Harmonix CEO and Co-founder Alex Rigopulos

An exclusive interview with Harmonix CEO and Co-founder Alex Rigopulos, and Creative Producer and Music Supervisor for The Beatles: Rock Band, Giles Martin straight from Abbey Road Studios in London.
Alex and Giles took a few minutes to offer The Beatles: Rock Band fans some insight on the difficult process of deciding which songs would make it onto the disc; they also shed some light on what to expect from the dreamscapes and cut scenes featured in the game.

The interview is revealing the way TB:RB was created, starting from the concept, choosing which songs will be featured and the challenges the creative team had to deal with.

In an anwer to the question What were the most challenging tracks you had to work with that you had to de-mix, Giles answered:

“The most challenging tracks are the early ones such as, “Twist and Shout” and “I Saw Her Standing There” because they are all just stereos and are using different elements. For example, take “I Want To Hold Your Hand” – its bass, guitars and drums are all on a single track, so we had to be very careful when de-mixing these earlier songs to ensure that we didn’t alter the sound. We have to represent [The Beatles] in the best way possible and they were such an amazing band and amazing players that we have to sync to that. The later the music gets the easier it becomes for us.”

Giles and Alex also explains what is the difference between The Beatles Rock Band and other Rock Band games:

Giles: “It is very different because Rock Band generally favors bands that have lots of guitars and play riffs and stuff like that. People know Beatles’ songs by the words and they know them by singing along. But it’s funny because their instrumentation has always been very precise and very good, and it’ll be the first time that people will start listening to what’s being played underneath. I think that’s a great thing because they were damn fine players.

Alex: “They were, and particularly some of the drum parts. There were intricacies in some of the drum grooves that I had just never noticed before and I think people are going to touch that for the first time and it’s going to change how people understand this music.”

Read the full interview