Beaterator - 'The Verdict' Feature

It being the 21st century and all, music production is now at the fingertips of any old Tom, Dick, and Harry. In this case, Tom, Dick, and Harry are effectively the TVG editorial team now that Rockstar has supplied us with a copy of Beaterator, it's foray into music sequencing software by way of a partnership with 'urban music' uber producer Timbaland.

To demonstrate exactly what this impressive piece of kit can do, we could simply corral a bunch of Beaterator's pre-arranged loops, run through them in the Live Play interface and post the results in this article. This would be a bit of a cheap exercise though, as it's basically the equivalent of demonstrating that we are capable of pressing the face buttons on our PSP to select our 'dope' beats of choice from the program's impressive library of different genres and instruments.

At its entry level, Beaterator is that straight forward. The most basic of its functions are doled out through Live Play, which will have you making music quicker than Mozart in a room full of banjos. Loops are grouped by type (i.e. drums, keys, synth, bass etc.), while each group has four loops that can be triggered by pressing the PSP's face buttons. Rockstar then takes care of the rest by auto-aligning the timing of each loop, which makes the process as easy as riding a bike on stabilisers.

Beaterator's default Live Play loops can either be changed on-the-fly via the shoulder buttons, or alternatively you can move into the game's Studio Session to rip out all of the pre-existing loops and replace them with fresh ones. All the music you create in Live Play can be recorded and imported into the Song Crafter, which displays a much more traditional music sequencing interface (i.e. loops displayed as blocks of sound in separate channels). From here, you can rearrange the loops from how they were set in Live Play to fine tune your track.

If this was the full extent of Beaterator's functions, then it would be a basic music maker with an impressive library of loops, although admittedly the program's appeal would diminish over time. Thankfully, Rockstar has added enough depth on top of all this to ensure that you're more likely to be limited by your creativity rather than the program itself.

As well as the many pre-arranged loops on offer, Rockstar has effectively added a music production suite that allows users to make their own loops from scratch. Using an interface that's similar to Apple's Logic Studio (which, we might add, costs many times more), users can add notes across a virtual keyboard and onto a corresponding stave with ease and won't require any previous musical training to do so (features such as an auto-chord system and tutorials for each feature make sure of this).

The sounds on offer vary widely through genres and instruments, as well as a specific sound clip's length and tone (e.g. a pizzicato violin sound lasting one second or a heavy guitar that goes on for eight seconds). Beyond this initial layer of depth there's even the option to fiddle with the waveforms of those sounds in a Sound Editor and change effects by 'setting the envelope'. It's here that you can start to get very, very lost if you're not careful. Mastering the setup is a challenge to say the least but, if you persevere with it, then you will be rewarded.

To demonstrate the sort of range that this production suite can offer, we've put together a short track that we're tentatively referring to as 'Gamermix'. In here you'll find mocked up Pac-Man, Mario Kart, GTA: San Andreas, and Super Mario Bros samples that have all been created from scratch in the editor and set to a 'Basic' Timbaland branded drum loop. There's also a Halo loop that we're going to call the 'TVG Remix 2009' simply because we had to mess around with the rhythm a bit to make it fit. Needless to say though, the copyrights lie with Nintendo, Rockstar, Namco, and Microsoft (i.e. please don't sue us).

The only things we can fault Rockstar on with this editor are the note slurring and note lengths. Slurs often come out sounding like a synthesiser from 1974, which tends to sound a bit weird for instruments such as guitars or violins. Additionally, the shortest available note increment in the editor is a semi-quaver, so you're occasionally left without the tools you need for a high-tempo track. Upping the BPM can rectify this on some occasions but tends to have the knock-on effect of distorting the pre-arranged loops in Rockstar's library.

Beaterator's interface can be a little unforgiving at times as well. Rockstar has clearly done everything possible to make it an accessible application, although navigation is a touch confusing for the first few hours of use at least. Having said this, designing a workable interface for a music sequencer (which typically relies heavily on a mouse) is a challenge more daunting than translating an RTS game from PC to consoles, so we've got to applaud what Rockstar has done with Beaterator's layout overall.

One final note on the score: as Beaterator is not technically a videogame - its lack of a scoring system or sense of progression are the reasons why - we're not going to attach our usual review scoring to it. A gameplay score obviously becomes redundant, while scoring it on sound is equally tenuous as this is very much down to the beholder/creator (i.e. you). We will say this though...

The sheer depth of Beaterator as a music maker is unsurpassed in terms of value for money. To find a program that betters its sheer scope, you'd have to look at products such as Apple's Logic Studio or Steinberg's Cubase, which typically cost hundreds of pounds more. In Beaterator, Rockstar has created a sequencer that anybody can pick up and play for fun, as well as an impressively capable music production suite with enough depth to keep users engrossed for hours on end.