Creative Rhythmania is an application that comes with
some new
Creative Labs'
sound cards.
The basic idea is very similar to eJay, Mixman and some other
apps - the user is presented with ready-made loops and patterns,
and is expected to make music with this. However, the main difference
is that Rhythmania is based on MIDI (and since you already have
SBLive or equivalent that has wavetable and
won't touch OPL-3 without a long pole, the sound quality is
not an issue). Rhythmania has several pre-made patterns
(consisting of intro, melody, two bridges, variation and
finale parts), and it's possible to make more with the
"sequencer".
I could describe Rhythmania as an app that works as a glorified
rhythm machine; it plays backgrounds with chords and everything
(also has single-finger chords for us idiots), while lets through
everything from MIDI In port. It allows the user also to play with
computer keyboard or mouse, and has hotkeys for some chords.
...
Here are some of my experiences with the application.
First, a word of warning: While I am a musician in a
sense, I'm not really skilled enough with any instruments, nor am I
really a great composer (Very, very, very, very "beginner" all the
time). I can sing - that's what we wolves do,
and that's just about all musical goodness I have =)
The only songs I can play with keyboard, without chords, are Incy
Wincy Spider, Dozen or so other children's songs, and, of
course, Stones.
The first track I made, called helpfully "At Least I'm
Having Fun" sucked music-wise. I played something with mouse and one
chord. This is probably what's called "free jazz" these days.
Then, I discovered how to change sounds. (Click on the keyboard on
screen, click on chord designation below it - for example, E and M to
get E Major chord). I noticed how to assign them to keys.
The music still sucked.
Then, I took the HUGE electric organ from the corner of the room
(the sound quality on that beast sucks, but at least it has MIDI-out!)
Okay, now I could play the damn spider song all the night.
I was getting really, really, really tired.
Then I started doing some amusing stuff. I played some rather
interesting variations of the theme. Then, I started abusing the
program - used strange tempo designations, abused the rhythm
segments (used high tempo, and then played the thing on chord side of
the keyboard).
That stuff was pretty interesting, but in retrospect, it couldn't
stand the light of the day =)
Finally, I played a version of the spider song again, this
time, with feeling. Very nice jazz version of it this
time, with nice improvisational phase that didn't sound that bad in
retrospect.
Kids will love it.
03:00 in the morning. There! Did I mention I used Creative's
recorder app to record everything? 50 minutes of divine stuff (most of
it crap, but better than most of top-10 any day)! I fired up Nero,
burned the stuff on CD-R and wrote "New Karate-Pekka was
born!" on the CD-R label! (Next, I'll make a couple of
copies, and put those on some people's desks. Someone will make a web
page and I'll become an anonymous musical legend. Of sorts.)
Tiredness can bring interesting results...
and "easy music creation applications" won't make me a superstar in an instant =)