Harmonix+Music+Systems

**__Intro to Harmonix __** Harmonix Music Systems is a subsidiary of MTV games. It is most famous for inventing the first Guitar Hero game. Since the game released, they have made Guitar Hero II, Rock Band, Rock Band 2, and The Beatles: Rock Band among many others. They started off making games for the Playstation 2 that used music as the base for the game. Players would hit certain buttons and make the track play while trying to get as many notes as possible. These games were called Frequency and Amplitude. Then the company made Karaoke Revolution volumes 1 2 and 3. Then in 2005, Harmonix created a video game which opened a whole new genre of games. This video game was Guitar Hero. In Guitar Hero, the game is played with a guitar shaped controller on which the player must strum and press fret buttons in order to play the selected song. This idea revolutionized the video game world. After Guitar Hero II, Harmonix won multiple awards and moved onto a new project. This new idea was a Guitar Hero, but not just with guitar. This idea resulted in Rock Band and Rock Band 2, both very popular games including the guitar as well as drums and vocals. The next project was The Beatles: Rock band, which consisted of all Beatles songs.

Harmonix Music Systems recently released a game for the new XBOX 360 motion detection software, Kinect. Dance Central is the title of the new game in which players can dance to many different songs while they do the correct dance moves displayed on the screen. The Kinect is like Nintendo Wii, except the controller... is your body! The camera on the Kinect tracks movement and can be used for any type of videogame. In Dance Central, different dance moves are displayed on the screen which you must do in order to get points and to keep the dancer on the screen dancing. Popular moves like the sprinkler, the double dig, the robot, the fist pump, the knockout, the hitch hike, the freeze, and even song specific dance moves like "the jerk" and the "souljia boy". Like the rest of Harmonix's games, Dance Central is a great game to play with friends.
 * __ Dance Central __**

__** Rock Band 3 **__ Rock Band 3, the most recent installment of the ultra-popular Rock Band series. Like the other 4 games of the Rock Band series, this game features songs which can be played with the original selection of instruments: guitar controller with 5 fret buttons, drum set with 4 pads and a kick drum pedal, bass guitar(same as guitar controller), and vocals. However, three new instruments have been added to Rock Band 3. They are as follows: harmonies which can be sung in addition to the lead vocals (previously featured in The Beatles: Rock Band), a new keyboard controller with 25 keys, and a brand new "pro" guitar controller with 17 frets each with 6 strings and a button for each string on the fret which means there are (6x17) 102 buttons!!!!!! This almost forces the user to learn how to play the real guitar in order to play pro mode. Who ever can play hard difficulty on pro mode must be extremely talented, or must play the real guitar well. There is so much put into this new pro guitar controller. Basically, everything you can do with a real electric guitar, you can do with this controller. Individual string strumming, slides, chords. hammer ons and pull offs, even arpeggios, you name it. **__A demo of the pro guitar controller can be seen below__**. There is also somewhat of a pro drum set controller called the ION electronic drum kit, which can also be used as an electronic drum kit outside of the game. This controller has the original 4 drum pad and kick pedal with an additional 3 cymbals and a hi-hat with its corresponding pedal. Rock Band 3 is the closest you can get to playing in a real band without knowing how to play an instrument. With so many instruments there are many songs in the game which have most if not all of the instrument in it. There are also songs which have specific instruments that play most of the song. Overall, this game is beautiful. Play it. Now.

I did some research into the reviews of Harmonix games. Here are some links and quotes of the reviews (both written and video) of most of the games from IGN.


