Posts Tagged ‘RBN’

RBN artist Winter Crescent giving away 100 digital copies of their album for Rock Band 3 players, and here’s how you can get your hands on a copy. If you’re one of the first 100 Rock Band 3 players who upload a video response on YouTube playing Battle of Egos Part II on Expert (Xbox 360 only), you can snag a copy of the album. Here’s how:

1. Choose your favorite instrument.
2. Upload a video of you playing Battle of Egos Part II or Battle of Egos Part II (2x Bass Pedal) on Expert on YouTube and share it in their Facebook page.
3. Make it a video response to their video clip on YouTube.
4. Email wintercrescent@gmail.com to let them know you did all of the above.
5. Get your unique download code.
6. Enter it in this site http://wintercrescent.bandcamp.com/yum
7. Download the album.
8. If you enjoy this contest, share it with your friends!

NOTE: You can enter this giveaway only one time. Rock Band Blitz videos will be also accepted for this giveaway. YouTube might send you a Content ID match for our music; this is perfectly normal.

If you have any further questions, you are more than welcome to send an email to wintercrescent@gmail.com.

Their entire Battle of Egos album is being made available on Rock Band 3 and Rock Band Blitz by Chart Toppers Authoring! Go like them on Facebook and show them some love!

The full details of the giveaway are on their Facebook event page.

Ok Go re-imagined as death metal? Only time will tell…

As some of you might already be aware, there’s an interesting project going on over on the Rock Band forums. For those of you that don’t, definitely give this a look.

The project? Covers! There are a list of songs that have been chosen from the RBN, that will be covered by other Rock Band Network artists. Sound good? It should. With the amount of different artists on the network offering different musical styles, the end results are bound to be amazing. So far the artists that are covering the songs have been kept secret, but we do have a list of songs being covered:

• An Endless Sporadic – Impulse
• Bang On A Can All-Stars – Cheating, Lying, Stealing
• Buckner and Garcia – Pac-Man Fever
• Evanescence – Going Under
• Flogging Molly – Requiem For A Dying Song
• iwrestledabearonce – Tastes Like Kevin Bacon
• Jukebox The Ghost – Schizophrenia
• Lemon Demon – BRODYQUEST
• The Main Drag – Don’t Let Me Down (Slowly)
• OK Go – White Knuckles
• Rainbowdragoneyes – Heavy Weather: The Storm Ov The Undead

These are some great songs. A varied list, which will make some great covers. Definitely head over to the forums and subscribe to the thread! It will be updated as the project continues. By the looks of things, this may not be the only set recorded either. We’ll keep you posted if a new series comes up.

Who knows, maybe you’ll discover your new favorite song there. Comments on the project or the song choices? Speak up and comment!

[Thanks to @rhythmbastard for the heads up!]

When the Rock Band Network was originally announced, it was lauded for its ability to put the tools to Rock Band song creation and distribution into the hands of anyone, be it a seasoned music veteran or someone that is just starting out. Artists on the RBN range from musicians who performed at the original Woodstock right next to those who have only written a handful of songs. RBN artist A Talking Fish falls more into the second group, but is just as enthusiastic about their art as anyone.

Having just released their debut track Cheesy Pop Song on the Rock Band Network last week, we recently had a chance to ask Roger from A Talking Fish some questions about his band, himself, and his connection with the Rock Band community. Check out his responses below!

RockBandAide: For those in the Rock Band community not familiar with you, please tell us a little bit about the yourself.

A Talking Fish: My name is Roger Pollard. Jade Richman and I (along with a few other people here and there) are the main line-up for A Talking Fish.

We’ve been uploading videos to YouTube since 2007. We’ve actually uploaded about 100* videos total. Guess how many subscribers we have? Like… 200. Two. Hundred. That’s nothing. For being up there for four and a half years, it’s quite shameful to know that our videos are that bad. I’ve seen people with much worse videos get thousands of subscribers through the shameful tactic of spamming channel after channel until I can’t bear to see their name anymore without an immense feeling of hatred manifesting itself within my soul… and then they stop! They just stop… making… videos. After less than a year. They get a couple thousand subscribers, release 5 videos, and go “well, that was fun”. I mean come on! We may suck, but at least we are persistent! We are failing, but we’re failing in a dignified manner! We can hold our heads up high and say “we know we suck, won’t you join us?”. The truth of the matter is that aside from this interview, which I’m sure will be full of it, we take a strong stance against shameless self-promotion. In the world of YouTube, apparently, that’s a very bad tactic.

Anyways, that asterisk after the “100″ is because we’ve removed several videos over the last few years for various reasons. We have about 70 that exist on our channel, and about half of those are still public. If you want to check out our youtube channel, go to youtube.com/atalkingfish.

RBA: How would you describe your music to people who have never heard it?

ATF: Awesome. It fills the soul with delight, and we rarely make grammatical errors.

RBA: Who were your early musical influences? What album(s) do you remember listening to growing up that had the biggest impact on you?

ATF: When I was a kid, I listened to Scott Joplin. He’s a Ragtime composer from the early 1900s. After that, I started listening to Monty Python’s music (yes, they had music), then Weird Al, then the pop songs Weird Al parodied, then the iTunes recommendations based on the pop songs Weird Al parodied that I liked, then the iTunes recommendations for the songs iTunes recommended based on the pop songs Weird Al parodied that I liked. Before too long, I somehow ended up in 80s and 90s alternative, which led to Weezer, and then somehow I managed to get into Dream Theater. I still expand my musical tastes when I can. My most prominent musical influences are Dream Theater, MIKA, and a grand schmumble of all the interesting chord-progression-based bands I’ve heard over the years.

