CreatorsWiki

From CreatorsWiki

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Magma is the packaging and auditioning tool for the Rock Band Network. It allows you to take audio stems, in the form of .wav files, and MIDI files authored to the RBN specification in Reaper, and create song packs that can be uploaded and auditioned on an XBox. It also provides the ability to audition and test songs downloaded from the Creators Club using "Audition Mode".

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Contents 1 Common Problems 2 Authoring Limitations 3 Build and Audition 4 Information 5 Audio 5.1 Pan 5.2 Attenuation 6 Game Data 7 Transfer 8 Audition 8.1 Standard mode 8.2 Advanced Mode

Common Problems

Check out Magma Compilation Errors for possible solutions to common problems when you are building your song.

Authoring Limitations

Before you can use Magma, you'll need to know a few things:

• Audio tracks should meet the following restrictions:
  • .wav file format
  • 44.1Khz or 48Khz sample rate
  • mono or stereo will work, but see "Pan" below for some caveats
  • 16 or 24 bit rate
• Text that you enter should contain only the following characters:
  • ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
  • abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
  • #$%&'()*+,-./
  • 0123456789
  • :¿ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕØÙÚÛÜÝÞßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõøùúûü
  • !¡©®°

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Build and Audition

At the bottom of every tab are controls for building and auditioning your song. When you start a build any un-saved changes to your project will be auto-saved. Magma will try to be smart and only re-compile song parts that have changed, saving you valuable time.

• Build To: This specifies the path and name of the rba file that gets created out of all the information you entered on the other tabs. The rba file is compiled with all the song data and is what you audition, and what you upload to creators.rockband.com
• Build and Audition: Build the song with current data and immediately try to audition the song on the selected Xbox
• Build: Only build the .rbs file only.
• Audition: Open the audition dialog box to pick an Xbox and .rba or .rbs file to audition (see below for more info on audition)

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Information

The Information tab asks you for the following pieces of information. Don't forget about those character limitations above!

• Song name: Max length 99 characters
• Artist: Max length 74 characters
• Album: Max length 74 characters
• Track Number: If this track was released on an album, check the box next to "Album" , and enter the track number of this song (1 - 100) The checkbox is optional, but if it's checked you must enter a valid track number between 1-99. The RBN store does not support albums yet, but you can include this data for possible future support.
• Year Released: The year this track was first released.
• Genre/Sub Genre: The genre of music that most closely matches the song.
• Country of Origin: Where the track was recorded, or where the band is from.
• Lyric Language: Check each language if it is sung or spoken in the vocal track. Each song must be reviewed in every language included, and if there are languages in the lyrics that are not set here the song will fail review. Currently, these are the only lyric languages that we support.
• Author: The person or company who authored this song for the Rock Band Network.
• Price: The recommended price, in XBox Live points, that will be charged for this song.
• Release Label: Optional. If the song was released by a record label, enter that here.
• Album art will end up as a 256x256 pixel 24 bit .bmp file. You can add a number of different types and sizes via the dialog box. If Magma needs to convert your art it will warn you. Be aware that this may reduce the quality of the image.

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Audio

This tab is where you'll take the various authored pieces of your song and mold them into a single piece of rock, or Urban Jazz, or Country Shoegazing Outlaw A-capella... you get the idea.

A note on the checkboxes for each part: if you're having problems with certain tracks, or you haven't finished them, and want to quickly audition the song with just some parts included, you can un-check the rest of the parts and audition that sub-set of the song. We'll save your other parts for later, we promise!

