Harmonix who are the makers of The Beatles: Rock Band and of course the original Rock Band are soon be releasing the new Rock Band 3. So far there has been a lot of talk that users are slowly getting a little bit bored of the games, because they cant see how Harmonix can beat The Beatles Rock Band game.
Dhani Harrison, son of Beatles‘ George Harrison has let a little secret slip out as most musicians do during interviews, whether it’s on purpose or not.
According to an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Harrison (who also helped develop The Beatles: Rock Band) shared the fact that Rock Band 3 may be more than just a game to scratch the surface of the brain. Rock Band 3 may actually teach non-musicians how to play real instruments!
We’ve all played Guitar Hero before. They’re just a bunch of buttons you have to click in synchronization with what you see on the screen. Rock Band 3 will somehow go beyond that since Harrison states:
“I’m workin on [...] making the controllers more real so people can actually learn how to play music while playing the game. [...] Give me a couple years, it’s going to happen.”
This may also explain why Scott Guthrie told IGN that the Rock Band empire was in for some drastic changes:
“We aren’t standing still – we will keep moving into new areas and look at new technologies that our platform holder partners are also developing, such as Project Natal from Microsoft.”
Don’t expect a new tracklist to be your final news for Rock Band 3. If they actually pull this off, it might take a lot longer and be a lot harder.
There are a few online music distribution companies out there, each professing it’s service and it’s model to be the cheapest and the best: what you need to do is figure out which of them is going to be the best for you. How many tracks can you reasonably expect to sell? What can you afford to outlay? Figure those things out and then decide which deal is best for you.
The basic models of distributor are:
Subscription – Keep your royalties, but pay a maintenance or subscription fee to keep your music online. Good if you’re going to be selling a lot of tracks. (CD Baby operate this model, also charging an upload fee)
Percentage – Don’t pay any fees, but pay for the service with a percentage of the royalties from sales (this is the model we use at RouteNote). Good if you don’t want to risk losing any money, or your sales aren’t likely to be massive just yet.
Upload fee – A flat fee for uploading your music, and then keep your royalties. Again, good if you’re hoping to sell a lot of tracks, but there’s no incentive for the distributor to promote your music, as they’ve already made their money, and can’t profit further from helping you out. (EmuBands do this)
Managed – The next best thing to being signed to a record label, some digital distribution companies will take labels and larger bands on, and for a larger cut of the royalties from sales, will make more of an effort to promote their music, or offer other benefits to their partners. It’s up to you to decide whether their efforts are likely to be worth the cut. (The Orchard operate this model)
Controlling your own output means that you don’t have to go with the same partner for multiple releases, you can pick and choose different partners for different releases. If you find that the music distribution deal you’re on with one company is working better for one release than another, you can change partners for the one that’s losing out.
Also consider that digital music sales increase your presence in the marketplace, and a record label will look at the level of your sales of both physical and digital music, and of your live gig audiences when they’re looking at signing you (if that’s what you’re after).
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