I am quite simply in love with Egoist. As a longtime producer of dance music, I had been in quite a rut for the last few years. But the music bug bites deep and so I was constantly tinkering, trying to find that crucial creative spark.

At first, I thought: change your sequencer, forcing your brain to rewire itself around a new paradigm, triggering fresh and innovative ideas, and signaling the end of the musical blues.

Then I thought: no, bite down and invest in a hardware sampler. Sure it's $$$$ but that's really what you need, get out there and play live.

Egoist, my friends, is all of those things.

And more. And it's single-handedly brought me back from the brink of beat boredom and arpeggiator apathy. And no, this isn't hyperbole.

Essentially, its a mini workstation, sampler, loop slicer, drum machine, FX unit, and 303/SH101 synth in one sexy and compact interface. Yup. All those things. If this were hardware, it would cost thousands. Somehow the cheeky chappies at SugarBytes went ahead and made a standalone DAW that works within a DAW or standalone, and does what even Live can't: instantaneously chop and randomize samples to your hearts content, effect some or all or none of the chops, create countless bassline and drum variations, and even perform them live via a MIDI keyboard.

Within minutes of downloading the demo, I knew I had to have it.

Egoist made me feel the same way I felt when I first played around with a demo version of Rebirth back in 1999, complete with 15 minute time limit. It was love at first sound.

And within less than a day of purchasing this magnificent beast, I had:
- moved my 'in development hell' tune from 'ugh' to 'wow', all via importing and chopping up the stale bassline into Egoist, bringing the track new vibrancy.
- successfully laid the skeleton for two new tracks, the first by jamming to the included factory samples, and the second by importing a cheeky sample of my own. Bliss.
- gone back and loaded up samples from old tunes for instant remix shenanigans.

There is a magic to this tool that simply has to be experienced. All of a sudden, all my old synths, drum loops, and sample CDs are crying out to be fed into Egoist, just to see what might come out. It's almost always a killer new tune. I am well and truly in love.

For future versions, I have just a few suggestions:
- let the user mix and match between drum kits. Right now you can only do it within the type of drum kit selected (on the bottom left).
- allow the user to play back a sample 'normally'. I'm not sure what Egoist is doing, but even with no effects or variations, the loops always play back altered. I would love to be able to play back a loop in its original state, but only effect certain bits.
- I love the bassline synth, but the method of programming notes is a bit fiddly. It has a great sound so why restrict it?

Overall, you're looking at one of the best bits of kit to hit the world of music software in a very long time. SugarBytes makes a ton of great apps, but I think Egoist may be their most well rounded, addictive, and useful. I wish I had come to it earlier, but I am glad it happened when it did. Bring on V2!

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