Acquiring Master Tracks vs "In House" tracks

[deathstick]

This is for Sean, and whomever else on the staff who feels like chiming in:


When you guys and girls get together and start bouncing a project like RB around and you have to choose between master tracks and doing the tracks yourselves, I understand the license for the track costs a certain amount. How much more, on a scale of moderate to rediculous does it cost to use the actual master track as opposed to doing a track "in house" and are certain licenses and tracks more based on the licensee(for example The Beatles, Zeppelin, Metallica, etc), record label, publishing house, on and on?

[BeckRokk]

I think I remember them saying somewhere that using a master tracks i more expensive, yes, but that a big part of the decision is also playability. By covering a song in-house they give themselves room to modify the song if they so desire. If they hadn't drastically changed Ziggy in GH1, no one would have played it because of how simple it really is. So it's part cost, part playability.