DIGITAL L.A. PARTING COMMENTS ON DIGITAL MUSIC TECHNOLOGY.

Byline: David Bloom Staff Writer

Digital technology's democratizing effects have made themselves felt in music making and mixing as much as in any part of the entertainment world. Cheap software can make you a digital DJ, letting you remix songs and marry them to video, or even create songs or full multimedia experiences, then put them on the Net or on your own custom-made compact discs.

Santa Monica-based Magix Entertainment has been a leader in the sector, offering a group of inexpensive programs (all for considerably less than $100) for Windows-based PCs, including playR deLuxe, Music Maker Deluxe generation 5 and Music Studio Deluxe generation 5 (there are less than deluxe versions as well).

The Music Maker and Studio progras let people create music with multitrack recording, access to many discs of prerecorded instrument sounds (called ``samples''), drum-loop editing and more.

The playR deLuxe is, by contrast, more the tool for a would-be DJ, whether she's spinning for a rave or her housewarming party.

It provides many of the basic capabilities of most jukebox programs but adds many other talents, like letting you convert analog sound sources such as cassettes and vinyl LPs, to digital, then clean up the background noise they inevitably have.

In remix mode, you load a group of songs, beats and effects, ``cross- fade'' their volumes as you hop from one tune to another, tweak the tempo and inject new sounds to create a custom remix of your favorite tunes.

The playR deLuxe version (can we impose a moratorium on random capitalizations in technology products?) includes 1,000 sounds and effects, along with video bits that react to the music's beat. You can also hook up a camera and import your own live video. Overall, it's an impressive package, with a slick interface, for less than $50.

I've also been impressed with Sonic Foundry's Acid line of music-making programs (there are several flavors).

Generally, they allow you to drag bits (called loops) of self-contained music sampled from various instruments onto a grid that functions as the program's tablature. The program then puts those sounds together to create sophisticated compositions.

If you want to try the ACID test, go to ACIDplanet.com (at www.acidplanet.com), where Sonic Foundry offers ACID XPress, the bottom-end program, for free. You can buy the more sophisticated versions, as well as dozens of add-on collections of loops. Let the music play.

An MP-3 alternative

Sony has struggled for years to interest consumers in its MiniDisc technology. The company may have finally hit on a successful MD package by bundling the nifty little MZ-R70 portable player/recorder with the MiniDisc PC Link Interface, a gizmo that connects an external audio signal converter for the MD recorder to your Windows or Mac computer.

The bundle (called the MZ-R70 PC) makes it easy to create custom discs of the MP-3s clogging your hard drive along with CD recordings.

This approach beats using an MP-3 portable players, because a blank MiniDisc costs about $2 for 74 minutes. A similar amount of flash memory for an MP-3 portable might cost 30 to 50 times that.

Sony says college kids, who don't know the MD's sluggish sales history, are eating up this little bundle of tech. At $249 for the model with an analog converter, it's competitive with MP-3 portables and whole lot more flexible.

Myplay or the Highway

Don't want to schlep a stack of CDs to a friend's party? Here's a nifty trick, using the online site Myplay.com (at www.myplay.com). The company lets you store up to 3 gigabytes of music free in a personal online ``locker.'' Yes, it takes time to rip and transfer the CDs, but so does making a party tape.

Once your music is online, you can create playlists that you can send to your friends, who can use the file to play the songs.

Special filtering software at Myplay makes sure the playlist meets all the latest limitations of federal copyright law (no more than two songs in a row from the same artist, for instance). For high fidelity, hook up their computer to their stereo, and turn it up to 11.

This is David Bloom's last Digital L.A. column for the Daily News.