5 comments about iDrum US27000 Virtual Drum Machine for Mac OS X Garage Band, Live, Logic and Stand Alone Use.

1. First, this thing can only be programmed in 4/4. And you can't quantize; you're stuck with 16, 32, or 64 beats per measure. Forget about a genuine swing beat. Also, I'm sure there are tom-tom drums somewhere among the drum menus but I can't find them. There are about a million snare samples and countless squeaks, blips, honks, etc. If you're doing club stuff this is probably a useful bit of software but if you're looking for something that resembles a drum machine you'd use for rock/pop/roots demos, forget about it. My ancient Yamaha RX17 is much more useful.



2. If you're serious about programming drums, do yourself a favor and buy Reason. Redrum, reason's drum machine, is soo much more programmable, not to mention it lets you edit waaay more parameters than iDrum does and it comes with a BUNCH of samples. As an added bonus, reason has soo much more stuff for you to play with if you ever get the urge to add anything else to your songs.



3. Folks criticize this software because it doesn't do what they want. Seems to me it make more sense to see what it does and then decide whether it's a good buy. You can download a demo with documentation and use it for ten days and decide for yourself. I've decided it's a very usable tool for a great price.
   
   
   You can make a beat very quickly and intuitively, import your own sounds including non-drum sounds, do stutter effects, do very cool variable amount swingish beats, 999 bar songs, save patterns, kits etc.
   
   As for a four four only time signature - do some math! Five bars of four can be converted to 5/4. 12 4/4/ bars wil get you 3/4 besides if you are doing hip hop or downtempo electronica, most likely you'll be in 4/4!
   
   You can't beat it for 50 bucks.



4. I bought this in a store so I can't return it... oops. Very basic and does not integrate well with logic, but even if it did I wouldn't use it because Logic's built in drum machine is better anyways. Just get the demo if you don't believe me.



5. I recently bought an iMAC and was excited to use garageband. I needed a drum machine so I bought this program this program in the apple store. Within minutes of use I realized this is complete garbage. If you are looking to make rock beats with this just turn the other way and start walking. This program is meant for soldier boy or some other artist who utilizes fake sounds into repetitious beats.

2 comments about PrintMaster Silver v17 (DVD).

1. Wonderful. I have the original and the Platinum 15 DVD and find them user friendly and practical for my job. I am a Kindergarten teacher and use the clip art for many of my daily activities.



2. I think this is an excellent programme and love using Printmaster.
   It is simple to follow and the results are very professional. I intend to keep using it and to upgrade whenever possible.

No comments about Microsoft Expression Studio Upgrade [OLD VERSION].

5 comments about The Print Shop Essentials 15.

1. This is great if you want to send a note to your Aunt Helen. Anything more substantial and it is full of quirks and bugs. Huge Waste of Money----the programmers should be lined up and shown the door or preferably worse.



2. This is terrible software. I gave it two stars because it does edit photos and I needed that feature, but, overall I am very sorry that I spent my money before looking at these reviews.

   The interface is AWFUL! For example, if you want to add a rectangle you would think you would just click on a rectangle tool and draw it. Nope! Instead you click on "Insert Shape", then you get a dialog box of possible shapes. You have to select the shape you want and the color in this dialog box. Then you click OK. Now you have a rectangle that you can reshape.

   The Wizards are OK, but the designs are very lame and unprofessional. The system creates some integrated letterhead and business cards, but you wouldn't want to use them.

   I bought this ... figuring, ...how much worse can it be than Microsoft Publisher 2000? Afterall, this isn't rocket science. The answer was MUCH worse!




3. I bought the print shop deluxe version 15 because I had been very pleased with its previous editions. Well not with this one. It installed only part of the program, I uninstalled the whole program and started installation again, but the program insists it is already installed. So here I sit with a new program that is useless. Have contacted Broderbund but have not had a reply. Have had the computer checked out and it is the program not the computer causing the problem.



4. I've owned previous versions of this product, and I enjoyed using them. I found switching CDs a little annoying though, and welcomed the idea of one disk, with most of the art stored online, without taking up space on my computer.

   The art is wonderful; my real complaint with the program is the website access. All too often, I find myself in the middle of designing something when suddenly an object cannot download. There appears a blurb from the manufacturer telling you to try again later. Sometimes "later" is just a few moments later, other times it can be quite a while. Also, I find that the thumbnails are a little slow appearing, making scrolling through the art time consuming. I would give this product a much higher rating if it wasn't for this unreliability. I like the PrintShop, but I just bought Version 20 Deluxe, to be installed when I install my larger hard drive. I haven't installed it yet; I'm reading reviews here to see if anything else sounds more promising.




5. I purchased a "used" copy for about $9 since v20 is out and is almost $90. I'm not disappointed with it since it does just what I want it to do: Labels, Newsletter, envelopes. Things that were a challenge in Microsoft products like Word, etc. I was very pleased with it, but then I didn't spend a whole lot. I'll get v20 when I can get it for $9 but then maybe the current version at that time will have been improved enough to be worth it.

No comments about Eyetv Hybrid /TURBO.264 Bundle.

No comments about Custom Land Designer (3D Design).

No comments about Slick Transitions & Effects for iMovie, Vol. 6, Universal Binary.

No comments about Landscape Design 3D.

No comments about Adobe Premiere 6.0 for Windows.

No comments about Cosmi Deluxe Printing 10 Pack.