Beaterator - Hands On Preview

Those of you who are unaware of Timbaland's existence must've avoided MTV for the last decade as if it were sending out subliminal messages encouraging viewers to eat their own knees. Just for the record, Viacom's MTV Networks and its subsidiaries have absolutely no interest in cannibalism and, on an entirely unrelated point, Timbaland's music is on there a lot. In fact, pretty much all of the time. This is because ever since the 'urban music' demigod managed to help Justin Timberlake get over Britney with 'Cry Me A River', Timbaland has worked with a portfolio of artists more MTV friendly than a reality TV show about the family life of an old-skool rapper.

He's pinched one of pop's finest songstresses and transformed her into an R&B goddess (Nelly Furtado); he's taken a rock group and given them a global number one hit with a classic, Hip-Hop styled backing track (One Republic); and, of course, he's turned N Sync's golden boy into his own personal lapdog. It's perhaps fitting, then, that the undisputed masters of arranging stylised game soundtracks (Rockstar) have teamed up with the best in the music producing business to make an easily accessible music sequencing program for the gaming masses called Beaterator.

At one end of the scale, Beaterator is a bit of fun for anybody with a vague interest in creating music but with absolutely no expertise. On the other end of the scale, it's a thoroughly capable piece of music sequencing software for an unbelievably cheap price. The game can be accessed through one of three modes that essentially all do the same job but at different levels of automation depending on how technical you want to get. Put simply, the Live Play mode could be played by a three year-old, Studio Sessions can then be used to arrange loops created in the Live Play suite, while players can access the Song Crafter to tinker with these loops and edit-in specific sounds and effects.

Timbaland himself appears in Live Play, albeit as a computer generated likeness at the centre of a music station. This forms the backdrop for Live Play's interface, which sets out a range of primary instruments (e.g. Drums, Bass, Keys, and Synth etc.) in each corner of the screen. Each instrument provides four selectable samples at a time (dished out via the face buttons), although players can also switch an instrument's sample set by accessing Beaterator's database using the shoulder buttons. Once cued up, a sample is then automatically aligned with the right beat for the track you're 'laying down' and the beat will continue on faultlessly, no matter how tone death you are.

The sample database is extensive to say the least, with 1,200 Rockstar created loops ranging across genres such as drum and bass, break beat, and trance. A further 1,700 Timbaland branded loops are then lumped on top of Rockstar's initial offerings, and this is where the fun really starts. We got a brief hands on with the setup and had created an unmistakably Timbaland sounding tune within seconds. It was so easy that it got us wondering whether Timbaland actually bothers producing his own tracks anymore. With this software, he could simply give it to a roomful of monkeys and, simply by a process of random taps on the PSP's face buttons, the monkeys would probably generate a triple platinum record at a rate of about one per hour.

Once you've put together a range of loops that you're happy with in Live Play, these samples can then be imported directly into the Studio Sessions mode. Here you'll see the standard breakdown of each sample loop as a bar of sound, in the same way that music sequencing programs such as Fruity Loops and Cool Edit Pro operate. Loops can be copied and pasted onto different areas of a track and there's also a basic set of effects dials that alter the panning and beats per minute of a track etc. As is the case throughout all areas of the game, Beaterator's sample database can be just as easily accessed in Studio Sessions as it can in Live Play, allowing you to add in loops at any point across the production process. There's even the functionality to add in your own vocal samples of around 20 seconds in length, recorded via the PSP microphone (as long as it's a PSP 3000, that is).

Song Crafter is where things start to get really technical. From here, you get a full breakdown of each sample that can be edited at pretty much any level. Drum loops, for example, are now broken down via the 'Drum Crafter' into the specific sound effects from a drum kit (e.g. hi-hats, cymbals, and bass drum sounds). Players can both eliminate and add to parts of an existing drum loop - deleting a snare drum here or putting in an extra cymbal there - although the editing power of the interface is actually strong enough that users can even create an entire drum loop from scratch.

This is similarly the case for Beaterator's 'Melody Crafter', which houses a breakdown of every synthesised sample in the game (i.e. a sample from a clever keyboard with loads of sound effects). It's not as if a working knowledge of music theory is required either, as the notes are straightforwardly tabbed out via dots for position and lines to show the note's length. A keyboard on the left-hand side of the interface can then be used to add in new melodies, while synthesised effects are once again accessible from Beaterator's ever helpful database.

Judging from what we've seen of Beaterator so far, it's certain to be an easily accessible music sequencing game that anybody can pick-up-and-play. Beyond this initial layer of interaction though, the editing depth under Beaterator's surface appears to put it more on a par with some of the lower-end music editing suites available on PC. This is particularly impressive for software that's being launched on handheld gaming devices and, once again, we must tip our hats towards Rockstar Leeds' handiwork.