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Dhani Harrison on Conan O’Brien, Rock Band, and thenewno2

Ryan Van Etten — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:01:05 +0000

I saw this interview of Dhani Harrison on Conan O’Brien the night before The Beatles Rock Band’s debut in September, and up until then I had not realized that George’s son, Dhani Harrison, had played such a major role in the development of the game. In the interview Dhani describes how he ended up working on creation of The Beatles Rock Band, which started with his 5-year-long Guitar Hero obsession.

Dhani Harrison is a musician in his own right—his indie-rock band thenewno2 is featured in Rock Band with songs from their debut album, You Are Here. Note—any musician will soon be able to publish their tracks in Rock Band too via the Rock Band Network. In a Billboard.com interview Dhani said, “I did everything I could to not be a musician…I went to university (Brown), I worked as a designer, I competed in Olympic sport (rowing)…and I ended up being a musician. It’s in the DNA, I guess.”

But as Dhani explains to Conan, his paying job is designing videogames, and I suspect the music-gaming community is pretty happy with his efforts so far in making The Beatles Rock Band as genuine and fun as possible. His enthusiasm towards creating the game and his dedication to historical accuracy no doubt played an important role. Outside of the videogame, Dhani is striving to build a unique community for thenewno2 fans with their new website designed to deliver personal interactive video content via subscription and without depending on networks like Facebook or MySpace. In an article on Wired.com Scott Thill summarized, “The plan is comparatively simple: Compress and feed thenewno2’s output on video directly to its fan base, and they will come to support the artists and build a community.” In the same article Dhani told Wired, “Rather than have fans just leave comments on MySpace, they can have a personal connection to the band. When they see my profile live on the site, they can literally click me and ask me a question or two. It’s interactive blogging, but we also wanted to bring that actual visual context.” Now here’s some Rock Band action—Yomp by thenewno2:

This post is a follow-up from yesterday when we posted video footage of The Beatles Rock Band. You can see more articles about Rock Band at here. VirtualMusic.tv is seeking writers interested in music videogames and other topics. Please see our about page.

Virtual Video Revolution in The Beatles Rock Band

Ryan Van Etten — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:30:45 +0000

The Beatles rock on in 2009 and players of The Beatles Rock Band have posted YouTube videos to show it. Here you can compare a video of Revolution from the videogame with the video of Revolution performed by The Beatles in 1968. ♫

It looks like a new generation of Beatlemaniacs could be on the rise—wouldn’t you say? Thanks to YouTubers kevineseri0 and ponkiejp for the videos and to voteprime on Flickr for the peace sign photo displayed on the homepage. Thanks for watching—please share this post if you like it. :)

Rock Band Network: Get Your Music In The Game

Ryan Van Etten — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:13:26 +0000

Rock Band Network. This looks to be a promising virtual platform allowing indie artists—creators—to contribute songs to the game in a democratic fashion—each new track is reviewed and voted on by peers in the community before being accepted into the game. This is great news for players and indie musicians alike. Players will have access to an expanding music library and indie artists will no doubt be able to expand their audience.

Simply put, it rocks.

The past few years have proven that music and videogames were destined for each other. But until now, the music in games was restricted to mainstream artists and tunes specifically licensed for the games. Rock Band Network is the first opportunity that allows anyone to get their music in the game.

Screenshot: Rock Band Network is located at creators.rockband.com.

This summer’s press about Rock Band Network hinted that it would become available by November. Currently the site introduces the steps involved in submitting tracks to the game—it provides detailed mix specifications and links to the free audio software necessary for producing tracks. Creators must sign up for the XNA Creators Club–Gold Membership to Xbox Live [currently $8/month or $50/year].

The influx of new music into Rock Band will help to further popularize the game, and I think Harmonix will see increasing domination in the music-gaming market. The artists whose songs are featured in the game will gain exposure and revenue from sales through the Network—according to Wikipedia artists will receive a 30% revenue share. In the interview below, Matthew Nordhaus, a senior producer at Harmonix, mentions that song pricing will vary from $1–$3. I would love to hear more pricing details if anyone can provide them. What is your take on the pricing and revenue share? Even without the revenue share I think Rock Band Network is a massive opportunity for independent musicians.

Once Rock Band Network is through its current, private beta phase, I’m going to attempt to produce a track for the game, and I’ll keep you informed as I learn more about the process. In the meantime, what do you think about Rock Band Network? How do you think it will affect our music culture? Do you think that gaming platforms will be the major outlet for digital music sales in the near future?