No player-created tracks for Rock Band 2

by Randy Nelson on Jul 3rd 2008 9:44PM

Guitar Hero World Tour is going to let players make their own songs, so it only stands to reason that Rock Band 2 will as well, right? Right? Not according to Alex Rigopulos, the CEO and co-founder of Rock Band developer Harmonix.

Speaking to CNN, Rigopulos states that his company "wanted to do [song creation] right." He adds that Harmonix is "taking a radically different approach" to player-created tracks – presumably he means from the way Guitar Hero World Tour dev Neversoft is handling it – and will "take more time to do it." So, Rock Band 3 with a song creator it is then, right? Right?

Source

Tags: harmonix, mtv-games, PS3, rock-band, rock-band-2, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (61)

Translation: We want the game out as soon as possible to make more moneys.

Still, RB2 remains the purchase for me over GH World Tour.

It could be taken that way but at the same time I think Harmonix wants to make sure that it has the best possible music creation tool it can. And I faith that when they do that it will blow GH:WT's out of the water.

"It could be taken that way but at the same time I think Harmonix wants to make sure that it has the best possible music creation tool it can."

I'd believe that, but that was pretty much their excuse for not giving RB on Wii online capabilities, so if it means they'll cut short on RB2, I'd rather not believe it >_>

Well, I believe Harmonix does want the quality. That said, I can't say the same for EA.

From what I've seen, GHWT looks like it's bringing plenty of the 'quality'.

who cares about some gimmicky song sequencer? That's all it is. It's not easy to make good sounding rock-ish tracks with good software, good samples and a keyboard and mouse. Doing it with a controller or worse is going to be nonsense. You're going to have 1000 horrible versions of everything. The only people interested in this are tards that don't know how hard it's going to be to make anything worthwhile.

jsn, I assume you've never made a song for guitar hero before? Look up the program Feedback. I'll wait for your apology.

Its easy to do and requires very few buttons. If you have an ear for music then you can make perfect tracks.

I plan on re-making one of my favorite songs in World Tour, and am well aware that it will take many agonizing hours.

It'll all be worth it when I'm finally playing it, though.

"So, Rock Band 3 with a song creator it is then, right? Right?"

Yep, right, but it's going to go like this: Rock Band 2 -> Rock Band:Rockin' in teh 90s lul(sans song creator) -> Rock Band franchise sold to (insert company here), who implements song creation into RB3 -> Harmonix released Recording Studio, which allows you to "compose" your own songs, record them, send them to a PC, play through them using any instrument, stream them to other players through the game and play your creations with others, along with pre-made tracks (with backwards compatibility of RB, RB2, and RB: 90s DLC) which you can edit, and an encyclopedia of user-generated songs which is on par with the Sporepedia. (insert same company here) then shamelessly rips off of Harmonix for RB3. It's a vicious cycle.

Trying to read that just asploded my brain.

man, you need to get laid.

I'll take the bullet for us, Ridgecity. But I don't do anal!...

I truly see GH World Tour's create feature to be a fairly large gimmick.

I don't see the large appeal for user generated (especially composed in game..?) instrumental only songs, and hazard to guess that shared songs will be made up in bulk by recreations/"covers" of other songs sans vocals and any other instruments/effects outside what is possible in the editor.

The music creator is pretty deep, from what I've read. Even though it's instrumental only, you can choose different sound sets for each instrument, and it seems pretty versatile. I'll be using the 8-bit guitar set pretty often.

haha from what you've read it seems "pretty deep". c'mon man. There have been far more robust sequencing packages out there for a decade. There's a reason every Tom, Dick and Harry hasn't been cranking out music from his computer. It takes a lot of time and patience and a little know-how to make good sounding music, and that's with better tools. This is nothing more than a gimmick. Some people will jump in it thinking they can really do something, but once reality and their ADD kick in, they'll never use it again.

I see Guitar Hero's Create a Track feature as something completely different.

The ultimate practice mode.

Need trill help? Make a song of trills. Need decending triplet help? Make that. Need fast BPM strumming help? Do that!

This could really be nice for those who want advanced practice.

That's what Sony said once said about Wii.

Maybe no created tracks, but hopefully a new peripheral or two to add to the band. Hoping for keyboard...

yea, or an organ, so we could play some Doors

God no. Please no Doors. Jesus please no.

Yeah,because that won't completely isolate the original Rock Band buyers from the full band experience by having us pay another $100 some dollars for a Hasbro instrument.

You don't want pay it, don't pay it. That's why they sell it all separately.

If harmonix wants to take their time making a music creator, i can wait.

