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Music Game Authors is a company formed in the wake of the huge news that Harmonix and MTV Networks were opening up the development of Rock Band music downloadable content (DLC) to interested 3rd party developers such as Music Game Authors as well as any interested individuals, bands, record companies, indie labels. We are committed to providing world class services to our clients, that will consist of up and coming bands, well known artists, and small to large indie labels.
Music Game Authors consists of several individuals (and growing) that have experience in the music industry, game development, web development, marketing, search engine optimization, graphic design, animation and video production, sound recording, sound production, musicians ( the company organizer has been a percussionist for 15 years and has played with some top artists and been in the studio with some of these artists). Every member of our creative and marketing teams are highly skilled individuals and all have pledged to give each project we work on the fullest attention to detail.
With multiple years of experience in all facets of music and animation and game production as well as our experience in web development and marketing, Music Game Authors is poised to meet and exceed the standards set forth by Harmonix (HMX) and provide our clients a full suite of services geared to making their venture into the gaming world a profitable enjoyable and equitable experience.
We are a company comprised of several individuals from all over the world with skills in many different aspects of game development, web development, search engine optimization, marketing and advertising, the music industry, as well as being musicians and audio programmers we know what it takes to be successful as a company to make you successful as a band not only in the Rock Band arena but on the web, selling music not only thru the Rock Band Stores but also selling your music to your fans via CD Baby, iTunes, and even selling it via your own e-commerce web site,
We are completely committed to upholding Harmonix's standards for every project that we work on.
We do everything needed to get your music content thru the Rock Band Network and Creators Club peer review system. We will not just author or publish your music game charts, but we will take an active role in promoting your music through Music Game Authors Community Features, such as our "Da Bands" pages, on site advertising as banners and videos as well as assistance in creating stand out MySpace Pages, Twitter accounts, Linked-IN and Facebook accounts and even professionally designed e-commerce web sites to sell your CD's and MP3's ensuring you and your band and its music gets the maximum exposure to the music and gaming fans. Which will leave you to concentrate on what's truly important to a band or an artist... working on the music and live performances
Music Game Authors is composed of web professionals, music creative's ranging from artists and musicians ourselves to technically advanced programmers, and other experienced individuals, with attention to the highest of quality control measures, When we take on your music as a project, You have our commitment to make sure your song(s) makes it to the Rock Band Network Store.
Using our proprietary File: Maestro File Management System we can assign songs/tracks to each of our qualified and experienced audio gurus based on their area of musical expertise (our bass player authors get bass tracks our drummers/percussionists get drum tracks). To keep high standards of quality we do our own in-house peer reviews for each aspect of each song as well as a full peer review of the completed song chart before we ever upload it to the XNA Creators Club.
What this means to you is that several of our creative people will over see and manage each song as it goes thru our music pipeline with each aspect of your song(s) will be vetted by no less than 3 to 5 individuals on our authoring teams Music Game Author Team Leaders are also assigned to track your contents progress as it progresses thru our system and will serve as your contact for any questions you might have. YOu as a client of Music Game Authors will also be given access to our File: Maestro System where notes and updates will be available to you at each stage of the process, and will also serve as your primary means of submitting your demo songs, Masters, and individual instrument and vocal tracks to us for work.
All files submitted via our File: Maestro system are secure and cannot be accessed unless logged into the File: Maestro system and each of our authors, Team Leaders can ONLY see, download and access files to projects they are assigned to. This ensures your valuable and privileged Master files are at no time accessible to any other 3rd party.
For more information about the Rock Band Network (RBN) visit their site or read the press release on the Rock Band Forums
Rock Band Network authors, publishers 3rd party independents (like Music Game Authors) on the behalf of artists, bands, record labels and other members are able to upload charted or authored music (music that has been prepared for use within Rock Band) for play testing and peer review, and are able to review and play test other authors and publishers work and offer feedback on the song(s) playability, execution of the Rock Band Charts, and accuracy. When a charted song receives a strong enough score on its acceptability for play within Rock Band, the song will be published to the Rock Band Network Store for xBox 360 Rock Band users to purchase, download and rock out to.
For more information on this process please read the information at Rock Band Network's web site
Your music once it has been charted for use within the Rock Band 2 game whether thru Music Game Authors or by yourself or other 3rd party companies will be available only to xBox users who have purchased a premium Creators Club Membership (which is a cost of $99 a year which will also limit the number of users who are active in the play testing/peer review process). The Premium Creators Club Members will have access only to an "audition" version of your music for play testing and review using the new "audition mode" that will be available in the 2.2 patch to Rock band and is not saved to the users xBox 360 hard drive. Once the play tester backs out of the audition the music will be removed from their system. Further ensuring your music does not reach unauthorized hands.
The only way a user can have your music permanently is to purchase the song as DLC (Down Loadable Content) from the Rock Band Network Store
Steam Punk's DLC Statistics shows that several songs have received well over 100,000 downloads. In addition to your Rock Band exposure, your content will be showcased on Music Game Authors web site with its own "Da Bands" page which includes: Album/ Song Art, Band Biography, Song Information (including lyrics), Links (if available) to: CD Baby, iTunes Store or other avenue if music distribution you are tied to, or your own band web site where users can purchase and download your music as MP3 or CD formats indexed via our Music Guru Spider System for searching. We will also be implementing a Music Game Authors Social Network Community where you will be able to have an account to blog, post videos, participate in forums, upload images to your own band gallery, create polls, create quizzes, as well as participate in live chats and more!
Yes, you will however need the following items xBox Live Gold Acct. - $49/year, XNA Creators Club Premium Acct. - $99/year, The Reaper Audio Suite (with plug ins supplied free of charge by Harmonix) - $60-225, knowledge of digital multi-track mixing, knowledge of Rock Band's MIDI event triggers and formats for quality publishing of music game content, the time to mix the audio and create all content to high community standards that will ensure it passes peer review via the Creators Club system.
While Harmonix will be providing documentation to all publishers or authors whether being a self publisher or a 3rd party company like Music Game Authors on how to use the tools needed to create quality Rock Band game charts. We feel that we can offer a more solid opportunity for doing it for you and leave you to concentrate on producing new music and working on your careers as artist and musicians.
If you would like to use our charting service and would like to submit your music through your own XNA account, we would then switch to our flat fee pricing services and when we have finished charting your song(s), the final song DLC package would be uploaded to your secure account on our File Maestro System so that you could upload it to your own Creators Club account. We will still guarantee some of our extra promotional efforts to further market and sell your songs after completion such as our on-site advertisements based on the level of service you require from us and that you contract with us to perform. ALL flat fee pricing contracts will always include on site advertising under our "Da Bands" section which includes Album Cover, other art as well as band bio, links to your web presence (band site, CD baby, iTtune Store links MySpace Twitter accounts if any).
There is a lot to consider when providing an answer to this most important question. Factors that will influence the time from initial contact from a band or artist or label to customer access via the Rock Band Network Store include:
With Music Game Authors taking lead in the charting or authoring phase and each of our programmers and musicians taking a dedicated approach to providing quality charts will help immensely in passing the peer review phase and help keep the "kicking back" of songs for further work to a minimum further ensuring that the time it takes to be able to be ready for download to customers as short as possible. As we proceed with more and more bands and their songs will be able to provide and more concrete timeline.
Rock Band is probably the most popular video game in history,It is family oriented as in families can play together as a band or friends can come together and play in real life or via the internet and online play, or have rock band themed parties. I has been touted about on several music industry blogs and web sites as a way to save the failing music industry music sales and become a major player in distributing music to eager fans to not only listen to but to be an active interactive part of. not just in the US but Worldwide! It has also shown to have increased sales of musical instruments with kids and adults getting back into wanting to play real music instead of just playing the game itself in an era where our schools are cutting art and music program left and right.
Rock Band has shown itself to be a industry leader in music. Rock Band has increased the popularity of bands and artists and brought music from the 70's 80' and 90's to a whole new generation of kids who would probably have never heard of the music as well as increased album sales for hundreds of artists. What this means to you is that having your music in Rock Band is an excellent way to:
This opportunity to tap in to a new and thriving market, build popularity, and collect earnings all while gaining exposure in a young, diverse and influential market.
Having your music in rock band via the Rock Band Network provides opportunities to get into the increasingly expanding gaming market, gain new popularity, receive new streams of revenue, as well attract people as fans you would otherwise not have been able to reach with traditional methods of promotion.
Please refer to the detailed answers that can be found at Rock Band Network's documentation.
It can range from a flat fee depending on how much and what you wish Music Game Authors to handle, to a percentage based system based on a percentage of earned royalties from live downloads. in this case we take 1/3 of your earned royalties from HMX which provides you 30% of the total cost of the DLC in other words you get 20% of the 30% you earn and we get 10%.
This means everyone involved benefits from producing top quality content to the Rock Band Network Store, therefore ensuring that anyone who has a part in working on your song(s) to be committed to producing exacting work to help increase the sales of your DLC. Quality music charts and DLC packages produced thru Music Game Authors tied in with our superior knowledge of the web and marketing and promotion arenas will certainly bring you and your bands music and message to a broad spectrum of music lovers and gamers.
Your royalties earned (if any) from Harmonix is a 70% - 30% split with 70% going straight to Harmonix, 30% to you, with 1/3rd of your take going to Music Game Authors (10% total of the purchase price of the DLC) The remaining 20% to you.
Example:
Song is sold for $1.99 from the Rock Band Network Store
Harmonix takes: $1.39
Music Game Authors takes: $.20 cents
You would make: $.40 cents per download
We will also have flat fee pricing available to artists/bands and record labels whereby you will pay us up front for as much or as little as you would have us do to get your music charted thru to publishing and you would retain the full 30% split of your royalties from harmonix.
There have been bands in on Rock Band that have had hundreds of thousands of downloads and earned a lot of money via this distribution method via the Rock Band Stores on xBox Live and the PS3 and Wii stores. We are in no way saying you will sell 100,000 or more downloads of your tracks, (no one can predict the future). But NOT having your music in Rock Band will surely net you nothing via this amazing revenue stream.
Rock Band offers a wide variety of music genres everything from alternative to punk to numetal and thrash to country, reggae and more and is consistently expanding it library of DLC and the types of music available to all users and their tastes. Rock Band even offers music from around the world and this where we will also take a stand on the front lines so to speak and offer our services to bands and artists outside of the U.S. Germany, Sweden, Australia, The UK, Romania and other European Union Member countries to have their fans and gamers from around the world get access to their beloved artists and music for play in Rock Band.
Music that's the most fun to play along with in the Rock Band are those that have interesting sections or "unique musicality" songs that "rock" Songs that let the Rock Band gamer(s) "Rock Out" at home at clubs, during parties etc. Remember this is a game and people want to have fun be a "part" of their favorite band and to put their spin on a song they love.
All tracks guitars, drums, bass, vocals, back up vocals must be separate (masters stems). All vocals must clean with no effects Drums tracks need to be a single stereo mix, but if you have separate drum parts that is even better (bass kick, snare, toms, cymbals tracks).
All files must be, a minimum 44.1khz/48khz (mono for kick/bass guitar if need be) at 16bit PCM and the higher the bit rate the better (128Kbs is NOT acceptable) the better your music has been recorded the better chance it has of coming thru the whole process and making it past the peer review.
First and foremost you MUST own the recording you wish to submit... and provide proof of ownership. Then next step is to submit some basic information about you and your band. Once we have your information we will provide you access to our File: Maestro system where you can safely and securely upload demos of your track(s) for our initial review. We will then have our in house musicians and audio personnel and marketing team review the audio content and if it rocks and would make for an enjoyable Rock Band experience, we will then contact you with options that will fit your budget and needs.
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