Do the Pop

eJay Dance 7 Virtual Music Studio (PC)
List Price: ?19.99
Amazon Price: ?14.98
Customer Review: Amazing value for money
I bought Ejay Dance and Dance 2 many, many, years ago and got a lot of pleasure from those items, so I came to Dance 7 VMS with interest. The first thing to say is that this package is amazing value for money – it does a lot more than earlier versions and the developers have done a fantastic job. The .pdx format is gone and instead .wav files are used and the audio-quality of the sounds is excellent. There are a few instruments and effects [although they're not plug-ins in the sense of VST plug-ins, they do a reasonable job]. There’s no midi of course and you wouldn’t expect it for this price. The interface is very impressive looking – much more slick than the earlier versions. There is also a lot more versatility because you can import your own samples [actually I haven't worked out how to do this from my sample cds - I can load the wav files onto the sample palette in file manager, but they never show in song mode so I think I am doing something wrong here - but let's just say I didn't find that bit very intuitive. ] OK – so what are my reservations? Well it is a less ‘immediate’ then the earlier versions. Although the audio quality is impressive, the loops themselves are – well a bit dull – I found it harder to build a pumping track than I did on the earlier versions. The interface does look really good, but it isn’t that practical. So for example, when you have chosen your loops and are arranging them in the song, there are no text names on the loops themselves, just a sort of cool muted design. To see the names you, have to move your mouse over the loops, one by one, and this takes ages when you are just scanning the song area for the one you want. The rest of the interface is similar – even with the tool tips it isn’t that easy to get around. The help files aren’t great that great either. The naming of the drum loops is, I’m afraid, a weakness. There are an impressive 192 house drum loops, [and 128 more trance loops] and they are quite varied, but they are named house drums 001, house drums 002…. house drums 192. Naming is hard I know, but can’t you even give us a clue?! Its hard to remember which loop you want to go back to when it is just a number from 1 – 192. To be fair, you can rename them yourself though once you have got them on the palette, and when you rename a loop on the palette, all the instances in the song take on the same name – neat! So would I recommend this? Well yes! – despite my reservations – it is still a worthwhile product and probably, unlike the earlier versions where you sort of exhausted them after a few weeks, I think this one will reward you because there is quite a lot of depth to what you can achieve, with patience. I would probably give this 3.5 stars if half stars are allowed. 4 is a bit generous, but 3 would be a bit stingy.

Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings
List Price: ?11.99
Amazon Price: ?8.98
Customer Review: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW
a rip roaringreturn to form, i can’t stop playing it as we speak. early indications are it is even better than hard candy – 15 tracks – happy days
Customer Review: Not feeling it….
For starters, I think Counting Crows are one of the most underated bands of the last fifteen years. Their first two albums- ‘August and everything after’ and ‘Recovering the Satellites’- are masterpieces. The sheer excellence of these first two records has made every following CC release struggle to live up to expectations. ‘This Desert Life’(1999) and ‘Hard Candy’ (2002) are both great records. It’s just that they are not as great as the first two. So, ‘Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings’ has a lot to live up to. This is especially the case given that it is their first new album in almost six years. Things start well with ‘1492′ and ‘Hanging Tree’ both of which are from the rockier end of the CC spectrum. However, by the time you get to ‘Los Angeles’ a nagging thought starts to rear its ugly head- the Counting Crows have done all of this before. As Duritz sings the chorus of “If you see that movie star and me” you start to get the feeling you have heard it all before. Things pick up again however with the rather excellent ‘Cowboys’ before the second, quieter half of the album gets going… … and that’s where the feelings of deja vu starts to come in spades. At times it almost seems as though Duritz is just going through the motions. He is trying to sound forlorn for the sake of sounding forlorn. The passion and real heart wrenching angst, so prevalent on their first four albums, seems to have gone a bit stale. When Adam sings “Come back to me” on ‘On a Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago’ you cant help but feel it is an inferior re-write of the rather amazing ‘Raining in Baltimore’ from their debut record. It just sounds like he is going through the motions and not really feeling it. The second half of the album does have its good tracks though, especially ‘When I Dream of Michaelangelo’ and ‘Come Around’, the latter of which is a very fitting end to the record. The problem with the second half of this album is just that it sags a little. Songs such as ‘On Almost Any Sunday Morning’ and especially ‘Le Ballet D’Or’ feel unnecessary and add little to the overall album apart from making it longer. Also, the sub-Beatles harmonies at the end of ‘Anyone But You’ don’t really work either and go on for too long blunting the impact of an otherwise good track. All in all ‘Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings’ is patchy. I have never said that about a CC release before and hope I will never have to say it about any future records they release. However, this album is sadly a little bit disapointing. It has some great tracks (1492, Hanging Tree, Cowboys, When I Dream of Michaelangelo and Come Around). A number of good, solid tracks (Insignificant, Washington Square and You Can’t Count on Me) and then the rest of the record just sounds a bit lazy and over familiar. Maybe this would have been a stronger ten track record with the bulk of the songs from the first half with a couple of the ‘… Sunday Mornings’ half thrown in. Who knows, but viewed as a whole it doesn’t really work. Time for Counting Crows to re-think things a little.

