For easy reference, here are some of the videos released about The Beatles: Rock Band. It comes out two weeks from today!
Opening Cinematic
Here's the opening cinematic; a traditional cell animation summarizing the Beatles career in a very entertaining form, this sets the mood for the game.
Gameplay Trailer 1
This was our first look at how gameplay works. Includes bits of "I Saw Her Standing There" in the Cavern Club, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" at the Ed Sullivan Show, "I Feel Fine" at Shea Stadium, "Day Tripper" and "Taxman" at Budokan, dreamscapes of "I Am the Walrus," "Back in the U.S.S.R," "Octopus's Garden" and "Here Comes the Sun," and "Get Back" from the Apple rooftop concert.
Gameplay Trailer 2
Again we start in the Cavern Club, with "Twist and Shout." Check out the Beatles logo on Ringo's drums, this early logo was designed by Paul McCartney and discarded as soon as Ringo bought new Ludwig drums, although the French used it on some album covers and picture sleeves. Also note John's Rickenbacker, in its original un-painted form. Lennon later decided to paint it black. From the Sullivan set, we get "Can't Buy Me Love," "Eight Days a Week" at Shea, "Paperback Writer" at Budokan. Then a dreamscape of "Yellow Submarine," in which the Beatles are wearing the costumes that their cartoon counterparts wore in the animated film of the same name. "Sgt. Pepper," "Within You Without You" and "Revolution" round off this clip.
Gameplay Trailer 3
Here we start off with the Ed Sullivan Show and "A Hard Day's Night." "Drive My Car" from Budokan follows, then dreamscapes of "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds," "Dear Prudence," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Helter Skelter" and "Come Together," concluding with "Don't Let Me Down" from the roof of Apple.
Birthday
Here we get a look at how "Birthday" is presented: we begin in Abbey Road and transition to a dreamscape. That's how most post-1966 music is represented, except for things near the very end of their career that would be appropriate for the Apple rooftop concert.
Ticket To Ride
Here's a similar video for "Ticket To Ride." It's done at Shea Stadium, and the amount of detail is startling. The Beatles logo on the drum head is accurate for the concert; a bolder version than was used in most earlier concerts. And I love one particular shot of two girls screaming, with a man reacting to the noise.
Recently in Beatles Category
"Who would have thought we'd end up as androids." quipped Paul McCartney, alongside former bandmate Ringo Starr yesterday at the E3 gaming expo in Los Angeles.
Aside from a brief glimpse of game footage behind Macca at a recent concert, this was our first look at the design of the game. We'll be able to play as the Beatles in such varied venues as real locations like the Cavern Club, the stage of the Ed Sullivan show, and the rooftop of Apple headquarters, but also in fantasy locations, like the underwater performance of Octopus's Garden.
45 songs will be included with the game. Ten were announced:
- I Saw Her Standing There
- I Want To Hold Your Hand
- I Feel Fine
- Day Tripper
- Taxman
- I Am the Walrus
- Back in the USSR
- Octopus's Garden
- Here Comes the Sun
- Get Back
The presentation was given at a Microsoft demo. Xbox Live users will be able to download "All You Need As Love," with all proceeds going to the charitable organization Doctors Without Borders. Users of all platforms should be able to purchase other individual songs on line, and even albums, starting with Abbey Road.
Also new: a graphic showing all four The Beatles Rock Band instruments.
This gives us our first look at the Rock Band drum kit with its black pearl finish and Beatles and Ludwig logos. It and the Höfner Bass come in the $250 deluxe package. The Gretsch Duo Jet and Rickenbacker 325 will each be available separately for $99.
An article on the web site for The Escapist, a video game web site, has an interesting tidbit from Dhani Harrison. But the author of the article seems to me to be harboring unnecessary negativity.
It was a week ago today that the preorder club opened for "The Beatles Rock Band" game from Harmonix. Now its Tuesday again, and we get to see the Paul McCartney Höfner Bass controller.
