The kind of gamers who will benefit from this title the most are those who are musicians...
...Not to say that if you're not a musician or have any kind of rhythm that you won't be able to use this software. (I'm not even going to refer to it as a game...because it's not). The problem with Traxxpad is that the interface is so awkward to get used to, navigating your way around just to figure out what to do next is what's keeping this from being the "user friendly" title it's claming to be.
From the get go, if you don't read through the manual, you can forget about "easily laying down beats" without a few minutes of wondering to yourself what it is you need to be doing. There are different modes or techniques you can use to create your music. The essential part of this software is of course just basically listening to the rhythm of the metronome when you're recording your piece and just pressing the face buttons in time of the beat.
Sounds simple enough. But, if you want to say, change the speed of the track, or perhaps adjust the balance from left to right on any given track...you have to use the D pad to navigate through those options. Of course...you won't know how to do that unless you either breeze through the manual or just flip through all the options yourself.
And don't even think that you'll be able just to change things here and there and lay down the tracks with the flip or press of a button. It's just not as easy as I would have hoped it to be. You have to go through a series of odd menu changes to navigate around to change your sound and track settings. You would think that they could have just adopted how the PSP home screen works and have some kind of easy to follow menu. They have this odd wheel type menu. I guess the concept is pretty cool...and going along with the whole DJ theme, it works artistically. But fundamentally it's just confusing to have to hit start to go to a menu, or holding down your Left shoulder button and X or whatever the combination is...I forget...and then rotate the menu around to find what it is you're looking for.
But enough complaining about that. If you spend the time to get used to the menu and how the interface actually works...and get used to laying down the tracks and adjusting and or deleting them from the timeline...then you've got a pretty slick little music/beat program that can be really cool to add stuff to. Now, if you already are a musician who dabbles with digital music with some kind of music software already, once you get the interface locked in your brain you'll be able to apply what you already know to this program. So far I haven't seen any way to clip and edit individual tracks as easily as it would be on a PC...but taking into consideration that this was meant more for a quick "on the go" track laying, it's not really needed.
Now, you can import your own sound library via the Memory Stick to expand your library of sounds...which is a good thing. The sounds included with the game are pretty good, if you like Hip hop and rap. They don't really have a rock or techno library included. You have the option of importing and using files directly from your memory stick. (although I haven't gotten a lot of time in doing this).
And of course the fact that once you lay down your tracks to make a loop...create several loops in which you can lay down the individual loops to create musical tracks you can blend together...and then layer the tracks to make a song...and then export it to MP3...you've got a cool little lick that you can share or jam out to on your PSP or MP3 player.
But again...I would say this is strictly something that those who have more of a serious interest in music creation or production to try out. It's not a rhythm game and it's by no means something you can just pick up and enjoy right away.
It took me a good hour or so to get used to what I was doing before I was actually laying down tracks and understanding the fundamentals of how the software operates.
In the end, this is a great piece of software for the PSP and I'm glad to own it. But I was having serious doubts about it in the first few hours I was using it. But if you enjoy music creation and have a library of digital music loops you want to bring over to your PSP in conjunction with the loops included on the UMD then give it a try. I would recommend renting it before purchasing if you're not sure if what I've described so far is your cup of tea.
All in all this is a great little program that I will have to invest a bit more time with. Once I actually get a track down and ready that I'm pleased with, I'll export it and put up a link to it so the software at least has some proof of concept.