Review for Dr. Drum Digital Beat Making Software

The Dr. Drum digital beat making software program has everything a budding (or professional) DJ could want or hope for. Dr. Drum says it can make any type of music you love. If you love to make your own rap beats, hip-hop sounds, techno pop, urban, house, and dance tunes, then this is definitely the program for you. You'd probably be able to squeeze out some very decent R&B, rock, or jazz - any one of the eight music/beat file samples that you can download from the Members area are very convincing.

Here are some of the features of the Dr. Drum Beat Making Software:

- A powerful 16-track sequencer

- Single click ability to move sounds where you want them in the track

- 12-pad sound with each drum kit

- Drag and drop import ability to bring in your own beats

- 4 Octave Keyboard for pianos, strings, synth, sax and more

- Good selection of bass samples

- Special effects to create unique sounds

At the heart of the software is the 16 track sequencer. There are two visual representations of it. One is the mixing board where you can adjust each track's volume, equalization, pan, mute, and solo, and a Master volume. To the right of these controls are the minimize and maximize window buttons (in case the ones in the corner of your application window aren't working), and a very nifty 'YouTube Upload' button.

The YouTube Upload button does exactly what you think it would do. It prepares your song/beat creation to be uploaded as a video to your YouTube account. The video is simply what you see on your screen as your creation plays, the Dr. Drum 16 track sequencer showing its progress through the song's timeline as it plays. Very boring. But you can do something slightly cooler. You can add your own pictures! Doing so creates a slideshow of your pics, evenly spaced out, for the duration of the playback of your creation. A little jab in the jaw at Apple's iPhoto I suppose. But still, very cool.

The second representation of the sequencer is below all of that, and serves as the primary working area and time line for your musical and beat creation. So there are 16 time lines (or tracks) for you to assign any one of three working 'kits' - Drums, Bass, or Keys.

There are 44 drum kits, 48 bass kits, and 292 (4 octave) keyboard kits to choose from. You can assign any one of these kits to a track. For instance, you could have 5 drum tracks, 3 bass tracks, and 8 keyboard tracks to make up your beats and songs. Or you could use 8 drum tracks, 2 bass tracks, and 6 keyboard tracks - or whatever it takes to create your music.

These kits are studio quality samples. When you're all done creating and are ready to share your beats, you can export it out in full 44.1 KHz stereo 16 bit PCM.wav format.

There is only one thing missing, and it's an important one for me - there is no place on the display that tells you the name of the file you're working on. Perhaps Dr. Drum will be able to add the file name display on a future update. (Hint!)

The visual interface is very simple while still providing intricate control of the sounds and their placement. Overall, this is a very powerful and easy to use beat maker. It's also very affordable at $39.95. And it works on PC or Mac operating systems.

I'll get down to the nuts and bolts of song and beat creation in future articles.