Microsoft Songsmith takes technology from PG Music's Band-in-a-Box and sounds from software synthmeisters Garritan and wraps them up in an easy-to-use song-writing tool that's primarily designed for kids, but may appeal to 'proper' musicians looking for a way to sketch out ideas quickly and easily.

Songsmith will run on any modern PC with speakers and a microphone that has the latest version of .NET installed. When it loads, you get a choice of 30 song styles (all the usual suspects including 50s, reggae, pop, RnB, dance, disco, bluegrass, country and so on) on a snazzy carousel and as you click each one, it 'auditions' for you: after that, just set the tempo and you're ready to start.

The main screen has record, stop and play controls. Just click the first of these and after a count of two bars, start singing. Songsmith automatically generates a musical arrangement in the selected style, complete with realistic-sounding instruments that are included with the software.

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Initially the results vary rather wildly. Sometimes Songsmith gets the key pretty much spot on while at other times it's a long way off. Fortunately it's easy to change the accompaniment, either by applying a completely different style or by dragging around the 'Happy' and 'Jazzy' sliders underneath the main window to introduce a minor or major feel, or more precisely by choosing alternative chords from a drop-down menu next to each phrase (these are determined by Songsmith, so they're all in the right ball park).

In addition, individual instruments in the song can be turned on or off or swapped for alternative ones. Vocals can be re-recorded and the finished result saved as a WMA or WAV file, which means songs can be played on a digital music player or even exported into a more conventional music making program like Cubase so you can work on them some more.

There's even a feature to export finished songs directly into Microsoft Movie Maker so you can knock up videos for uploading to services like YouTube and Facebook; there are loads of examples on YouTube already (some good, some hilarious): try searching for 'Songsmith' and then hold onto your hat.

Software instruments are pretty convincing these days, so results are satisfying (though electric guitars remain a problem) and there's enough variation here to satisfy your average amateur songwriter. Anyone interested in doing something more complicated will soon bump up against the rigid arrangement features which don't allow for much variation on the standard full bar format, tempo changes, unusual time signatures and so on.

However, as a diversion, Songsmith has plenty going for it: a large library of styles and new instruments available to buy, the ability to save a vocal without the backing track and vice versa, and the outside chance that someone, somewhere will use it to create the basis for that elusive hit. The software's available as a free download from Microsoft and will work for six hours unrestricted. If that floats your musical boat, the full product costs 29 Euros.

The free, six-hour, fully functional demo should make it a hit at X-Factor-obsessed kids' parties, and the wealth of additional styles and instruments, plus the ability to save the results as a WAV file, may even find favour with songwriters looking for inspiration. Recommended for kids, enthusiastic amateurs and anyone who fancies seeing if they could write an original song.