UJAM Beatmaker Review

Music production software has become immensely powerful in modern times, and a typical DAW user now has access to engineering tools that were once exclusive to top-tier recording studios. And while the tools are now so much more accessible, the actual process of making music – composition, arranging, performance, tracking, mixing, and mastering – remains a complex, and, for some, daunting endeavour.

UJAM is on a mission to make music-making easier, by creating tools that help musicians go from inspiration to finished product faster and more intuitively. I spent some time with their Beatmaker plug-in recently to explore how this approach translates to recording electronic beats and grooves.

A Beatmaker for every genre

The Beatmaker series consists of 12 Beatmakers, each geared toward a particular musical genre – BERSERK covers Dubstep, COZY does LoFi, IDOL is geared toward K-Pop, and so on. They’re available individually, or all together in the Beatmaker Bundle. Each version has its own selection of samples (organized into 10 preset kits), patterns (organized into groups of compatible verses, choruses, intros, breakdowns and endings called “styles”), and mix processing chains. These kits, patterns and processing chains are grouped into individual presets. That means you can select a single preset if you want to dive right in and start making music when the mood strikes.

All the Beatmakers share the same interface layout, though the colour scheme, skin, and much of what’s going on “under the hood” varies with each version. The 16 samples that make up each kit can be triggered from MIDI notes C1 through D#2 on your keyboard (or pad controller if you prefer). MIDI notes C3 through B4 select the patterns in real time. Each style has five verse variations, five choruses, three “specials”, breakdowns, and fills, two intros and two endings. The key mappings are consistent across styles and Beatmaker versions, so you can record your song structure and then see how it sounds with different presets or even Beatmaker versions later.

Real-time mixing controls

In addition to MIDI notes, you can incorporate real-time controls into your performance. Pitch bend is mapped to the kick/snare balance: push your bend wheel up to drop out the kick drum, or pull it down to mute the snare. The Modulation Wheel is mapped to the Mix intensity control – Beatmaker’s unique effects processing section.

The Mix slider is like a macro control that adjusts multiple processors across Beatmaker’s internal mixing console. Each Beatnaker offers 12 Mix presets to play with, geared toward the individual plug-in’s sounds and style. The Mix feature is Beatmaker’s secret sauce in a way, producing results from the subtle to the dramatic, incorporating (to my ear) compression, EQ, filters, modulation effects, saturation, bitcrushing and more. The best way to get a feel for them is to page through them with a pattern playing and the “amount” slider up full.

Fine-tuning your mix

Beatmaker offers stereo and multi-channel output, so if you want to pull any instrument from the kit out of the processed stereo mix onto its own channel, you can select the instrument using the keyboard on the plug-in screen or your MIDI controller and switch the output from Master to Individual (and from there, follow your DAW’s instructions for creating multi-output instruments). Once an instrument is selected, you can also adjust its parameters, including level, decay, pitch and filter, or swap out its sample with one from another kit – from here you can start creating and saving your own personalized kits and presets.

Each Beatmaker version also has its own dedicated “Special Control” to add more variety to your track. These include Kick drum sidechain compression (EDEN), multiband EQ and stereo spread (Juice), vinyl crackle and LoFi effects (COZY), and bass tuning (HUSTLE and GLORY), among others. As with any Beatmaker control, you can right-click this slider to assign a MIDI controller for real-time tweaking.

Drag and Drop patterns

In addition to selecting patterns from the keyboard, Beatmaker also offers a Drag and Drop option for building tracks. Hover over the top half of the style keyboard to highlight the drag area of your preferred pattern, then drag it into the track window of your DAW. This inserts a MIDI region into your track, which you can then place, loop, and duplicate as needed – or edit them to make your own variations. This feature allows you to transfer patterns between Beatmaker versions, or to any other instrument in your DAW.

The instruments themselves sound great, and there’s a nice variety from meat-and-potatoes kit sounds to percussion and vocal sample hits. I found no shortage of deep, punchy kicks, crisp hats and snappy snares, along with some classic throwbacks here and there. VICE, in particular, offers up some unmistakable tributes in the Retro collection, with nods to the production styles of a number of 80’s artists – the unmistakable snare sound from “She Drives Me Crazy” really leapt out at me from the “I’m Mad” preset. CIRCUITS, with its analogue-style sound set, references Tangerine Dream, Krafwerk, and even 8-bit video game soundtracks. On the more modern end of the spectrum, GLORY is populated with deep, tunable 808 kicks and intricate high-hat work for all your trap and hip-hop needs.

Conclusions

Beatmaker really delivers on ease of use, and could quickly become an indispensable tool for anyone who doesn’t have the time to pan for gold in vintage record bins, or painstakingly assemble quality grooves from scratch. The friendly, easy-to-grasp interface makes it easy for songwriters and producers of any experience level to get up and running in virtually no time. The Mix processing options range from subtle and vibey to dramatic, so your beats can sound finished straight out of the box, or as if they’ve been resampled and transformed into something new. If you’re looking for a way to dial up the energy level of your tracks, you should definitely give Beatmaker a spin.

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