bagpipe loop, whatever, and BeatSlicer did exactly what it said on the tin - sliced the original into as many parts as you feel you need allowing quick and easy tempo changes without any speeding up or slowing down - you wont get unwanted time stretch noises because the kick sounds, the snares, whatever, arn't being made longer, theyre just being played slower, or faster whatever the case may be. Once sliced, each part can be exported seperately, as a group or into FL Studio to allow further easy reworking. Simple, intuitive and easy to get to grips with.

BeatCreator could be viewed as BeatSlicer's big brother, with added editing features and some real useful effects. What have you, and admittedly, that's what I was expecting. In fact, its a whole different kettle of fish, with capabilities and cool features way beyond my expectations. In fact, BeatCreator is a great app to use alongside other apps as I found it to have better time stretching capabilities than any other app I have used to do it, and will allow you to export to other formats as well, which will be covered in more detail below.

One of my favourtie things about this app, is how simple things are to do it in. It's like a hammer...any idiot can use it, and its very effective (though theres little risk of crushing your finger with this...) Got something in the wrong pitch? Click Edit, then Tune Pitch,and twiddle the knob to the correct adjustment, previewing as you go until youre satisfied. Easy. Loop at the wrong tempo? Click edit, tune tempo, and simply type the BPM that you want. Couldn't be simpler. The normalisation, reversal, and fade in/out options are similarly straight forward. All the simplicity that I loved in BeatSlicer is here...it's a whole load more advanced, but no harder to use, which is the key to BeatCreator's success.

A success which has found favour with some big names, including Alan Branch (who's worked with Nine Inch Nails, Blur and Primal Scream, to name a few) and Digital Eclipse who a major developer for the Game Boy Advance. And it's getting better and better...version 1.1, out pretty much by the time you read this, features enhanced MIDI export, some new keyboard short cuts for those of you who can remember them and a couple of preventative bug fixes...though to be fair our review copy of the app was solid as a rock so no real worries there.

Available to order from http://www.BeatCreator.com for a more than reasonable $100, anyone in any studio, amateur or professional will be bound to find a use for http://www.BeatCreator.com on a regular basis. $120 will get you http://www.BeatCreator.com and Seamless Looper, which automatically detects loop points, and is well worth the extra few dollars. Believe the hype...this could be one of the most useful purchases you ever make in your project studio!

Technical Requirements

The system requirements for BeatCreator are surprisingly liberal considering all that the application does. It requires Windows 98 or higher , any 16-bit sounds card supported by the operating system of choice. 800x600 screen size with 16-bit color depth is required, though a 1024x768 screen resolutions is recommended.

BeatQuantizer also supports a wide range of file formats which it can import and export. Importing can be done with 16-bit aiff files, RecCycle's REX, REX2, rx2 and RCY file types, SoundFont .sf2's, 16, 24 and 32-bit wav files, as well as, of course, Zero X's own formats. It can export files in a varity of formats, including FL Studio, LM4, MAP, MIDI, REX, TRK, SoundFont2, Wav, Zex and ZGR

Ordering Information

Available to order from http://www.beatcreator.com/ for a more than reasonable $100, anyone in any studio, amateur or pro will be bound to find a use for BeatCreator on a regular basis.