I'm a bit relieved to see that in a bow to the dominance of the right handers, this is a right-handed Höfner, not a lefty like Paul's. At first glance, it looks like a nice reproduction. And I should know, I have a real one! McCartney's lost the pick guard some time prior to the filming of Let It Be. A bit of the history of Paul's two Höfners can be read here.
If Harmonix keeps to this apparent pattern of adding stuff on Tuesdays, I expect that next week we'll get a look at the Ludwig-branded Rock Band 2 drums, with the famed drop-T logo of The Beatles.
This just in: Breaking box art, courtesy MTV Networks.
Playstation 3:
This art is incorrectly missing George Harrison's signature:
Wii:
XBox 360:
It could cost you about $450.
It was already announced that The Beatles Rock Band game would be released on September 9, 2009; both in a $60 standalone version and a $250 bundle. That bundle includes the game, a microphone, a microphone stand, and two controllers: One modeled after Paul McCartney's Höfner Bass, and a Rock Band 2 drum kit, fitted out with a classic pearl finish and a Ludwig-branded bass drum skin with The Beatles drop-T logo.
Today, two more things happened: Harmonix opened its preorder club. If you have preordered the game, you get access to an area that currently has a press release, and will soon have extra materials and behind-the-scene videos.
And that press release announced two new controllers! Most attractive, and most like the original, is a Gretsch Duo Jet, just like the one George played during the earlies years of the Beatles' success. Except that its not a real guitar. Think $99.99 is expensive? A new real Duo Jet will set you back around $2500. It is a classy, twangy, great guitar.
Also announced, a Rickenbacker 325. This is not the 12-string George is famous for. It's based on a guitar Lennon bought in Hamburg. The original had gold pickguards, the game controller has white. That's another hundred bucks, thank you.
Sadly, I'll probably have to buy it all.
An interesting but short Engadget piece points to some rumored features for The Beatles Rock Band.
BeatlesNews.com seems to have more detail than any other source I can find on the remasters of the Beatles catalog. I've bullet-pointed some of the most interesting technical details, but I recommend the full article for details.
- Tracks transferred to Pro Tools at 24-bit 192 kHz
- Songs transferred one-at-a-time
- Tape heads cleaned for each song
- Clicks, mic pops, bad edits fixed where possible without harming integrity of recording
- Subtle de-noising, only 5 minutes of music needed this
- Limiting used to increase overall volume of stereo tracks, EMI claims "moderate" use to retain original dynamics
- Limiting not used on mono recordings
- Critcal listening done at Abbey Road studio 3, and another location
Also included, biographies of the engineers who accomplished the remastering.
It is now clear that the main albums will be the original mixes, except Help! and Rubber Soul which will use the 1987 George Martin remixes. I expect that those two albums will see the smallest improvements, as the original analog-to-digital conversions were done in 1987 and then mixed digitially.
The New York Times article about the upcoming Beatles re-releases states that the 1987 George Martin remixes will be used for Help! and Rubber Soul, and that the original stereo mixes will be used for the other albums. I don't find that information anywhere else. If true, its awfully disappointing.
I've been waiting a long time for this. For the first time since 1987 & 1988, the original Beatles albums are remastered and due for reissue.
It sounds like Apple Corps has taken a good approach to this. Let's look at what the press release says, and what it doesn't say.
The date of the release has been timed to coincide with the release of The Beatles Rock Band game from Harmonix. Think "number nine...number nine...number nine."
14 titles, 16 discs. All in stereo, all with the original UK album designs and song orders. The albums would be, in release order:
- Please Please Me
- With the Beatles
- A Hard Day's Night
- Beatles For Sale
- Help!
- Rubber Soul
- Revolver
- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Magical Mystery Tour (as released originally in the US)
- The Beatles (aka The White Album)
- Yellow Submarine
- Abbey Road
- Let It Be
- Past Masters
A couple of notes on that list: Although Magical Mystery Tour was released in the UK as a double-disk EP, this will be the album as it was released in the US, which became a part of the international core catalog during the first remastering in 1987. Past Masters, which was originally two separately sold CDs containing non-album tracks, will now be sold as one album.
