Product Review: Ucreate Music by Mattel

Buying toys can be a confusing process with all of the options out there. The Ucreate Music by Mattel is a fun product for children ages 8 to 15 who are interested in making their own music. The device is a digital music-making system that connects to a computer with a USB cable. It allows kids to make their own songs and share them with their friends. The Ucreate Music can be purchased for about $20 from amazon.com.

Even as an adult, I think this is a really cool toy. There is so much that it can do that it really will grow with your child for years. Besides making their own songs from scratch, the product allows kids to modify and add effects to real songs as they are listening to them from their iPod.

There is a website, called myucreate.com, that is full of tracks, special effects, and filters that can be combined to make songs. I was surprised the amount of different songs and sounds that were available there. Using these provided files, my 11 year old son has been able to create some great sounding songs. I have been impressed by what he was able to make. All different genres of music are available on the site.

A feature of the product that he really likes is that you can save the song files onto the computer. This way, they can be uploaded onto an MP3 player or sent to other computers to share with friends.

The Ucreate seems to be very easy to use as my son picked it up right away and his 7 year old cousin figure it out quickly as well. There are so many buttons and effects that it can go from making simple songs with younger kids to the crazy combinations put together by older kids.

My only problem with the product is that you can only record for up to two and a half minutes. Many real songs are longer than this so they have to be cut if you want to modify them. However, I am impressed by the sound quality of the recordings. The speakers on the device aren't very good but with quality speakers the music sounds good and is not scratchy at all.

The toy runs off of 4 AA batteries.

Overall, I am impressed by the quality of this product and the fun that my son has gotten out of it. Every child I have seen play with it seems to enjoy it and it has provided many hours of entertainment for a group of kids.