"Rock Band" game lets anyone upload music

[SgMaster]

check out this article I found in the Wall Street Journal:

in summary, MTV, who owns the Rock Band franchise is making this network for XBOX 360 that lets any artist upload their music and charge a small amount of the song. some companies will do the formatting for you. TuneCore is charging $999 to format and upload one song

 

What do you guys think about this? I am writing a paper on this actually so any feedback will be greatly appreciated. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100118-707751.html

[Poker99]

I wouldn't pay 1000$ to get my song on this network.

 

Kids play that game to PLAY, not to find new music.

 

So what... They'll get to hear your songs amongst many other, and forget about it 5 minutes later. You'll never get that money back.

 

If it was to get my song between AC/DC and Metallica I would pay 5000, but it won't be that... It will be your band's song and 10 000 others, making MTV richer.

[Bright_Midnight]

im actually all for this.

 

i am a client of one of the main "authoring" companies that have been around the software the longest, and they just take a royalty cut off the top, no payment up front needed. its really quite nice. once i finish a track, i put it through 3-4 mixes or so, then i send it off to them, if they like it, they'll say, "we want to do this one", then i send the masters, and boom, its done. i have six tracks approved by them, and more on the way.

 

i love this opportunity a lot, actually

[RiffDaemon]

 

Kids play that game to PLAY, not to find new music.

 

 

While this is probably true for the majority of players, I'll add that I've gotten into a few bands I wouldn't have normally listened to had it not been for the downloadable content.

 

For example, I came across a Thrash Metal pack online. Curious and in a sampling mood, I previewed each song. To my amazement, the track by Evile really caught my attention. I downloaded the song, enjoyed the Hell out of it in the game, and went to the 'net to lookup this band.

[Poker99]

In my opinion, its already too late, it will be saturated soon with indie bands no one cares about.

 

I bet Tunecore will make a bunch of cash on this, though

[BlueStrat]

Good lord, is there nothing that won't turn into pay for play for musicians? What next, pay to get on Muzak? Elevators?

 

Gotta hand it to the gamer dudes, though- it's brilliant, moving away from paying licensing royalties to the current signed bands they're using to collecting a fee from the unsigned wannabes that hope to 'get their music out there'.

[eventArgs]

 

Gotta hand it to the gamer dudes, though- it's brilliant, moving away from paying licensing royalties to the current signed bands they're using to collecting a fee from the unsigned wannabes that hope to 'get their music out there'.

 

Has there ever been a group more exploitable than musicians...?

[Poker99]

One of my friend's band is on JamLegend, its a free internet flash "guitar hero". They have over 200 000 plays! and dozens of positive comments on their songs.

 

I asked him what he got from all this. His answer : "About 25 new mailing list subscribers, and a great feeling about our songs being heard 200 000 times. That's about it. But it was free so..."

 

You heard that right. I guess they just suck.

[Kaiborg]

I've been following this since last year. Interesting enough, if you've got a working knowledge of MIDI there's nothing stopping you from authouring your own damn song! The DAW/MIDI authoring platform is a DAW called REAPER, (which is nearly freeware), and all you basically have to do is create a bunch of MIDI tracks for your controller data, lights and movements within the game, etc.

 

Not too hard. Apparently the last step in the process requires you to "finalize" the .RBN file, but this can't be done on a mac. If I'm going to go buy a PC just for this, I'd really have to be authoring other people's songs to make it worth while. In addition, there are some studios that will do this for MUCH less than $1000. As already mentioned, some will do it for nothing up front, but take a cut of whatever paltry sales you get. Here's a link to the RockBand forum with a pretty long list of authoring studios.

 

http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156832

 

As already stated, this is probably not going to do a whole lot for anyone's career, but what the hey. Have fun.

[HairyScaryMark]

I teach guitar and a huge proportion of the stuff people ask to learn are the songs on guitar hero and rock band. Some of the stuff I was told by long time guitar teachers people would ask to learn have hardly been asked but the songs in these games are generally fairly well known and received.

