Developer Harmonix is to let the Rock Band community upload, share and even profit from home-made songs - after they’ve jumped the necessary hoops.
Dubbed the ‘Rock Band Network’, it will ”allow bands, studios and record labels” to create and upload tracks from their master recordings. This is Rock Band’s ”next logical step”.
”Our goal with Rock Band has always been to go beyond making music games and create a true music platform. With the Rock Band Network, we’ve evolved the platform to its next logical step, giving players access to an incredible amount of new music by putting the professional tools we use in the hands of the artists themselves,” said Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos.
Those looking to get creative will first need a membership with the Microsoft XNA Creators Club, and also use a digital audio workstation platform called Reaper. That’s for easy creation of MIDI song info says Harmonix, and finally you’ll need the Magma PC tool for song packages.
Once that’s done you then upload the track to a peer review system on XNA, where ”other members of the community will try out your song, give you feedback, and submit reviews.” Should it pass then the song will make its way to Xbox Live, with royalties paid to the creator.
This isn’t just for part-time bands in some garage somewhere; major labels are already looking at this new feature to Rock Band. ”It’s very exciting news to us,” said Tony Kiewel of Sub Pop Records. ”It’s important to participate in every possible revenue stream available. Whatever gets your music heard helps your overall awareness and ability to sell records and downloads.”
Do you Rock Band or Guitar Hero, videogamer? If a song proves a hit then it could migrate to PlayStation 3 and Wii versions say Harmonix, but otherwise it’s exclusive to Xbox 360.
Source: Gamasutra