Three Years of the Rock Band Network!

[FairwoodStudios]

And if I could just point out a bit of why Lachesis has been so awesome as a guardian and guiding hand over the last few years:

I'd been citing an example from memory to go with each use case - things like the "28 Days" versioning bug that happened to FairwoodStudios

I completely forgot that ever happened. I genuinely had no idea what she were talking about there until I went back and searched the threads. And that situation was actually a bit of a big deal at the time, I believe. That either says something really unsettling about my memory, or something really endearing about her level of attention and interest in supporting all the authors and keeping RBN flowing so seamlessly.

[HMXLachesis]

Great read, Lachesis! But it reminded me that we don't yet have "Shine" by Black Gold, and that made me sad.

I'm sort of surprised by that stat myself - I thought it was going to be the actual Black Gold RBN song, "Plans & Reveries". I think my iTunes lost track of play counts in the last update, but I decided not to tweak it.

[machetemonkey]

But most of them came to us and I just got sold on them, either because they're good and interesting or they're so ridiculous I just couldn't not do it. (This was my actual reply to Man Parts' initial contact: "I gave the song a listen. It was the most ludicrous, amateur, and pointless recording I've heard in quite a long time. So obviously we're interested.")

Man, I forgot about that response. That made my day a few years back. <3

[Arcanon]

Three years. Dang. That’s a long time. Back then, I couldn’t even legally drink.

Anyways. Three years ago, when RBN first came out, I was a college kid with no real direction. I knew I wanted a Business Administration degree, and I wanted to own a business, but I didn’t have any clue what I would do when I’d get that degree. I was an avid Rock Band player; in fact, I got into Rock Band when their promo trailer came to my school and I got to rock out on stage twice and many more times in the back. Won my RB shirt (which I’ll be wearing to Rock Band Night the night before PAX East) and a pair of RB drumsticks that I believe I still have in their original plastic somewhere in my house. Since GH, I’d dreamed of somehow one day making my own tracks for the game, and I made several customs, none of which I’ve ever made public and most of which I never finished.

Cue the RBN’s announcement. I was ecstatic for it since it meant more music would come to the game, and I entertained the idea of jumping aboard, but I was hesitant. I didn’t want to join an authoring group, after thinking about doing so at first, because I wanted to make things happen more directly, so I thought about starting a company. However, I was going to dismiss this as a pipe dream that I’d never be able to pull off, until Shylo Elliott (who I met my first year of college through anime club and our mutual love of GH/RB) just said to go for it. He talked me into starting Chart Toppers (and man, I can remember the days we spent throwing around possible names before settling on that one) and after gathering some capital from my parents and working some extra hours at the local movie theater to get more, CTA was born in June 2010. After months of practice (made possible by Shylo’s “Light” which he wrote due to a newfound inspiration to make music thanks to RBN’s existence, Broken Equilibrium’s first two songs which they entrusted to us back when we were a group with no experience and no songs under our belt, and one of Shylo’s friends who let us use one of his MIDI tracks to practice actually compiling a full song) we released our first RBN song Light and everything just went on from there.

Three years later, we got 64 (52 unique) songs into the store, and have many more to come. Sometimes it feels like we haven't done enough. Sometimes I still feel like the new guy in town. So it's hard to believe that three whole years have already gone by.

Thanks to RBN, I’ve discovered, met, worked with, and now listen to a ton of artists I’d never have heard of otherwise, and in what seems like a dream come true I’ve worked with artists I had heard of that I never thought I’d ever get to work with (like Paul and Storm, brentalfloss, Psyguy, ShadyVox, Eurobeat Brony and others). Also thanks to RBN, Shylo and I both found a direction to take in college. He went on to become a Recording Industry major (formerly undeclared) and now has a full album in Rock Band and potentially another one to come. I continued on to complete my degree using the experience I gained while running CTA. Today, I run CTA side-by-side with a full-time office job, and I have RBN and the excellent people at HMX who made it happen to thank for that. Also thanks to RBN, I had an excuse to attend the only convention I’ve ever been to (PAX East 2011) and meet amazing people, and I will be attending PAX East 2013 as well and look forward to seeing any of you who are going.

Long live the RBN.

[samjjones]

Three years later, RBN is still a staggeringly amazing achievement of coordination and innovation, and it's just a damned shame what happened to the rhythm games market since then. But then again, Harmonix has always been more than a house of crazy ideas...they are the engineers who are crazy enough to build products around them; products which have in many cases profoundly impacted lives, both of the people who work on them, and the users who have enjoyed them.

Congratulations to all involved past and present, and long live Rock Band and Rock Band Network.

[AmberianDawn]

It was amazing feeling for us to get on board of this amazing journey! Big Thanks to you all!!

[rose_of_jericho]

Hey, guys. I am so very glad that ROJ is a part of the RBN. It's really been an amazing time and I've made some friendships that I hope will last for a very very long time. Huge thanks to Nord and Carolyn for really making the RBN as successful as it is and for putting up with all of us. And definitely the biggest thanks to everyone that took a chance and downloaded an ROJ song!

[DynasticAnthony]

Hey, guys. I am so very glad that ROJ is a part of the RBN. It's really been an amazing time and I've made some friendships that I hope will last for a very very long time. Huge thanks to Nord and Carolyn for really making the RBN as successful as it is and for putting up with all of us. And definitely the biggest thanks to everyone that took a chance and downloaded an ROJ song!

Thanks for putting Buried Cold on there too! I 5 gold starred it with 99%.

Great song! Lovely vocals!


But back on topic, holy damn, 3 years? If it wasn't for RBN, I wouldn't have a sizable amount of my 430+ songs! Soon to be more with Lego Rock Band!

[kingtonyx]

RBN gave me the push to finally record a song! Maybe a little too hard since I think I rushed it a bit, but either way

I only wish I could have done more songs!

[jawillroy]

The big story for us is that after the humble beginnings of having two RBN-launch tracks as a little duo-collaboration back in 2010 (as James William Roy), over the past year we've released a debut album as The James Rocket ("Launch") and are gigging around NYC as a live act in 2013.

http://thejamesrocket.bandcamp.com/

How'd I miss this? Happy Belated Birthday!