For a limited time, each of these albums except Past Masters will also include a QuickTime mini-documentary on the making of the album, including never-before-heard studio chatter from The Beatles.
If you're a collector, you'll also be able to buy all of these stereo albums in a box set, and the mini-docmentaries will be included on an accompanying DVD.
Of even more interest to serious collectors: A second box set entitled "The Beatles in Mono." Ten albums of the mono mixes, which were almost always the mixes on which the Beatles and George Martin slaved over. The stereo mixes, until very late in the game, were afterthoughts. In fact, the mono versions of The White Album and Yellow Submarine weren't even released in the United States back in the LP days. And it's the description in the press release of these mono discs that leads me to believe we'll be hearing entirely new, albeit faithful, mixes.
"As an added bonus, the mono "Help!" and "Rubber Soul" discs also include the original 1965 stereo mixes, which have not been previously released on CD."
--thebeatles.com press release
According to the press release, the tunes have been remastered over a four-year period, but it isn't clear from the release what this remastering entails. I think it entails a lot. Back when The Beatles first were released on CD in 1987, George Martin was unhappy with the state of the mixed masters. So the first four albums were issued in mono only, and Help! and Rubber Soul were actually remixed by Martin in 1987 from the multi-track masters.
What I suspect and hope is that these are all new remixes, made from the original source tapes, not the original mixes. Why do I hope this? Because other Beatles remixes have proved to me it can be a valid approach. The 1999 CD of the Yellow Submarine Songtrack was entirely remixed, and sounds amazing. Even better, the Cirque du Soleil LOVE Soundtrack. Although much of that album is not faithful to the original mixes, listen to the LOVE version of I Am the Walrus. Loudly. It is amazing, and until the last minute or so of the song, retains the original's feel. If the experts at Abbey Road studios have worked their magic right, it should sound like years of grime have been cleaned away from these recordings. My only regret is that they won't be in surround sound, at least not yet. The surround sound mixes on the Yellow Submarine DVD and the LOVE DVD-Audio disk are superb. Furthermore, if they were using the original mixes for the core CDs, why would they bother to put the original stereo mixes on the mono discs of Help! and Rubber Soul? I doubt they would use the 1987 mixes of those two albums for the main part of this project.
It will be interesting to learn what the engineers have actually done. Of course, many of the early recordings are just on two-track or three-track tape. In fact, I've read that the original recordings for "She Loves You" have been lost; and that the version we're currently used to on CD was mastered from a 45 rpm single. But we'll know all the answers in five months and two days.
The interactive folks have mostly gone home, the movie awards are over (although screenings continue), and musicians are arriving in droves. On to the next part of SXSW!
I continue to enjoy sleeping late, which has the unfortunate side effect of limiting which panels I can attend. Furthermore, I got goofed up today and went to the wrong place for one.
That panel was "Policy Trainwreck: How Copyright Law Failed the Digital Age." I ended up catching about 3/4 of the discussion, which was mostly about music and ways for musicians to control their works. Interesting stuff, but not directly applicable to anything I'm doing, at least not yet.
After that, I went to the reception for the Film Awards. There, I bumped into Becky James, a delightful young animator whom I met earlier on the shuttle bus between our hotel and the convention center. She introduced me to her friend Matt Boch, a creative designer at Harmonix, makers of Rock Band. We talked at some length about the excitement over The Beatles Rock Band game that will be released on 09/09/09 (Number nine. Number nine. Number nine). While Matt stuck to his NDA and didn't reveal anything new, he was able to tell me that Dani Harrison, George's look-alike son, has been instrumental in making the game happen, and frequently visits the Harmonix offices. Matt says the Beatles game is fantastic. He gets to play it every week. I am so freaking jealous!
After that, I attended the film awards themselves. It was great watching the excitement of the winners. The aforementioned Becky James won a special judges award for the poster she and Lydia Corkin designed for James' film "Snake."
