Rock ‘N Roll Your Own

DJ YOUR WAY

A Review of Rock ‘N Roll Your Own

Touting itself as a “music-making CD-ROM experience” with “no musical

ability required”, Rock ‘N Roll Your Own gives the aspiring record producer

the opportunity to showcase their genius by arranging and recording eight

different songs in various styles. There’s a recording studio where parts of

all the songs can be put spliced together in a wholly new way and all the

songs offer the ability to record or import your own custom sounds to give

your masterpiece that personal touch. Hey, there’s even music videos to go

with the songs. RNRYO covers all bases.

Installing RNRYO through Windows is a snap and you should be up and running

in the studio moments after popping the disc in your CD-ROM drive. After

starting the program, you’re offered a list of 8 songs and a 9th option,

“Roll You Own”, the custom studio. All of the studios are set up similarly,

though the graphics vary depending on the song, for example “Werewolves of

London” has a spooky, foggy London background while “I Want More”, the CD’s

heavy metal representative, features a screaming mouth with dangling

tonsils. Down the left side of each studio screen are a selection of ten

tracks/riffs, each with a name that when clicked on plays the track. You

pick the tracks you like then either double-click on them or drag them to

the Song-a-lizer at the bottom of the screen. The Song-a-lizer is in

essence a sequencer that will play your selected tracks in an endless loop,

over and over again. Now, this is where the real fun starts.

RNRYO gives you the opportunity to augment your track selection with a

variety of musical accompaniment, sounds, and vocals. In the upper right

portion of the screen is a large button, the Vibe- a-Tron that can be preset

to any one of a number of musical tidbits. I was partial to the various sax

solos, though I did enjoy setting up the Vibe-a-Tron with the police siren

clip and making my song sound like prison break. In addition, all the

standard keyboard keys are programmed with different effects with two

notable exceptions. The exceptions are the Q-W-E-R-T-Y series of keys and

the 1-2- 3-4-5-6 series. Both sets of keys can be preset to a sound file

just like the Vibe-a-Tron, except the keys play it in an ascending pitch.

For instance, preset 1-6 with a guitar solo and press the 1 – you hear the

solo about an octave lower than the standard, press the 6 and it’s an octave

higher. This gives you even more flexibility. As if that weren’t enough,

there’s a block of 8 keys just under the Vibe-a-Tron called the Vocalizer,

each key triggering a different vocal clip. But there’s one final, nifty

feature, and that’s the import option. Clicking on the microphone in the

upper right corner of the screen lets you import your own custom sound,

either a standard .wav file on disk or a sound you recorded yourself. This

lets you add a personal touch.

So how is all this in practice? Well, as a longtime Warren Zevon fan, I dove

into “Werewolves of London”. I arranged and rearranged the tracks, played

with all the various sounds, and even imported the “ta-da” from my Windows

startup as a custom sound. I had tried to import the “Albatross” .wav file

from “Monty Python’s Complete Waste of Time” but RNRYO wouldn’t take it. Too

bad, because I found the idea of a werewolf song punctuated by John Cleese

repeatedly shouting “Albatross” screamingly funny. I discovered an affinity

for the various horn runs and used them to excess, though I conspicuously

eschewed the few rap vocals available. Call me a traditionalist, but I don’t

think Warren wanted his werewolves to rap. After an hour or so, I grew bored

and moved on to another song, then another, going through all 8, disabling

the video player on each since all the videos were uniformly bad and dumb

beyond belief.

In the end, I was somewhat disappointed. Though the library of sounds available

for each song gives you the illusion of control and seems to offer ample

opportunity to make each song your own, it’s deceptive. You can’t really

make an impact. The feature sounds are often lost in the mix of the base

tracks. I think that’s why I favored horns so much since, unlike the

assorted conga breaks, they were at least audible over the riffs. In

addition, you more or less have to use all of RNRYO’s sounds for all the

songs. What about the import option? Well, each song will only let you

import/record one custom sound and that’s it. So much for really making a

personal statement.

I also didn’t care too much for the selection of songs. The strong dance

orientation of many of the songs made me feel like I was in an aerobics

class, except for the blues/western “She’s Gone” which made me feel like I

was in a beer commercial. However, in a kind of backhanded compliment, the

overly familiar arrangement style did make it easier to get in the swing of

things for each song.

In the end, it boils down to control. I admit I had lots of fun at first

adding horn stings, guitar riffs, and interminable drum solos that would

make Ginger Baker beg me to stop, but after the novelty wears off, there’s

just not enough to make the songs your own. I would have liked to have been

able to remix the tracks to highlight my favorite instruments, or to have

turned the rap “Dancing Public” into a howling grunge number. Granted,

offering the option of rap in “Werewolves of London” was a step in this

direction, but it was the only song that offered such an option.

And yet, I think I have to recommend RNRYO, but not for jaded grownups like

me. My friend’s 8 year old daughter just couldn’t get enough, excitedly

calling us adults so she could proudly play back her latest recording. I was

especially fond of her 5th version of “Werewolves of London” – the same

intro track played over and over with frequent interjections of “Beef Chow

Mein!” from the Vocalizer. It was repetitive, true, yet, in a way, oddly

satisfying.

Copyright © 1995 Robert Coffey for infoMedia. All rights reserved worldwide.