MAGIX Music Studio 11 deluxe
List Price: ?49.99
Amazon Price: ?19.96
Customer Review: Good product
Having the older “magic music studio generation mm 6[1998]“i thought best to update. The “MAGIX Music Studio 11 deluxe” has the standard issue midi and audio studio that come with every adition of the music studio product. AUDIO STUDIO the audio studio has exellent sound quality and has lots of little goddies to go along with it,it has a copper and silver synth for creating dance melodies. It has a beat box for creating fully cutomizable drum beats with various different types of drum kit. and a vecoder which is a voice changing module for creating different types of sounds(mainly vocal harmonies and voice changers for creating robot, ghostly and evil type voices). the UI is quite difficult to understand with tons of different commands. There is also the amp simulation( i find this rubbish and sounds nothing like an amplifier and looks like a decrepit marshall). There are the classic effects which for a computer program sound AMAZING, with effects such as delay, chorus, flanger and taped echo, which are great effects for guitar, vocals, bass and drums. I would have like to have seen a noise gate with the progrom cut out some interfearence, but with shuffling the equipment about solved the problem quickly. i still have no idea where the harmonizer that tells you song chords is, there is nothing in the manuel about this. Midi STUDIO this is very simmilar to the old version i have with no apparant sound changes. the instuments sound nothing like the instruments there supposed to be. This “Sampletank Se” was very difficult to find with there being no useful infomation about it in the manuel. There is a sepperate manuel for the sampltank on your hard disk when installed but this still does’nt tell you how to open it. when compared with “Cubase” the midi studio is a disappointment. this product’s manuel his tons of jargon that it does not tell you the meanings of. It has little or no useful info in it and is not worth the paper it is printed on. if you are buying this for the midi studio DON’T. If you are buying it for making your own recordings for a band or whatever then definatly get it it has great recording sound quality very professional sound quality. i bought this from here for ?19.99 which was well worth it. i have noticed it has gone back up to ?44.99 at this price do not buy
Customer Review: Its OK, but a good sound card is required
The only problem I encountered was after I unistalled Magix and replaced it with Cubase. The remnant files left by the removal were excessive, plus they stuck to the hardrive like glue, laying claim to most of the files needed by other applications for special effects, rendering them useless. Only a complete re-format of the hardrive and installing my software again, excluding the Magix application, cured this! Actual product review: This is cheap in the world of home studio software. Positives are: easy to use graphical interface, good effects and mixing desk – all fairly straightforward. The tutorial files are also excellent to practice your editing/engineering/production skills on before trying them out on your own music. However, if you buy decent sound card hardware, preferably one that will take Guitar size jack plugs and has inputs for full size condenser mic’s with additional phono outputs (right and left) for connecting external amplifiers – it will come with far more advanced ’studio software’ thrown in. So shop around the on-line music shops, as opposed to PC World and the like, and read the small print first to see what applications are included free, before going for the Magix offering.

North of Watford Vol.1: 24 Rare Pop & Soul Classics 1964-1982

Do the Pop
Customer Review: Like punk & garage? Buy this!
Good album. Nicely packaged double with great cover notes. Features punk and garage in an Aussie stylee from ‘76 to ‘89.
Some of it hasn’t worn well. Most of it rocks. Radio Birdman, The Saints, Celibate Rifles, Sunnyboys, Lime Spiders, Lipstick Killers… See and hear the history of Aussie music. Wonder how more people don’t talk about this stuff. Nod head fast and play imaginary telecaster. Re-evaluate your opinion of Australian music. Surprise your mates with unheard nuggets. Play again.