Further my post concerning BeatBurner, I got around to installing it onto my DAW. Figured if I was gonna run my mouth off…

Though I downloaded the full package, I haven’t yet installed the included beats. While BeatBurner only processes 16bit wavs - we’re digital lofi so we don’t let that stop us, do we? - I have plenty of fodder for this thing. More than a few folders full of my early ACID loop collections, various freeware loops, stuff culled off Brit music mag cover disks - a bunch of crap to be sure, but some that have stood me well over the years - mostly shopworn breakbeats, but some other oddball stuff I’ve picked up. I thought I’d run them through it, let me evaluate the ‘burners potential on material I am well familiar with.

And it is indeed very cool. So, yes, not a beat-slicer. More like a very musical audio modulating filter synth wave-shaper thing. Every loop I loaded up sounded great and made me want to squirrel it away for later use. With just a bit of fiddling you can coax some unique sounds out of it, depending on what you’re feeding it. It’s a one trick pony, more or less, but it’s a great trick that sounds fantastic once you know what you’re doing, more or less.

It seems petty to fault the program’s shortcomings since it’s a few years old and, you know, free. They are what they are - off the top of my head I can think of 4 things I wish it did or did better - but since we’re all more or less in agreement that what sounds good is good no matter what goddamn bit-rate it was recorded at, it is a nice tool for getting some new use out of old sounds, and has a lot of inspiration potential. Tip: Disengage the sync on the delay and lfo for instant dub fun.

So I’m definitely going to kick into the coffer once the next paycheck comes in.

EDIT: Okay, so I’ve spent some more time with it, and not so right with the “one trick pony” thing. It actually has quite a few tricks up its sleeve. It would be great if it did 24bit samples, just for the breadth of shit you could throw at it. So, it’s not Kontakt. But it’s way more capable and interesting than a lot of commercial synths.