If you think you can handle all that mixing and scratching stuff, this PC-based mixing software could improve your skills.

Fancy yourself as the next Adam Freeland? See yourself as the new Mike Skinner? Maybe the old-school sounds of Yomanda were more your thing.

Whatever the case, appreciators of dance music of all styles have had the chance to make their own with various music creation software. The competition to eJay last time around came from the arguably superior 'Music 3000', now eJay is back with a revolution, apparently.

Quite what revolutionary aspects we were supposed to expect from the latest iteration of the Dance eJay series is questionable. The software still follows the simple drag and drop interface for users to compose tunes from around 4,000 dance samples.

The samples themselves range across a whole host of styles, from house to chill-out and some rather soothing Spanish guitars. The female vocals samples included are useful but the male vocals will add little personality to your songs, most of them poor attempts at even the most clichéd lyrics. Using the default Assembler mode it's quite possible to create a decent sounding tracks in little under an hour.

Bushby enjoyed the scratching on his PC!

Players could easily find this pick and mix gameplay more than enough, making eJay little more than a glorified musical jigsaw puzzle. Thankfully then, the game (though that term is used in the loosest possible sense) contains significantly more depth from a range of beat, grove and even vocal generators.

The manual comes into play here, with a bamboozling array of new buttons to push it's clear this could scare many back to the relative ease of sample selecting, but perseverance does reap rewards.

Further exploration leads to the recording studio, where users can record their own samples from any CD. There is even the option to record your own vocal samples (if you think you can sing better than the Pop Idol reject in the Archive, that is). To top off the package nicely there's even a Live Jam mode where players simple trigger beats and tunes using the keyboard.

There are a few things that should be pointed out, namely the optimistic system requirements that may disappoint some who find the software to be an unreliable and juddering wreck.

Secondly we have to wonder why no option to burn your masterpieces onto CD was included within the programme, it's relatively easy to use your own recording software but it seems a staggering omission when most users will want to showcase their tracks on a handy CD player, not round a PC.

Still, this is an excellent piece of music making kit, worth the time and effort of any dance fan.

8/10

Bushby