With the recent revelation that Rock Band will be offering a way for bands and labels to produce their own tracks for use in the game in the near future, musicians of all shapes and sizes are likely perking up their ears at the opportunity. But authoring a track in a music game is a very different thing from writing a song and will be far more complicated than just uploading a file. Just ask the guys at CustomHero, where a community of fans have been producing their own versions of songs for years.
That's exactly what Harmonix did, actually. The developer contacted the creators of ScoreHero and CustomHero back in February with the expectation that musicians would be needing guidance in getting their music out to the masses over Rock Band Network. Out of these discussions came Rhythm Authors, a company which offers services to artists in transitioning their music into the game.
It only makes sense that a service of this nature would arise and it's good to hear that Harmonix foresaw the need and went to people who have been doing it already for nearly as long as the games have existed and are deeply embedded in the music game community. As of now, Rhythm Author's business model is designed around a profit-sharing system, meaning that the actual production of the tracks is done for free and they take a slice of the pie. The service currently has five bands signed.
You can read more information in an in-depth interview with Rhythm Authors' Director of Design, Sean Feica, over at G4TV.
Conrad Zimmerman is Destructoid's News Editor and home to the busiest mustache in the gaming press. An amateur historian and pop culture fanatic, Conrad possesses a nearly limitless wealth of videogame factoids and a passion for the power of games to teach, inspire and entertain. He enjoys reading, writing and turning things which should be fun into work.
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2:20 PM on 07.22.2009
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That's the first thing I thought when I saw this story too.