For the full list of winners, see sxsw.com/film.
Following the awards, I got in line to see "Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie." Clown noses were passed out. I hopped into a seat and introduced myself to the guy sitting next to me, who turned out to be the film's producer, David Becker. SXSW is so cool! And I hadn't noticed, but in the fourth seat from me was none other than Wavy Gravy himself. I'd met him at a party a few days earlier and got a picture with him. But famed photographer Lisa Law set up to take a photo of the whole audience around Wavy, wearing their red noses! Becker had temporarily left his seat, and there was nobody between Wavy and me, so I popped into the chair right next to him for the photo. I can't wait to get a copy of that from Law.
The film itself was exceptional. In fact, they won me over with the very first bit of music, because the song was "Indian Lake" by the Cowsills, which just happens to be the very first record I ever purchased with my own money, back in 1968, when I was 10 or 11 years old. But the whole story of Wavy and his great kindness and charity was a delight from start to finish. Like his friends the Grateful Dead said, what a long, strange trip it's been.
The film ended after midnight, so I strolled over to 6th street, the main bar and music scene in Austin. I had a delicious burger at The Jackalope, and found friendly people who told me pirate jokes. This is a very friendly place to be.
Tomorrow: More movies and finally some music!
Back in December, I posted about the deluxe digital edition of The Fireman's Electric Arguments album.
If you, like I, have been waiting for it (we were told it would come in January.
Now it looks like April. I got this email today:
Electric Arguments Deluxe Limited Edition Order Delay
March 02, 2009
Hello,
We're emailing you because your Deluxe Limited Edition of Electric Arguments hasn't shipped according to schedule. We're very sorry for the delay and wanted to give you an update on your order status.
In an effort to ensure the highest quality deluxe product available, design and production have taken longer than originally anticipated. We are now looking at 4/15/09 as the delivery date for Deluxe Limited orders, and we are progressing well towards that goal. Again, we're very sorry for any inconvenience this has caused, and we sincerely thank you for your patience. We're very pleased with how the package is taking shape, and we can't wait to get it in your hands.
Best regards,
The Fireman Team
Considering my obsessive fanship of The Beatles, I haven't listened to all of Paul McCartney's new collaboration with Youth, Electric Argument. Its the third album by the duo, known as "The Fireman," and by far the most accessible. It's been getting generally great reviews, and from the part I've heard, its much more interesting than Paul's previous effort (although I enjoyed that one too).
But what really has me exicited is a series of digital packages that are available. Although I had already bought the CD, Macca's marketing mind has suckered me in to spending another $90+, including shipping and handling. But its good for the budget conscious as well. Read on for more!
On the Fireman Music home page, you can listen to all of the tracks on line for free. That's a pretty good start. But go to the purchase page, and it's clear that Paul McCartney (and Youth) are not ones to fear piracy.
For $8.99, you can immediately download the entire album in non-DRM, 320Kbps LAME-encoded MP3 files, about as good as MP3 files can get. And, if you click the little links right below it, included will be lossless files in your choice of FLAC and Apple Lossless. That's a damn fine deal.
For four dollars more, get the downloads right away and they'll ship you a CD with a full colour (I love the British spelling) 48-page booklet. Shipping prices begin to get a little outrageous, but what can you do?
Vinyl collectors can pony up about $30 and they get the downloads, the CD, and a specially mastered audiophile quality LP.
And for me, the most exciting package, is the Digital + Deluxe Limited Edition. It won't ship until January, but in addition to the immediate downloads, the CD and the LP, you get another CD with bonus tracks and outtakes, a DVD with high-definition recordings of the music, an art print, a booklet, and... wait for it...
A DVD with multitrack session files of some of the album tracks, allowing weirdos like me to remix the songs with our own sense of creativity. It's $80, but I can't wait to mess with Macca tracks.
More touring around Liverpool. It was off to Paul's old school, now the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts, where there was a Beatles auction.
John Lennon's sister, Julia Baird, was one of our guides for a coach tour of Liverpool.
