page_title: The Beatles: Rock Band
section_title: Music production
hierarchical_section_title: The Beatles: Rock Band / Development / Music production
caption_attribution_description: Giles Martin at The Mirage Las Vegas 2006
context_page_description: The Beatles: Rock Band is a 2009 music video game developed by Harmonix, published by MTV Games, and distributed by Electronic Arts. It is the third major console release in the Rock Band music video game series, in which players can simulate the playing of rock music by using controllers shaped like musical instruments. The Beatles: Rock Band is the first band-centric game in the series, and it is centered on the popular English rock group the Beatles. The game features virtual portrayals of the four band members performing the songs throughout the band's history, including depictions of some of their famous live performances, as well as a number of "dreamscape" sequences for songs from the Abbey Road Studios recording sessions during the group's studio years. The game's soundtrack consists of 45 Beatles songs; additional songs and albums by the Beatles were made available for the game as downloadable content.
  The game was released internationally on September 9, 2009, coinciding with the release of new, remastered compact disc versions of the Beatles' albums.
context_section_description: Preparing the Beatles' songs for Rock Band was a significant technical challenge for Harmonix. The band's earlier songs, recorded on two- and four-track equipment, needed to be reworked into a multitrack format that is essential in providing feedback to players. Each of the game's four instrument parts need to have their own "stems"—for example, when a player misplays a note from the guitar track, the guitar audio for the song will be temporarily quieted, leaving the other instruments' audio unaffected. Such isolated tracks were not available through the new 2009 remasters, so the team started with the original master recordings.
  The development team was able to bring Giles Martin aboard as the game's music producer. Martin had recently completed co-production on the 2006 Love project with his father George Martin and was already familiar with the Beatles catalogue. Through that project, Martin created digital back-up copies of all the original tapes, which aided his work on The Beatles: Rock Band. Using audio forensics software, Martin and his team were able to extract the audio of individual instruments by isolating sounds at certain frequencies with digital filters, thus assuring multitrack capabilities for the Beatles' master recordings. This process, conducted at Abbey Road Studio 52 with the help of Paul Hicks and other Abbey Road recording engineers, reportedly took months to complete.
  During the game's development, Harmonix only used low-fidelity versions of the remasters, which were sufficient for programming and note charting; Apple Corps feared that the leak of any high-fidelity remastered track from Abbey Road studios would lead to the unauthorized use of samples of the Beatles' music in remixes. High-fidelity versions of the songs were not implemented until the final publishing of the game. Harmonix performed very little additional remixing upon receipt of these remasters; in some cases, three different guitar parts—lead, solo, and rhythm—were brought into a single cohesive guitar part, slightly raising the volume of the specific guitar track that was used in note tracking to make it easier for the player to follow in the game. The ability for up to three players to sing vocal harmonies, a feature not present in previous Rock Band games, was designed and implemented as an optional feature so as not to be overwhelming to players.
  While live recordings of songs, such as "Paperback Writer" at the Budokan, were available, Martin believed some of these renditions were sloppy and would not be enjoyable to play. Instead, he took the studio versions and added audio effects from the live performances to create a "live concert" ambiance. In several instances, the team also opted to slightly restructure the endings to certain songs, particularly those that fade out. Differences in editing between the album versions and in-game versions of songs continued with the release of downloadable content, notably the inclusion of a once-missing final chord at the end of the Abbey Road closer "Her Majesty".
  Dhani Harrison has stated the game will include "stuff that has never been heard, never been released". Some of the new material includes band chatter and instrument tunes taken from recorded performances. This audio plays during the loading screens or bookends certain songs. Within the Abbey Road studio, Martin recreated some of the incidental sound, played through speakers but capturing the acoustics of the studio room. In one instance, for example, this process involved recording four people miming the act of drinking tea. The entirety of the game's credits are also made up of this band chatter and studio takes.
  In coordination with the art team, sound programmers attempted to realistically map the game's note tracks relative to the real performances by the Beatles. For guitar parts, colored notes were selected not necessarily to match tonally with the music, but to replicate the movement and finger positioning used by the original performers. These were then matched against ten different strumming animations to be used for
caption: Giles Martin served as music producer on The Beatles: Rock Band. He had previously co-produced the Love remix album with his father, George Martin, who produced nearly every album by the Beatles.
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