The APPera

Ever wanted to know what it feels like to be behind the scenes of producing a song?How about Timbaland style?

Beaterator ($4.99)

Rockstar Games Beaterator allows you to create your own mix of beats. They’ve also teamed up with Timbaland to bring unique beats and loops for you to use.

Presentation

If you’re familiar with the PSP version of Beaterator you can say in some ways its similar, however it has been crippled. Over 1000 loops and beats can be used to create a track. Although you can’t add your own vocals to the tracks, there’s a preset from which you can choose. So if you feel like creating your own track or just using a template there’s a variety of effects and options available.

Controls

There’s quite a few you have to remember. Single taping any beat icon will play the sound, while double tapping any icon will play all the sounds in that given row. Another double tap and the sounds will stop. There’s 8 columns and rows of which can contain some beat. At the top of each column you can mute audio by pressing the speaker icon. The top most bar contains options to change tracks even more.

There’s a play, stop, and record button. Then there’s the effects button which you can then use to change the output sound for specific sections or the master. The next icon displays the track progress and the last “i” icon lets you go back to the main menu, find loops , switch them, or if you have any trouble use the help. And don’t forget that you can also trim the track.

Game Play

From the main menu you are given the option to either load the last song you where working on, load a new song, start a new song, upload the song online, or download songs.

When selecting a new song you are redirected to a variety of templates, each with a unique sound. Then just begin your song creating and press record. If you like the end output you can upload it to the Rockstar Social Club or if you need some motivation and the templates don’t help, you can download some user created tracks.

If at any time you get lost, there’s a help button under the info icon.

Suggestions

This version of beaterator is very crippled compared to the PSP but it does this to make it more easy to use. However, the overall experience of this app was not so much easy as it should have been. The whole configuration seems rushed and comes off as unorganized. The color scheme makes it look very childish and not as professional. That’s just on the presentation.

Now for actual gaming, if you call it that, it is very hard to understand what is going on. The help menu is there, but its densely packed and easy to get confused with. Many effects are not easy to use or don’t provide much knowledge of. There was also an issue with some songs crackling over the speakers, which should really be taken care of. Overall, it can get really confusing for a new user, especially if they don’t have time to read through the help menu. Most of the time it seemed as though I was just turning on and off loops hoping to create something that sounded cool.

I think some challenge or career mode would make this more of a game. The uploading of songs and sharing capabilities really adds to social networking that makes this app worthy of looking at.

Conclusion

In my opinion, Beaterator seems more of a beta than actual game that’s worthy of playing. The presence and potential are there, but the lack of explanation and lengthy help screens is not very pleasing for the player. So if you have time and really want to try a shot at mixing and creating some beats take a look at Beaterator, I just hope an update gets released.

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