Let's trace Dance eJay 2's evolution since the beginning....................

Phase 1: Dance eJay

Great for beginners (like I was then).  All of the samples are coded by stars to help you keep in tune.  Nice colourful interface, matches the music.  The samples snap to the nearest bar, but you can fine-tune the positioning to 16^th of a note.

Features:

8 tracks
Well not exactly.  Officially, yes, but in my opinion…  I would consider it to be more a case of 6 mono tracks and 1 stereo track.  Either way, without having two different sounds coming out of each ear (which is very difficult to get right) there was no way to have more than 7 different sounds on the go at once.  I remember when making tunes, juggling around samples so that I didn't lose a sound at a crucial moment. Even then, I often found that I had no space left for everso important fills and crashes (those little touches!).

The Microphone
The little recording studio gave you a metronome (aural & visual) to play along to while recording.

The Samples
Some fantastic, some good, some okay, and then……….  I haven't met anyone yet who likes the cheesy vocal samples.

No more features on Dance eJay.  Hey, pretty good for the bottom of the evolutionary scale!

Annoying Bits
If you click anywhere on the screen while a tune is playing, the tune stops. Arrgh!  This means no real-time updating, and it even stops if you try to change the volume.

POWER RATING: By today's standards, enough to power a small house.

Phase 2: Rave eJay

I have for a long time been convinced this is a natural progression for the eJayer tired with Dance eJay.  My main problem with this program is the f**king stupid name.  Rave is not a label  you want to associate with a program as special as this.

Forget the name.  This is a classy piece of software that can produce a wider diversity of music than any other eJay product old or new. 

I think it's a progression because Rave eJay doesn't hold your hand with star formations like Dance eJay.  This is the real world now.  Work out how the samples go together yourself!  A surprisingly good result.  Really comes alive with the samplekits.

Features:

Stereo Control
You now have control over the stereo functions!  This means that you can have 8 mono tracks, 4 stereo tracks, or whatever you fancy.  Depending on how adventurous you're feeling.  The hardest I got was 3 stereo 2 mono (ZugZoggin').  I stll occasionally ran into the problem of running out of space.

The HyperGenerator
Evolution.  Isn't it wonderful.  The hypergenerator it the equivalent of a fish evolving to grow stumps which will become legs.  The idea was, you place dots in position.  The horizontal axis was the timescale and the vertical axis the pitch (illustrated by a little piano).  You can actually download a demo for the hypergenerator.

Unfortunately, I never latched on to the hypergenerator for tune writing as such for reasons that I cant be bothered explaining here (e-mail me if you really must know).  However, at the time I decided that the Hypergenerator would have one useful purpose.  Drum loops.  Unfortunately, there was only one sound suitable for a kick and one for a snare, and each of those had to be recorded on a separate track.  It was a good idea, but it was a bit too fiddly.

The Microphone
Remained unchanged for this installment.

And that's Rave eJay

Niggly Bits
Hypergenerator too damn fiddly to use for drum loops.

Volume can now be changed while a tune is playing without stopping it, but still no real-time editing.

POWER RATING: National power grid

Phase Three: Hip-Hop eJay

I never bought this because I don't really like hiphop, but it evolved with a pitch/tempo slider which could alter the speed of your tune.  I never thought of that before.  Nice touch.

Phase Four: Dance eJay 2