[MrCompton]

If someone really likes your band, than they would most likely buy the song Rock Band. But how many of your fans have that game?

[SgMaster]

as a follow up, I met a guy who is developing his own version of Rock Band using actual instruments and MIDI directly so that "real" musicians can play their own version of the game. my thoughts:

 

why pay to have this set-up using a midi cable into a device through your computer when you can just learn the song for real? Why would an actual musician want to play a game aimed for video gamers when they could be out writing their own music etc etc etc

 

thoughts?

[HairyScaryMark]

 

Why would an actual musician want to play a game aimed for video gamers when they could be out writing their own music etc etc etc

 

 

I have asked this question many times before and I know some musicians who play rock band or guitar hero. The answer they give is "it's not the same thing." I've played rockband on a few occasions at other people's houses. It's good fun and you can instantly be 'playing' along with fairly complicated songs, without actually putting in hours of practice etc. I wouldn't personally buy the game as I feel the same way you do about it but the way I see it, it's helping a greater number of people develop interest in guitar music at a younger age.

[Poker99]

 

as a follow up, I met a guy who is developing his own version of Rock Band using actual instruments and MIDI directly so that "real" musicians can play their own version of the game. my thoughts: why pay to have this set-up using a midi cable into a device through your computer when you can just learn the song for real? Why would an actual musician want to play a game aimed for video gamers when they could be out writing their own music etc etc etc thoughts?

 

 

Short answer : Because its easier.

[BlueStrat]

 

the way I see it, it's helping a greater number of people develop interest in guitar music at a younger age.

I'm not so sure. I'd like to see research on that, but it would seem to me that while playing a game like guitar hero might develop hand/eye co-ordination, the music is still secondary. You could just as easily play it with the sound off (ok, maybe not just as easily, but you get the drift). The music isn't the result of an activity, like learning scales or picking notes and chords on a guitar. It is accompanying background music. Internalizing the music isn't the focus. Learning to get your hands to push the right colored biuttons as the corresponding ones on the screen pass by is.

 

My son and most of his friends, all college kids, play guitar hero and rock band. I asked him how many of the CDs or downloads of the artists on those games he's bought and he said "zero". Why should he? They may attempt the same song 5 or 6 or 10 times and then move on. But the focus for him and most non-musicians isn't the music, it's getting a high score. The music isn't the object, it's merely a secondary player, a means, in the effort.

[Poker99]

 

My son and most of his friends, all college kids, play guitar hero and rock band. I asked him how many of the CDs or downloads of the artists on those games he's bought and he said "zero". Why should he? They may attempt the same song 5 or 6 or 10 times and then move on. But the focus for him and most non-musicians isn't the music, it's getting a high score. The music isn't the object, it's merely a secondary player, a means, in the effort.

 

 

Voila

[HairyScaryMark]

I don't think it helps anyone play a real guitar. It may even encourage the idea that you can just pick up a guitar and play, without putting in any practice.

 

A school near where I live did a project on guitar hero over part of the school year, as an experiment. These kids would have been around 10-11 years old. As part of the project, they wrote stories about the bands and learnt about the instruments. I probably had about 10 people from the one year of that school start up lessons with me. I don't think many would have if they hadn't done a project on guitar hero at school.

 

They generally only know 1 song by each band featured in guitar hero but that was a lot more than I knew of these bands when I was that age. Judging by what people have been asking to learn, I've believe this has also shifted the focus away from the new bands, back towards some of the longer established ones.

 

I'm interested by what SgMaster was saying about someone developing a similar style of game using real instruments. I believe this could become a valuable part of learning a musical instrument in the future. The drums would be the easiest thing to make some form of training game/programme as the rockband drums aren't ultimately that different from e-drums. Keyboard also has a good amount of potential there.... As tracking gets faster, midi guitar and bass may also be possible.

 

It remains to be seen if this sort of thing is likely to take off in the future but I think there is potentially a lot of scope for something of that variety to come about, with the right technology.

