Frequently Asked Questions

 

What is the Rock Band Network (RBN)? 

It is a music distribution system for the Rock Band 2 video game. Think of it like iTunes, but just for Rock Band 2. 

 

OK. Why would I want my music in Rock Band? 

There are lots of reasons to consider the RBN for your music.

• Another way to get your music not just heard but “played” as well.
• It’s digital music that can’t be pirated. Every song that gets “bought,” actually gets bought.
• You get exposure and hopefully bigger crowds at your shows.
• We love vinyl as much as the next guy, but there is cool stuff happening with video games.
• Good way to time RBN releases to the release of your album.

 

I’m interested in this idea like a hipster seeing a TMNT shirt at a vintage shop. But what the heck do you guys do? 

What we do is take your multi-tracks and translate them into the Rock Band format. That means deciding where all of the colored dots go that stays relatively true to the song as well as making it fun to play in Rock Band. It isn’t necessarily easy for a band, who is intimately involved with their music, to decide on how to reduce and entire chord progression into red, yellow, and blue buttons. 

We move your songs through the intensive Quality Assurance program required by the RBN to get them published. 

 

How does your band make money? 

You get a percentage of the sales of your tracks. 

 

Couldn’t we just do this ourselves? 

The RBN is open to anybody, so yes you could try to put your own songs on the RBN. But that means you need to have an XNA membership, xbox 360 hardware for testing, xbox LIVE membership, the required audio software, the knowledge of what makes songs “fun” in Rock Band, and the will to reduce your blood, sweat, and tears to five colored buttons. 

 

What’s the damage to my wallet to make this happen? 

As much as we love music and want to play tons of great stuff on Rock Band, we need our cut too. There are three ways we can swap money for services.

• Flat fee – we agree on a price up front for all of the work, you pay us half, we get your songs on the RBN, you pay us the rest, and you take all of the royalties
• Percentage of Sales – we do the work up front and then split the sales royalties
• Combo – we figure out some combination of a flat fee and percentage split

 

How long does it take to get songs published to the RBN? 

Because this is such a new distribution model, that exact time it takes a song to go through the QA process isn’t known. As a general estimate, once we receive the multi-tracks, your songs should be on the RBN within a month.