I don't believe in having regrets but this was truly tested after wasting an afternoon on PCDJ Rock Producer.

The PCDJ range of Producer titles allows you to piece together samples to create your own music on a PC.

The programme offers a real-time stereo sequencer, plenty of audio effects, 600Mb of royality-free samples, alternative skins and support for both .wav and MP3 files.

It has a big window split vertically into tracks and horizontally into beats. All you have to do is drag and drop samples from another window on to the track you want, starting at the beat you want.

This part is very simple and a lot of fun. But matching all the samples to the same tempo is a nightmare.

The next few hours were spent pulling my hair out in frustration as I grappled with my beats-per minute.

PCDJ claims it can be used by musical novices but I fail to see how this can be true. I used to make my living playing guitar and producing in studios so I knew what I wanted to do but the programme just wouldn't let me do it.

The quality of the samples are generally good (with the exception of the bass guitar) but don't stand up to too much stretching and tweaking.

Novices would better spend their time learning to play an instrument.

Price: £39.99.

Contact: www.emissionuk.com
Feel good factor: 3 out of 10.