Ezmuze+ is the fantastic attempt, from "The Hamster Alliance" & "Mad Ninja Skillz", of bringing a loop based music creation tool to the Xbox Live Community Games Channel. Since the dawn of this console generation the Music Creating genre seems to have been left for dead, yet Ezmuze aims to change this, and rightly so!

When you fire up the trial of the game you will be provided with a demo song to highlight just how powerful of a tool this really is. The tool simplifies what could otherwise be a rather daunting task, by splitting up the areas of the song into specific sections - Drums, Lead, Bassline, Atmosphere, Vocal and SFX. Each of these areas have separate loop sets for you to place down, which you may do so in any combination you see fit. The tool never forces you to do anything, it never gives you an aim, or any kind of purpose to creating the music and instead leaves it completely up to your own imagination. Simply hover over a section on your music grid and press Y to see a list of loops all separated into packs. Each loop is provided as a full set of 4 which were created to sound perfect together, however you can still mix and match loops and produce fantastic sounding combinations. Simply hit A and the loop appears in your music grid - it’s as simple as that! Within minutes you’ll be creating awesome music with just the push of a few buttons, thanks to Hamst3r's fantastic set of loops which often seem to fit together perfectly despite that not being the way they were created.

However where the depth lies in the tool is the Automation Editor. Here the user is able to modify how the loops sound by applying volume effects such as waves, fades, saws, seesaws and a ton more. This is really where your song will come into its own and where you will be spending a huge amount of time when working on your creation. The key to this area is completely down to experimentation and intuition. Yet Ezmuze never expects you to just know all this from staring at the screen.The tool comes with fully dialogued tutorials explaining the ins and outs of the software to help you get on your toes. Personally I found this to be a fantastic touch especially when considering just how scary the blank music grid can feel at first glance. The tutorials do a great job of letting you understand how to utilise the various features offered and are concise enough to hold your attention. 

Throughout the entire tool the presentation really shines through. All of the menus hold a similar style and are simple to navigate. I would be pretty much hitting the nail on the head if I were to tell you that the presentation almost matches that of a retail title of this nature. Not only that but if you're looking for a more visual approach to your music then by simply hitting the back button during playback switches to the Visualisation Mode offering the usual range of psychedelic music visualisation expected from something like this. Finally the game also offers the ability to send your songs through Xbox Live to a friend who also owns the game - a great touch.

Some might feel that Ezmuze is being offered at a steep price of 800msp however the title is completely worth it if you enjoy using these kinds of tools. It is lacking in some of the more advanced features seen in previous console tools of this genre such as manually creating loops however the title is a downloadable release. The game also offers no way to get your songs onto your home computer, but this is most certainly a limitation of the XNA Software Library and 360 security features, however we have word that the developers are looking into some kind of workaround for this without the need for capture software & tools, so keep your eyes peeled on Game-Pad for any news related to this.

Ezmuze+ Hamst3r Edition gets an official XBLCG Game-Pad rating of 9.0/10
 

Check out our exclusive interview with the Ezmuze developers here!