Brainstorming: The Rock Band Network Pandora Project

[striderblack]

All,

I was thinking about how I used Pandora to find artists and songs similar to some of my favorites (Through my Dream Theater station, found out about Frost*, and Milliontown is probably one of my favorite songs of all time now)

For those unfamiliar, Pandora takes artists and songs and defines their qualities, and plays music with similar qualities, and you refine as you go along based on what you like and dislike.

I think a system like that would work wonders for RBN - there are a lot of bands and not all of us have the time or patience to download every demo and try everything out. Using a Pandora-like system, we can take a Rock Band network song and classify it as similar to others.

So for example...you'd choose a song (Children of Nova) and it would return Destructive Device, a similar prog song with tricky drums, along with any others that we, as a community, can classify as being similar to the selected track.

How can we refine this and make it a really useful tool for those of us looking to broaden our horizons via Rock Band Network? I'd love to hear some ideas.

tl;dr - I want to make a search engine for RBN songs. Any ideas?

[JoshVanHalen87]

maybe difficulty + genre or something like that, i really like your idea.

[Sayburr]

I have always wondered how the Pandora database worked. I know each song has several classifications associated with it... but that might be too much for this small group to accomplish.

It seems the best way to approach this would be genre and difficulties.

You like this punk band with tier six drums, than check out this song with the same category and rating…

[Mithin]

This system was one of the first for my RB3 wishlist. I personally love imeem, last.fm, and pandora. I really hope our friends at HMX want to take the Rock Band franchise in this direction. It really helps to promote the platform concept as well as modernize the entire DLC store (RBN included). As for creating your own search engine? I really wish I had some useful skillset to help out. All I can do for now is say that I'd gladly use your system once it is in place

[jarodtoiletboy]

Great idea.
I've only gotten Steve Vai, and KMFDM so far, but there are a few in the pipeline I'd like to get(Exodus, Testament and Steevi Jaimz).
I usually youtube each day's releases, and judge from there, but for a new person that could be very daunting.

[Fuelie79]

last.fm's better

[Markleford]

I honestly couldn't tell you if I'd like a "Prog Metal song with Tier 6 Drums", but if I *heard* it then I could make the call. Even getting the song previews into such a search engine would be a big win.

But I'm a guy who doesn't care too much about the charts, and buy DLC solely on the basis of whether it sounds good to me. I'm personally hoping for a streaming RBN radio station that does programming blocks by genre, with some occasional "mixed play" blocks. If you get me earwormed, chances are I'll buy it!

- m

[A New Pyro Fool]

1) HMX purchases Pandora technology
2) Intergrates it into RBN
3) Yes We Can be Made in Mexico is released
4) ??????????
5) Profit

[Zeltar]

I think a system like this would really add to the accessibility of the Rock Band Music Store. Imagine if you (as a new Rock Band Music Store customer) opened the store for the first time and the first list you saw was a selection of DLC based on what songs you chose to play the most from the on-disc songs available.

Such a system would be very complicated to introduce, but it could be worth it in the end. Like Mithin said earlier, if a "Platform" concept is really what Harmonix is gunning for, it'd make sifting through 1000's of songs a bit easier for timid new folks.

last.fm is better

Not to derail the topic, but what exactly are you basing this opinion on?