[BlueStrat]

I don't think it helps anyone play a real guitar. It may even encourage the idea that you can just pick up a guitar and play, without putting in any practice. A school near where I live did a project on guitar hero over part of the school year, as an experiment. These kids would have been around 10-11 years old. As part of the project, they wrote stories about the bands and learnt about the instruments. I probably had about 10 people from the one year of that school start up lessons with me. I don't think many would have if they hadn't done a project on guitar hero at school. They generally only know 1 song by each band featured in guitar hero but that was a lot more than I knew of these bands when I was that age. Judging by what people have been asking to learn, I've believe this has also shifted the focus away from the new bands, back towards some of the longer established ones. I'm interested by what SgMaster was saying about someone developing a similar style of game using real instruments. I believe this could become a valuable part of learning a musical instrument in the future. The drums would be the easiest thing to make some form of training game/programme as the rockband drums aren't ultimately that different from e-drums. Keyboard also has a good amount of potential there.... As tracking gets faster, midi guitar and bass may also be possible. It remains to be seen if this sort of thing is likely to take off in the future but I think there is potentially a lot of scope for something of that variety to come about, with the right technology.

 

 

By the way, Mark, I didn't mean to imply your idea was dumb. It isn't. I enjoy reading your posts as they are always thoughtful and well stated.

[SgMaster]

I'm glad that I was able to spark some lively conversation on this topic, as I think it is has been relatively unexplored by people like us, real musicians. That school study was interesting to read about and I will attempt to follow up with the bass player I know that is trying to develop the MIDI version of these games. if you are at all interested in seeing the article that I wrote about all of this, which happens to quote BlueStrat, please PM me.

 

The article is for one of my college classes and is only accessible by being given the proper HTML link. BlueStrat, I hope you don't mind that I used a few words from one of your initial posts on my thread in my article. After all, anyone can read these posts, and not anyone can read my article. If you want to see it, let me know.

[pjrake]

we're in the process of having our music available on Rock Band. i don't think it hurts the extra exposure.

 

-PJ

[pjrake]

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-PJ

[Mcfontio]

 

I'm not so sure. I'd like to see research on that, but it would seem to me that while playing a game like guitar hero might develop hand/eye co-ordination, the music is still secondary. You could just as easily play it with the sound off (ok, maybe not just as easily, but you get the drift). The music isn't the result of an activity, like learning scales or picking notes and chords on a guitar. It is accompanying background music. Internalizing the music isn't the focus. Learning to get your hands to push the right colored biuttons as the corresponding ones on the screen pass by is. My son and most of his friends, all college kids, play guitar hero and rock band. I asked him how many of the CDs or downloads of the artists on those games he's bought and he said "zero". Why should he? They may attempt the same song 5 or 6 or 10 times and then move on. But the focus for him and most non-musicians isn't the music, it's getting a high score. The music isn't the object, it's merely a secondary player, a means, in the effort.

 

 

I think half the kids who play wouldn't have a clue who Kansas was if it wasn't for guitar hero. It's rare, but I have heard of kids (not even teens yet) hearing the music on the game and going out and acquiring the music (though, you know that that means).

 

You are totally right though, about the music being secondary to the score.

[ninthandash]

It's an interesting thought. I know that if you actually get featured in the game, you could really do well. The band "The Main Drag" was completely independent and got an unlockable bonus song in RockBand 2, and it's done wonders for their visibility.

 

I think that downloadable content is a nice idea, but ultimately too pricey (unless you can get in some sort of package, as mentioned before).

[Keithtron]

For what it's worth, I've gotten into a couple bands largely due to playing their songs on Rock Band or Guitar Hero.

 

And I don't think it's all about score, most of the time the people I've played with haven't cared about score at all. They're more into having some fun and enjoying the full band dynamic, without really knowing how to play instruments properly.

 

I play a few different instruments in real life, and actually try to not look at the screen whenever possible. Some of the button combinations aren't too tough to remember.