Beaterator Preview
By Gaetano Prestia
Starting off as a Flash game on Rockstar’s official website back in 2005,
Beaterator has developed a definitively strong cult following and evolved into a proficient music mixer. Noticing the game’s active online following, Rockstar greenlit a PSP version of the title back in 2007, giving the development duties to handheld extraordinaire Rockstar Leeds. What began as something of a pet project quickly turned into an impelling strategy, as Timbaland jumped on board to lend his undeniably strong eye for music to the project. The final product is set to be the most complex - as well as accessible - music mixer ever released on a handheld. After being in development for so long, we’re happy to say that things are look quite jazzy indeed.
Beaterator includes literally thousands of loops and sounds from Timbaland himself. His dedication to the project is quite evident from the moment the game starts up, and just looking through the sheer number of different sounds there are available to you - all right at your fingertips - is quite astonishing. It’s evident that this isn’t just some cheap console music mixer that we’ve seen before on the PS1 or other consoles. Beaterator has evolved into quite the beast, and while it might not seem overly “mainstream”, this is definitely a title that will stand the test of time. If that’s not obvious through the amount of content there is to move through, then it’s because of the game’s encouragement to create and share your own musical creations with the rest of the world. Timbaland has collaborated and helped create what seems to be a title that won’t only please hardcore fanatics of this type of software, but also those of us who just love music and love to jam out to anything and everything.
“Anything and everything” is actually really relevant when it comes to Beaterator. You might associate Timbaland with hip hop, but he has shown his musical genius in creating a library of loops and sounds that cover pretty much every genre you can think of, from rock, to house, to pop and even UK garage. It doesn’t take someone with a strong knowledge of music to notice how deep and outstanding the sound library in Beaterator is.
One thing that really stands out with Beaterator, though, is that you don’t need to have a good rhythm or any sense of musical production skills whatsoever. It does offer a complex and incredibly detailed and deep music mixing experience, but it also allows you to quickly and freely create and record your own tunes without stress. Forget about any sense of rhythm – the Live Play mode lets you get straight into the action.
Offering several different music genre templates, you seamlessly move across eight different instrumental groups, each of which have four separate loops. It’s definitely a lot easier to understand if you’re actually seeing it in action, but it’s no where near as complex as it sounds. In fact, it’s actually a lot of fun. Considering its simplicity and accessibility in action, it’s surprising that you can create such a rocking tune. For example, say you’ve chosen “Rock” as your template. The eight instrumental groups cover drums, guitar and bass, to name a few. You can start off with one of the beat loops in the drums, then move over to guitar using the d-pad to choose one of the four loops there. Then you can move down to the bass and choose one of the loops there. Once you have loops from all eight groups playing, you can set off into a seamless flow of mixing and changing, simply using the face-buttons and d-pad. Furthermore, the game introduces each loop into the tune at the next logical point. So if you have a really crappy rhythm and choose a loop from the drums at a really off moment in the beat, it won’t actually be entered until the fourth beat. This makes creating a great sounding tune really easy, as there won’t be moments when the beat suddenly kicks off in the wrong direction and all of the loops are out of sync with one another.
There is also Studio Session, which allows you to edit and add new loops in, adding a bit more depth to Live Play. Here you can change the BPM and volume levels, giving you a little bit more freedom across the 32 total loops available in the mode.
Those of you with a bit of sequencing experience will feel at home with the Song Crafter, which allows you to edit any recorded tune. Here you can move loops along the timeline, throw in new ones and create your own from a particular section you love. The jump from the Live Play to Song Crafter is quite large, and it might be a bit too much to wrap your head around the first time, but the level of detail and different options available to you will really encourage you to mess around and perfect your own sequencing skills. Beaterator seems to have an uncanny ability to pull you in with its depth, be it from the number of different loops and sounds available to you, or the aggressiveness and complexity of the sequencer itself.
If you feel like being as creative as possible, you can create your own template using both Timbaland’s and Rockstar’s own samples, and there are thousands to sort through. Every loop is sorted accordingly, making searching for the perfect loop actually quite easy. Furthermore, you can create your own loops for the template using the Drum Crafter, which is, just like the Song Crafter, spread across eight channels.
If you’ve got a special voice, you can record some vocals using the PSP mic and import them to include in your tune. You can manipulate the wave lengths, speed and volume just as you could with any sounds in the database. Your own unique sounds can also be imported to the game, and considering how many editing options are available to you, it’s a great feature considering how many sound loops are already in the title.
Then there is the Melody Crafter, which replaces the channels with piano keys and allows you to manipulate and lock in notes. There are plenty of options available to you here, allowing you to create a really complex loop.
Beaterator is definitely the most complex, detailed and professional music mixer ever on a handheld. Perhaps even on a console. There’s no doubt that there’s more to see too, especially when it comes to the social aspect. You’ll be able to create and share your own tunes with the world, and it’ll be interesting to see how Rockstar integrate this title into the Social Club. Timbaland’s involvement has really helped this evolve into something special. It looks to be a really deep music mixer, one that will appeal to experts in the genre, as well as to those totally new to it. There are tutorial videos for pretty much every mode - all presented by Timbaland himself - and the title has a level of accessibility that balances really well with the complexity and depth. Even a small interest in music will allow you to have fun with Beaterator, as it looks set to be one of the coolest titles ever to hit the PSP.
08/09/2009
37
Join MyPSP to vote for your favourite story!
Tags:
bass
beaterator
Drums
Game
Guitar
Hip
Hop
House
Leeds
music
rock
rockstar
timbaland
More Info:
Beaterator
Related News: