I never played a Rock Band game so take my words with a grain of salt, but i opened several Rock Band *.mogg files in a multitrack editor, and they all follow the same model. They are definitely not just original multitracks, but a bunch of premixed stereotracks for every instrument - drums, vocals, guitar(s), keyboards/anything else, bass track is always in mono though. Plus a stereo track of an audience noise.
I mean we know there is just no way anyone can get that kind of separation from the original Beatles recording, so they'll have to make covers for every song, maybe except for some Abbey Road cuts. Of course they understand that they have to make it sound exactly like originals or else
I must admit, despite being a big fan, I was ho-hum about this game until this trailer belied a particular attention to detail I was not expecting. Note, for example, in the trailer how they show McCartney playing his Epiphone Casino whilst Lennon's holding down the low end on a Fender Bass VI for "Back in the USSR"!!! They've obviously incorporated lesser-known facts into the game. I'm not a big game-player and I fear I would suck at Rock Band (it's been said that musicians have a particularly tough time with it as they have to "unlearn" their instruments) but I may have to pony up for a Wii for this one!
Very cool detail, indeed. John' got the set list taped to his Ric during I Feel Fine.
But... No Billy Preston on the rooftop! There is quite the empty stage-left... And John didn't even play on Here Comes the Sun. I
wonder what they worked up for "his part"? And it's cool yet odd that they have no capo on the guitars for HCtS. Ever tried playing
it that way?
For us that will never be good enough to play in any kind of band (and that includes me) this looks like FAB-ulous fun!
I put my money down wishing they were going to do something other than the Hofner. I am jazzed to find that there will be a Rick and a Gretsch. I am guessing the Country Gent would have been a little too big to do.
I think your right, RIC better get ready to crank out the 325's. Gretsch discontinued the Harrison model G6126-1957 Duo Jet a while back.
Let me qualify these questions. I wouldn't know an X box from a Mailbox - sorry...
Regarding the audio here, are the final tracks presented in normal 2 channel stereo, 5.1, or something else?
Are all of the tracks original Beatles recordings? Is "audience noise" mixed in throughout?
I think a more interesting "game" would be one that allows you to "be" a Beatle in that the screen would show what the selected Beatle was seeing.
For instance with George selected, during a song you could look left and see John and look right and see Paul, look ahead and see the crowd .... etc etc etc. The experience could be expanded to allow "George" to speak to and respond to the others. Even though the conversation would (by definition) be limited, it would still be interesting.
My experience with RockBand is limited to a minute or two at Best Buy.... but if all this game does is allow you to play along with a push-button guitar, I think I'll pass.
Am I missing something about the game? if so, I hope someone will enlighten me.
To start, it is (in essense) button mashing but that's only the physical mechanics of the game. Let's not forget that there is a fairly real electronic drumkit available and also a mic for vocalists.
1) Community. No matter how you define community, RockBand (and GH to degrees) are about community. Whether you're playing with friends sitting next to you or you're playing with friends overseas, it's about comradery and community. It's about bringing people together to have some fun. If anything, it should be the ultimate musicians party game for when friends are over and everyone has some adult beverages. That's just my opinion, though.
2) Music. Not everyone grew up in the 50s, 60s or 70s. People are relearning music from these eras as well as lesser known music from then until today. RockBand does this. No matter how many times I've stated to the kidlet that Rush is awesome and played it for her, she didn't fully relate until playing YYZ and The Camera Eye in RockBand. This is an outlet for people to learn music they might not otherwise be exposed to.
2a) As a subset of this, RB also teaches timing. I'd wager that all of the real-world guitarists that miss all the notes on Easy on any song haven't played with a metronome in decades. Real-world bassists that miss all of the notes on easy just need to play another instrument, IMO.
I have a caveat to this and this might be where real-world guitarists/bassists/drummers fail the most. That is, we know the music before we even start playing. Our muscle memory wants to push/strum/whatever the tune the way we have always played it in the real world. This doesn't always translate easily over. That's the biggest hurdle real-world people have with games like this. Pick a song you don't know or haven't heard before and play the game. When you do this, your muscle memory will develop for the game and you will end up taking that experience over into songs that you do know.
3) Imagination. RB allows people to imagine how it would be to be in a band. You have managerial decisions to make, decisions to be had on wardrobe, on instruments, on where to play, on what to play, etc. etc. Granted some of these decisions are linear and aren't great and some are repetitious but even then the imagination of it all doesn't wear off.
Number 3 is perhaps the most important and worthy of all of these. That one spurs people to go out and buy equipment to really play. It also spurs more playing of RB and with more playing, your timing starts improving and your exposure to a wide variety of music expands.
The Beatles RB game will do the same thing. Believe it or not, many kids today just don't have any real clue who or what the Beatles were. This game alone will single handedly show millions of new people what the Beatles were about.
Scott: Thanks, all points well taken. I guess my "game" would be for the slightly older set. Still, from what I'd seen so far, this RB is a big disappointment for me personally.
Kira:
>>>>As long as we don't re-live the Phillipine tour, that is.
HA!!!! ... good point, however that might be a great part of the "game" . After all, it wasn't all fun and glory for the Fab Four.
As long as we don't re-live the Phillipine tour, that is. 