 * __Frequency__**: " I missed appointments, forgot about lunch; nothing existed outside that game. I still didn't realize I was hooked, though, until I did it the next day. And the next. This, my friends, is digital crack in the purest sense." []


 * __Guitar Hero__**: "Music games have a tendency to be great fun for parties and such, but very few of them have ever struck that certain primal chord deep inside all of us -- the same chord that makes you want to kick back with a cold one and eat three pounds of meat hot off the barbeque in the middle of summer while lounging in your backyard in a ripped up t-shirt you've been wearing since high school. Guitar Hero is one of those rare games that does just this, and we even say that it's better than three pounds of meat. Beer? That's a close one. But meat? Hell yeah. It kicks meat's ass. " []

media type="custom" key="7894041" align="right" width="42" height="42"
 * __Rock Band__**: Metallica, The Ramones, The Rolling Stones -- these are some of the legendary bands in rock. And now, thanks to Harmonix's Rock Band, you and your friends can join the legendary pantheon of rock gods.


 * __The Beatles Rock Band__**: "It is a singular entity -- a sort of private Hall of Fame for the greatest band that ever lived."

media type="custom" key="7894063" width="60" height="60" align="center"

**__Dance Central__**: "It takes a special kind of bravery to stand up in front of a group of people and dance like a crazy person."

media type="custom" key="7894077" width="60" height="60" align="left"

__**Rock Band 3**__: "For some, this will be just the same ol' Rock Band. For others, this is the beginning of a whole new way to experience music."

media type="custom" key="7894153"



I spoke with Mr. Walter Winshall, an early investor, about Harmonix. Here is the interview:

JK: Please describe your role in Harmonix.

WW: I was one of the early investors, back in 1996 when the company had only 8 employees. I joined the board of directors, and over ten years I helped with four rounds of financing. I have acted as both an observer and an advisor to the company's founders.

JK: How did Harmonix make the jump from simple music video games like Frequency, Amplitude, and Karaoke Revolution to the famous Guitar Hero games?

WW: We were always focused on our main goal which was to enable non musicians to experience making music. In the beginning it started out with the mechanism to let you make music with a keyboard or mouse. The idea of putting that idea into a game came later, around 2000-2001. It was difficult because we had the software and computer skills, but not the gaming expertise. Out of that came initial games which you call "simple" games that used existing controllers (Playstation 2). Specialized hardware came from outside. We were approached Red Octane, who made the dance pad for Konami's Dance Dance Revolution (as well as the one for Harmonix's game Karaoke Revolution). They said they would make an instrument controller if we made the game. After that they wanted to use Harmonix's software talent, and then made the guitar controllers in China. Red Octane distributed Guitar Hero in 2005, it turned out to be a hit.

JK: What was the process in which Harmonix decided to evolve from the single instrument game of Guitar Hero to the multi-instrument format of Rock Band?

WW: Immediate customer feedback! People said: "This is great... where's the rest of the band?" We knew right away what was next. Clear market feedback brought up the idea for Rock Band. Activision bought Red Octane and they didn't value Harmonix's software developers because they had their own. So... we made Rock Band on our own.

JK: In games such as The Beatles Rock Band and Green Day Rock Band how did the artists contribute to the authenticity of the games?

WW: Well, Beatles was a one of a kind game. Each of the 4 parties of The Beatles (Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, George Harrison's son, and Ringo Starr) had to approve the graphics, timeline, etc. They were all very involved, some more than others though. For example, on one occasion, Yoko Ono did not like the way John Lennon nodded his head. So we had to change that of course. Green Day on the other hand was always interested from the early stages of Guitar Hero. It was a much less complicated relationship. They were just happy to be in the same category as The Beatles. Beatles took over a year to make, and Green Day only took about 3-4 months.

JK: Could you talk about the future of Harmonix?

WW: Rock Band could potentially become a platform for music distribution, or in other words a publishing method for artists. Also with the new "Real" controllers, they are getting closer to actually playing the real instrument. There could also be an opportunity to explore creating or composing your own music. Lastly there is the new area of the dance games like Dance Central with the new motion sensors of Microsoft Kinect.

JK: Thank you very much for your time.



media type="youtube" key="D5De9eCH1EU?fs=1" height="229" width="384"



Sources: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonix_Music_Systems Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5De9eCH1EU IGN: http://www.ign.com/