• Drum Mix: Check this box if you have a drum track. The drop down allows you to select which drum parts you want to include. At a minimum you will need a "Kit" track, in addition to which you can add "Snare" or "Kick" parts, or both. For more info about setting the drum submix, please check the [:RockBandNetwork/DrumAuthoring: Drum Authoring Guide]
  • Kit: The .wav file for your drum kit part.
  • Snare: The .wav file for your snare part.
  • Kick: The .wav file for your kick part.
• Bass: Check this box to add a bass part, then add the .wav file.
• Guitar: Same for guitar.
• Vocals: Same for vocal.
• Dry Vocals: This is a .wav file of vocals with no effects. These are not compiled into the song file. This file helps our lip sync engine more accurately model the vocal part. You want that, don't you?
• Backing: This audio track includes any band audio that's not in the bass, drum, guitar, and vocal audio files.
• Start Preview: This allows you to set the beginning of the audio preview that people may download from the Rock Band Network store, or when people highlight this song in the song list in game. Song previews are always 30 seconds long. Handily there is a display next to the preview controls that tells you how long your song is, so you won't inadvertently over-run the end of your song. This is also the reason songs must be at least 30 seconds long. Song length is determined by the longest .wav file included in the song (except the dry vocals track).

Pan

Each part has a pan control. This control will only show up when you have a valid mono wave file. We assume that you have already correctly mixed your stereo tracks... right? Values range from -1 (all left) to 1 (all right). Use this for final tweaks to your mix.

Attenuation

You know your song rocks hard. We know your song rocks hard. That's why we only let you turn each part down. Think of the neighbors, eh? Currently this bad boy ranges from 0 to -10, in db from Unity gain. Use this for final tweaks to your mix.

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Game Data

• MIDI: This is the path to the MIDI file you created in Reaper. You did create a MIDI file in Reaper, right?
• Export: This button will export all the MIDI data generated to a new MIDI file. You can use this to save the generated camera and lighting MIDI tracks as a base for creating your own.
• Animation: This setting controls which set of animations the characters in game play. You may change this to match the tempo of your song. This defaults to medium tempo.
• Gender: If the song comes up and the game needs to pick a character, this is a hint to which gender the random singer should be.
• Percussion: This determines what sample gets played when your singer gets their percussion on.
• Scroll: This controls the scroll speed of the lyrics. This defaults to a sane value, but if you have lots and lots of lyrics you may want to choose "Fast"
• Difficulty: Each part has a difficulty control that's shown in the RBN store, and in the song list after it's purchased. Each of these dots correspondes to a difficulty category in the songlist (from Warmup to Nightmare).
  • There is also a band song difficulty rating. This lets you sort by difficulty when you are playing with more than one person. Also you get 100 extra awesome points. Turn on "Awesomeness Detection" to see them.
    • Not Really.

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Transfer

Start Rock Band 2 from Disc. There should be an option "Extras -> Audition". Select it, and you should see

This means that Rock Band is ready to receive a song file from your PC.

In order to transfer a song file, you will need to have a valid .rba file (a song file you have compiled successfully with Magma), or .rbs file (song file you have donwloaded from creators.rockband.com), and an Xbox ready in transfer mode.

Open Magma and click on the "Audition" button, and you will get the audition dialog box:

Once you are there, click on "Search for an Xbox". After a few seconds, you should see the Profile Name from your Xbox in the list of available 360s. Click on your profile:

Next, if you don't have an .rba or .rbs file in the edit box, click "Browse" and find a file:

Once you have both of these selected, the "Transfer" button is enabled. Click it, and you will transfer your song!

NOTE: You won't be able to transfer until you have both an Xbox in audition mode, and a valid .rba/.rbs file selected.

Audition

Audition mode should be mostly self-explanatory. You can auto-play any tracks (including all of them, if you wish), or play local multiplayer with other people.

There are two different modes. Standard is closer to our regular matchmaking screen and will be easier to use for people playing local multiplayer.

Standard mode

This mode is enabled by hitting Green/A after your song is loaded. Note that Audition mode will validate your song data after you hit Green/A, which can take a few seconds. Standard mode looks like this:

The first screen in this Standard mode allows you to select a mix of human controlled parts and autoplayers. Once you have selected the players advance to the second screen for more options:

Advanced Mode

Advanced Mode (RB after your song is loaded) is designed for a single person with a single controller trying out the song. Again, the song data will be validated after you hit RB, which may take a few seconds. Advanced mode has only one screen, and all options are available there: