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+---- Thread: The Beatles: Rock Band Trivia (/thread-1161.html)
The Beatles: Rock Band Trivia - Pogue-Mahone - 11-30-2013
I'm not fully finished researching this game, so I'll just update this post as I find more stuff. And seeing that we're on the subject of The Beatles, why not listen to them?
This is my personal favorite Beatles tune:
1. Plans for a Beatles themed Rock Band game happened before the first Rock Band game was ever released.
In 2006 Dhani Harrison, George Harrison's son, was at a holiday party and had started a conversation with MTV Executive Van Toffler. That was around the same time MTV acquired Harmonix, which had previously made the Guitar Hero Games. Dhani Harrison was a fan of the Guitar Hero games and suggested an idea for a similar game but with more instruments. Dhani was then introduced to Harmonix Founder Alex Rigopulos who was already working on that very concept with what would become Rock Band. The inevitable subject of a Beatles themed video game came up.
Dhani Harrison pitched the game to Apple Corps (the music production company created by The Beatles) as well as the key shareholders of The Beatles catalog; Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, and Olivia Harrison. In 2008, a 5 song demo for the game was presented to the shareholders that led to the approval of the game.
2. All of the Beatles' master recordings were done on 4-track and 2-track equipment. In order for the music to work with Rock Band, all of the original recordings had to be turned into digital tracks. The Beatles: Rock Band is the first time this had never been done to any of the Beatles' music before.
This was a daunting task for Giles Martin (son of Beatles record producer George Martin) because The Beatles would record multiple instruments on a single track. He spent months using digital filters to separate all of the individual instrument sounds on each track.
3. Every individual digital track made from the Beatles master recordings that were sent to Harmonix to make The Beatles: Rock Band were low-fidelity copies imprinted with static. This was a security measure to assure that The Beatles music wouldn't be sampled by other artists had the recordings fallen into the wrong hands.
The tracks were still good enough to work with to make the game. When the game's code was sent to Apple Studios, they just removed the low quality tracks and added the Master Tracks.
4. Paul McCartney gave himself the role of "Executive Tweaker" when working on the game.
"McCartney told me that his role in the project was “executive tweaker,” but the better title might be watchdog." -Giles Martin, Music Producer for The Beatles: Rock Band
Source for above trivia:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/magazine/16beatles-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
5. Before starting a song in any of the Studio Stages, you can hear members of The Beatles practicing and talking to each other. These are actual recordings of the band members that were never released to the public before.
Although I have read that there were some recordings recently released that featured a lot of this Beatle Chatter.
Sourc for trivia #5:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2009/09/beatles-rock-band-behind-the-scenes/1#.Upfi2MRDt8E
RE: The Beatles: Rock Band Trivia - Spherix - 01-16-2014
Actually, according to your source, the Beatles' music had already been transferred from tapes to digital storage in 2006, in preparation for a Cirque du Soleil production. That this had already been done made the work for Rock Band -- separating the individual instruments -- easier.
I've updated the relevant trivia accordingly.