They did an excellent job on the remix feature of Amplitude, one could only imagine how well a music-creation feature in rock band would be.

I'd bet it had vocals too.

That better mean we're getting Online World Tour mode with the ability to form bands online.

I fail to see how taking a radically different approach from what Activision is doing equates to them not implementing the feature in some manner.

Let's wait and see before we make definitive statements, mmmkay?

NOTE: Guitars hero's track creator is almost certainly a gloried MIDI studio.

Pro tools is a glorified midi studio. I would be amazed if Guitar Hero track creator is a glorified midi studio, but it end up costing about $20,000 used...

what? pro tools is not a midi studio. perhaps you are thinking of cakewalk. pro tools primarily deals with audio tracks, which are basically (very long) samples. its a multitrack replacement. it can also work with midi, but calling it a glorified midi sequencer is forgetting about 99% of what pro tools does.

I see the music creation feature along with any sort of map creation system, even along the lines of the Forge, are irrevelant to 95% of the crowd that'll play the game.

Maybe I am just really stupid, but I could never make a cool map on Far Cry, or make anything that great in Gary's Mod, or in the Forge. Very few will be able to take advantage of the song creation system.

Absolutely true. But still, it is a nice feature to have for us hardcore players. Especially someone like me who would use it as an advanced practice mode.

*sigh...boooooooooo.

User created songs in Guitar Hero basically means an unlimited number of free songs. What's not to love there?

If Guitar Hero's "create-a-track" feature isn't gimped, I would be surprised.

Have you seen the quality of most user-created charts?

They fall somewhere between Limbo of the Lost and Cheetahman, only without a good soundtrack.

There's plenty out there worth checking out. It's the entire premise behind Frets On Fire.

Not to mention there will be a much larger pool of talent to draw from when it's so much more accessible and easy to do.

Yes, and with all due respect to the people who put the effort into it, most a large portion of the charts put out there are crap.

There are a few fantastic ones (Power Rangers theme is delicious), and I expect the same with this tool from time to time, but once John Smith gets to fiddle with it, expect a torrent of crap.

Sure, it's a nice feature to have, and final judgement will be reserved for the finished product, but it doesn't exactly scream "must have feature" to me.

The difference between Frets on Fire and the GH user created songs is on FOF they use an actual song and then put the notes over it, which when done right people can make a song that would fit in on any real GH/Rockband game.

You have to make the song from scratch on GH:WT. Which basically means everything is going suck.

You mean you've never heard a good cover song before? Look forward to an interactive OCRemix with Guitar Hero IV.

I've heard good cover songs before, but not by my next door neighbor.

Well my neighbour could be Ailsean.

http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR00206/

There are tons of amateurs out there capable of making great music, either written by themselves or someone else. There's no law that says the only people capable of making good music that works in music games are signed under a big name label.

Those saying custom tracks arent a big deal should see an ITG2 machine. Theres one in the my local arcade and a DDR machine right beside it but everyone puts their money in the ITG machine along with their custom tracks.

I just want two things that haven't been mentioned:

1. I want an option to play an album in order all the way through from quick play.

2. I also want to be able to make setlists from the quick play menu.

I think the user created music requires you to play the instruments to create the track. I don't think you can just upload an mp3 and then drop dots into it.

Or, they could patch it in, like the store.

Did everyone forget that Actvision said that there would be no vocal track in custom songs? It's probably a good thing, because now people will create more Yngwie Malmsteen and Rodrigo y Gabriella covers, and less Fallout Boy covers.

hmmm... This reminds me of Forza damage Vs. GT5's no damage.

"We won't implement it until it we can do it properly."

While I applaud the ambition of trying to strive for perfection and the ultimate game, it kinda comes off as lazy when everyone else is doing some form of it, however trivial and bland.

Keep in mind this is a game, a videogame. This isn't a test track, this isn't a studio, this is not NASA shuttle sim. A rough approximation of something is better than nothing at all.

You make a good point generally, but I think Harmonix has more credibility than most in this situation. They were doing this in 2001, so I can see where they don't want to put out a music creator they don't really feel good about.

You might say that makes them even *more* lazy, but why get into a contest with Activision over who can implement a feature as old as the 3D note path? I'd rather them spend their time delivering real improvements now than throwing in a checklist of features half ass.

Awesome, so this confirms there will be at least one more pointless future Rock Band SKU to purchase.

So much the prospect of having one platform with DLC vs. multiple titles. Their just doing the same thing as Guitar Hero.

Honestly I don't care for Guitar Hero's song creator because it does not allow me to fill my songs with numerous curse words....

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No player-created tracks for Rock Band 2

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