Music Made Easy "Sampling" old songs to create new hits made Puff Daddy a star. Now the re

Music Made Easy

"Sampling" old songs to create new hits made Puff Daddy a star. Now the revolution is coming to desktop.

Ever dreamed of becoming a pop star？ One of the best things about the PC revolution is that it enables amateurs to do creative work that looks professional. Thousands of people have used programs like Paintshop Pro, Adobe Premiere and Microsoft Publisher to retouch (润饰) photos, edit footage and lay out slick newsletters. But what about music？ If you can't play an instrument or carry a tune, no computer in the world can make you sound like Christina Aguilera.

That is about to change, thanks to a small New York City start-up called MusicHall 2000. Instead of launching yet another website where people can download MP3s, this company plans to do something much cooler: give away software that turns ordinary music lovers into composers by letting them create their own songs using prerecorded musical snippets or pieces of existing pop songs--called "samples." "You can envelop people in your sound without going through the torture of training," says MusicHall president David Danon, 24. "Plus you can record your own music without spending hundreds of dollars on a studio," adds Adam Strauss, 25, the company's chief operating officer, "We saw a way to turn consumers into producers."

Making songs with MusicHall is a lot like layering a cake: you can put down a bass line, add drums and some guitar licks (小过门), then top it off with a horn riff (即兴重复段)--it's all up to you. Within an hour of experimentation we created a song that sounded a lot like the thumping dance music of a club. It's intuitive (直觉的) enough for the average computer user to fool around with, yet powerful enough to make a professionalsounding CD, and MusicHall believes that it will appeal to both complete novices and trained musicians. That's why it's integrating (使结合) the software with the Internet so people can easily exchange their work with other wanna-be composers or distribute it to potential fans.

There are two parts of MusicHall 2000: the software and the website. The CD-ROM contains the Virtual Studio program (it consists of a pair of music editors from Sonic Foundry, Acid DJ2.0 and Sound Forge 4.5) and a library of samples. As you arrange your samples, you can add effects like reverb (混响装置), raise or lower the tempo (拍子), or even run the sample backwards. With additional equipment, you can record your own vocals (声乐作品) or instrumentals and throw them into the mix.

That's all a lot of fun, but it's when you connect to the website that MusicHall shows its potential. Once you've exhausted the samples included on the CD, you'11 be able to download new ones from the website. Using the on-screen world map, you can grab an Indian sitar or Congolese drumbeats. Some samples will be free; others will cost a small sum; the company is recruiting brand-name producers to contribute some of their hottest beats in exchange for a cut of the revenue (税收). The site is divided into several sections: the Audio Graffiti hall contains members' home pages, where people can post their own samples and songs for others to download; the Star Tracks hall hosts a weekly battle of MusicHall's virtuosos (名师). An instant messenger will let people exchange samples and songs in real time.

MP3. com meets eBay by way of RealNetworks--a cleverly cobble-together (拼凑) project, to be sure. But it works--and the ease of stringing together tunes of your own is highly addictive. There are signs that audiences might be receptive to this: Fueled by the rise of hip-hop (the popular street culture of big-city and especially inner-city youth, characterized by graffiti art, break dancing, and rap music) and electronics, DJ/producers like Dr. Dre, RZA, Roni Size and Fatboy Slim have stepped from behind the mixing boards and into the spotlight (聚光灯). Wielding their turntables and samplers as

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