Some of my childhood influences were Old & in the Way (bluegrass supergroup), Mannheim Steamroller’s Christmas music (in fact, I’m listening to some now), and the theme song for the Red Green show. I’d be a fool to say these songs don’t have an effect on my current songwriting.

Read the rest of this entry »

Many of you remember early this year when @SebastianSB reached out to a number of people throughout the Rock Band community and prepared a Best of RBN 1.0 list. Not only was this a salute to the closing of the first version of the Rock Band Network, but also helped highlight a number of tracks that several people thought deserved special recognition for their musical quality.

Well, @SebastianSB reached out to me again about highlighting some of the choicer cuts in the RBN, so we decided to make an attempt at doing something very similar, except this time we would allow everyone to provide their input on what tracks deserved to be recognized. And this time, it will be a recurring feature each month here on the site!

Starting with July, we will list out all the Rock Band Network tracks that were released for the Xbox 360 for a particular month. It is YOUR job to go through these potentially massive lists and select the THREE tracks that you thought were the best. If you don’t remember each song, I’ve taken the liberty of linking to the original posts so you can go back and listen to a sample or to head over to RockBand.com.

• Xbox 360 RBN DLC for 7/7
• Xbox 360 RBN DLC for 7/14
• Xbox 360 RBN DLC for 7/21
• Xbox 360 RBN DLC for 7/28

Our goal is to have voting open for three-ish (business) days, so you have until Tuesday night to provide your input. After that, we’ll tally the results, and list the top 10 songs as selected by the community in a separate post next week.

Happy voting!

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You guys remember Graveyard BBQ, don’t ya? They were featured way back on the original Guitar Hero, and now have several tracks in the Rock Band Network. I just received a quick message from the boys in the band (via @RG_Studios), and here is the latest RBN contest for everyone to check out!

Are you the rippinest, shreddinest member of the BBQ Nation? Want to win tons of cool GRAVEYARD BBQ swag (signed CD, shirt, BBQ apron), 1600 MS Points, AND a personal Skype guitar lesson with the King of Sling himself, BROWNBAG JOHNSON?

All this can be yours if you score the #1 spot on the guitar leaderboard for the GRILL ‘EM ALL Battle.

ALL HAIL THE NATION! “IF YOU AIN’T WITH US, YER AGAINST US”

Battle Details:

To win, you must be ranked #1 at the end of the Xbox 360 guitar setlist battle at http://www.rockband.com/battles/grill-em-all-guitar-battle/view, which includes the following Graveyard BBQ tracks:

1. BBQ Nation
2. By the Grace of the Grill
3. Cheat on the Church
4. Creamskull Boogie
5. Ride the Stache
6. The Clothes that Makes the Man

The top ranked player at the end of the battle will receive:

• (1) Xbox Live code redeemable for 1,600 MSP
• (1) Signed copy each of Graveyard BBQ’s Greatest Hits Volume 1 & 2 CDs
• (1) Graveyard BBQ “Grill ‘Em All” BBQ apron
• (1) Personalized guitar lesson with Graveyard BBQ guitarist Brownbag Johnson, via online video chat (ie. Skype).
• (1) T-shirt of winner’s choice from Graveyard BBQ’s merch store (http://www.graveyardbbq.bigcartel.com/)

Good luck!

When the Rock Band Network was originally unveiled, it opened up an unlimited potential for anyone to put music in to the game. And while the RBN wasn’t the first tool available for adding music to a rhythm game (GHTunes debuted in Guitar Hero: World Tour), it was a total comprehensive approach to getting real songs into the game via tools that music makers already know and love. RBN was the perfect option for those looking for increased exposure for their music, but the amount of effort required to prepare a song for Rock Band is nothing short of intimidating.

The folks at Harmonix knew there was a barrier to entry for most people, so they created a repository of resources to help people get started. As Harmonix helped and trained the early adopters to become familiar with the process, the Creators community started to become much more self-sufficient. Ultimately, John (AKA DJGryph) from RockBandRelief decided to pull together a webseries for YouTube called “Finding the Rhythm,” where he virtually holds viewers hands through the process of creating and submitting a track into the Rock Band Network.

If you are an RBN author, an aspiring one, this series is a MUST watch. Even for those who have no intention of creating music for the RBN, this is an excellent video series, as it will give you a much deeper and intimate understanding of the effort it takes to create music playable in Rock Band. The video series is ongoing, updated as John adds more videos, so sure to subscribe to him so you don’t miss the latest episode.

The first episode is included below, and each currently available episode is linked below. Updates will be added to this page as more episodes are completed. I have also included a link to this page in the menu at the top of the site titled “Finding the Rhythm,” for easy reference for all current and future RBN authors.

Episode 1: RBN 2.0 Overview, Resources and Tool Requirements, Reaper Introduction

Episode 2: Reaper File Setup

• Part A
• Part B
• Part C
• Part D

Episode 3: Magma File Setup

• Part A
• Part B

Episode 4: Drum Charting

• Part A
• Part B

Episode 5: Drum Reduction

• Part A
• Part B
• Part C

Episode 6: Drum Animation

• Part A
• Part B

Episode 7: Bass Charting

Episode 8: Bass Reduction

Episode 9: Bass Animation

Episode 10: Guitar Charting

Episode 11: Guitar Reduction

Episode 12: Guitar Animation

Episode 13: Keys Charting

Episode 14: Keys Reduction

Episode 15: Keys Animation

Episode 16: Pro Keys Charting

Episode 17: Pro Keys Reduction

Episode 18: Pro Keys Animation

Episode 19: Vocal Charting

Episode 20: Harmony Charting

Episode 21: Vocal Animation

Episode 22: Venue: Camera

Episode 23: Venue: Lighting & Filters

Episode 24: RBN Submission