Technical Requirements

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Technical Requirements

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Songs submitted to the Rock Band Network pipeline need to be formatted correctly in order to be properly processed. This page should give you an overview of the most important requirements for creating, compiling, and uploading a song to the Rock Band Network website.

Magma, Rock Band Audition mode, and creators.rockband.com perform detailed validation on any song file which is compiled, transferred, or uploaded. If there is anything wrong with your song, if will fail in one of these places, and you will be required to fix the problem and re-submit.

Audio

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You will need one audio file for each playable part in your song, plus a few additional audio files.

• All audio files (with one exception) must be in .wav format, at 44.1KHz sample rate, and 16 bit depth. Most files can be stereo or mono.

• For each playable part for Guitar, Bass, and Vocals you need one audio file.

• For Drums, you may have from one to three audio files. (For more details on drum audio, please read the Drum Authoring page

• Any combination of instruments can be used, but you have to have at least one playable part.

• Any audio which is not connected to a playable part must be included in a Backing Track. For more information about how to format your audio files and mix them, please read the Mix and MIDI Setup page.

• You need to have a ”Dry Vocal“ file, which is identical to the regular vocal audio, but is recorded without any effects. This file must be 16KHz sample rate and 16 bit depth, and must be mono.

MIDI

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Each song requires a very specifically formatted MIDI file. This full details of the specification of this file is beyond the scope of this document, but the basics are:

• Each playable instrument track requires it's own MIDI part.

• There are very specific MIDI notes which trigger gameplay effects. These notes are detailed on each of the Authoring pages for the individual instruments.

• A BEAT track is required in order to correctly play back animations ingame.

• A VENUE track controls camera shots, lighting, and special animations. If you don't provide this information, we generate it for you.

• An EVENTS track controls when the song starts and ends, how the crowd animates, and other miscellaneous effects.

Metadata

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Metadata is all the song information surrounding the actual gameplay, and includes things like Song Name, Band Name, Difficulty, and so forth. All this information is entered into Magma, which can be downloaded here: [creators.rockband.com/tools/download] Most fields are self explanatory, but here are a few notes:

• If the song was released on an album, check the ”Album“ checkbox, and enter a track number between 1 and 99. This information is not currently used by Rock Band Network, but is being included for future compatibility.

• Country of Origin is up to the submitter to define. It could be the band's origin, or the country where they are best known.

• The song will be Peer Reviewed in each language that is checked in Magma. At this time, we only support English, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Japanese. If there are additional languages in the lyrics, or the correct languages are not checked, the song will fail.

• Author must be the login of a registered creator at creators.rockband.com

• Release Label can be used only if you are the sole submitted for all of a Label's music.

• Difficulty should match, as closely as possible, the difficulties of existing Rock Band songs, either on disc or from Downloadable Content

Prohibited Content

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None of the following content may be submitted to Rock Band Network:

• Profanity or Offensive Content

• False Song Information: If the song being submitted has been previously published, or is recognizable, does the information (band name, song name, artist name) match the original?

  • Example: someone submits the original recording of “Stairway to Heaven” as “Escalator to the Afterlife” by “Brass Balloon”

• Samples: Does the song being submitted use a portion of another song (or other recording) as part of its content?

  • Example: someone submits a song using the drum track to a Nine Inch Nails song.

  • Example: someone submits a song which has audio samples from a Pixar movie in the background.

• Composition: Is a song using another’s song’s composition (melody or chord progression) in whole or in part?

  • Example: someone submits a song in which riff to the Rolling Stones “Satisfaction” is played in the bridge.

• Lyrics: Does the song include any recognizable lyrics from another published song?

  • Example: someone submits a song with the line “I am the Eggman, They are the Eggmen, I am the Walrus. Goo goo ga joob”

• Trademarked names in song titles, band names, or artist names.

• Negative mentions of brands, companies, or other trademarks in song titles or lyrics.