We talk to Harmonix about the impending arrival of the Rock Band Network

Name: Greg LoPiccolo
Position: VP of Product Development
Company: Harmonix Music Systems

What is Harmonix's overall aim with a project like Rock Band Network?
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. Joining the almost 900 tracks available to date, the Rock Band Network Store will greatly increase the amount of music available through the Rock Band music platform and further confirm MTV Games and Harmonix’s position as the leading provider of downloadable content for music-based videogames.

In addition, Rock Band Network will allow musicians, publishers and labels to control when their music is released on the Rock Band platform. This will open many promotional avenues for artists releasing new singles/albums, about to embark on a tour or promoting a special project. As we’re still building our RBN infrastructure, song submission is currently limited to the United States. However, tracks on the Rock Band Network Store will be available in Europe.

If a master recording is required to make the Rock Band song, will there be any provision to split apart individual tracks that might have been recorded on one channel – eg if the original recording used a four-track and vocals aren't separated?
There isn’t anything built into the RBN tools that can separate parts from a single audio track. So it’ll be up to the person doing the mix/creating the stems to do what he can with the audio tracks he has available to figure out how best to create the needed stems for that particular song. Now that digital multi-track capabilities are available to musicians at very reasonable prices, our experience has been that most artists are able to create multi-track recordings of their music with sufficient track separation to accommodate the Rock Band song spec.

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