The Official Harmonix Podcast

The Harmonix podcast returns after a year-long break! We're recording the podcast live on the Harmonix livestream each week, and our first episode features User Researcher Matt Kristek. Matt runs all of playtesting for Harmonix and was a guest on the podcast back in the day. Join us for the return of the podcast, and tune in to the livestream on Wednesday afternoons to see the show recorded live!

It’s been a massively eventful month for Rock Band 4. We’ve done a month of in-depth coverage with IGN First touching on numerous aspects of the game. The crew runs down what sort of stories you can find there, and chats about how great it’s been taking Rock Band 4 back on the road again!

This week’s a very special show. 20 years ago almost to the day, Harmonix Music Systems, Inc opened its doors for the first time. Those doors may or may not have been on Alex Rigopulos’ parents’ house. Tune in and take a walk down memory lane with Alex and co-founder Eran Egozy as they share their memories of starting up the company after grad school.

On the latest podcast we talk with the “Harmonix Playtest Guy,” and pull in a few guests who have worked closely with him to talk about playtesting! What is playtest? Why is it important? How does playtesting make games better? All important questions that we answer IN THIS SHOW. Give it a listen and sign up at HarmonixMusic.com/playtest for a chance to come in and help playtest our games (like Rock Band 4 or Amplitude) before they are officially released!

In the latest episode of the Harmonix podcast, we talk about game development, game jams, making games, making jam, and more! This podcast includes pro tips for aspiring game developers from Harmonix design guru, Chris Foster. Don’t miss it!

PAX East is over! We announced Rock Band 4! We’re back in the office and we’re all so tired! Tune in for a recap of one of the busiest weeks we’ve had in the last few years, with plenty of details about the RB4 announce, what’s coming up next for RB4, and a rundown of all the games, merch, panels, and parties that kept us busy during PAX East! Are exclamation points really necessary for all of these sentences? YES!

It's happening! It's really happening! Rock Band 4 is coming later this year. We sit down with a group of special guests to talk about the new game.

This week on the show we discuss another batch of surprise Rock Band 3 DLC! We’re also joined by our friend Alexander Sliwinski, recently of Joystiq. He joins us for a rousing discussion about the games press!

PAX East returns to Boston in a month, and Harmonix has a whole lotta STUFF planned for the show. Tune in to hear what games we'll be showing off, and get the early scoop on our party plans. There's a ton more info coming, but this episode of the podcast kicks off our 2015 event season plans!

This week on the show the gang discusses our newly released Rock Band 3 DLC, as well as an informational survey about your Rock Band playing habits!

Hey! We announced new Rock Band DLC today! Listen to this show to hear us talk about it.

With just days left in the year, a few of the chuckleheads on the Publishing team decided to put as little work as possible into the podcast by doing a Game Of The Year wrap up. Everybody else is doing it, so why shouldn't we? Tune in to find out if Aaron finally set up his Xbox One (spoilers: he didn't), if Nick gave him guff for it (spoilers: he did), and if Pope's new baby helps him beat Dark Souls 2 (spoilers: he might!). Thanks to everyone that listened to the show in 2014. We'll do better next year, we promise!

The Harmonix publishing team recently hit the road for a multi-city tour showing Amplitude off to press and giving the public hands-on with our latest build! This episode features tales from the road, lousy times with airlines, our experience at the PlayStation Experience in Vegas (spoiler: it was a whole lot of fun), and tons of bragging about our amazing fans. We also try to do our best Skeletor impressions. We’re really tired. Listen now!

To celebrate the 7th anniversary of the release of Rock Band, we sat down with Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos and Rock Band’s Audio Director Eric Brosius to revisit their favorite launch memories. Part nostalgia trip, part master class in trivia (seriously, even the regular podcast crew learned a few Harmonix secrets during recording), this episode celebrates the excitement and uncertainty of the earliest days of the Rock Band franchise.

In this very special episode of the Harmonix podcast, Amplitude Product Lead Annette Gonzalez is joined by the Amplidudes Ryan Lesser (Creative Lead), Pete Maguire (Audio Lead), and Jeff Allen (Sound Designer) to share some exciting news. Amplitude will be playable at the PlayStation Experience in December! Find out more about the demo we’re working on, get a sneak peek (listen?) at some of the music from the game, learn about Amplitude’s narrative, and more! Listen nowwww.

After a busy few weeks following the release of A City Sleeps and Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, the team relaxes by sharing our favorite Halloween stories. This ends up being more sad than scary, as Annette only ever had one costume, Christine was forced to trick-or-treat on an apartment complex, Aaron cries about how sad the Garfield Halloween special was, and Pope turns into a ghost. So tune in for some spooooOoOOoOooOOky (i.e. sad) stories!

Jeepers creepers, we’ve been doing this darn show for 5 years! Join us for a trip down memory lane as we reminisce about our earliest episodes, lessons learned, and loves lost. For maximum nostalgia we’re joined by an extra special guest, Harmonix alum Sean Baptiste! Give a listen for info on past, present, and future Harmonix games in this audio birthday bash.

In this episode of the Harmonix podcast, we talk to Composer/Sound Designer Steve Pardo for his first appearance on the podcast! We chat about his work on Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, his work on our other games, and his musical talents outside of Harmonix. Get a sneak peek at the process behind creating remixes for Fantasia.

Exhausted and a little loopy, we’ve finally settled back in the office after a hectic summer of travel. In this episode we recap our adventures at PAX, a whirlwind tour across Asia (demoing in 3 countries in 5 days), and a local show at the Boston FIG in our own backyard. We showed Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, Dance Central: Spotlight, Amplitude, and A City Sleeps at these shows, so this one has something for everyone! Also, we make plans to kill Nick. Don’t tell him.

This week on the show we’ve got the development team from our exciting new PC/Mac shoot ‘em up game, A City Sleeps! Arthur, Perly, and Ryan spin yarns like you wouldn’t believe, going deep on some game development science, soundtrack composition magic, and hardcore shmups history. These guys really know their stuff, so enjoy, as this might be our most information-packed episode yet. Don’t worry, we’ll get back to goofs in a future episode!

Nonsensecast this week as the skeleton crew not out on the road promoting our games gets together to discuss their best and worst vacation stories. Caution: lots of talk of barfing in moving vehicles.

The Harmonix Road Warriors (Jessa and Annette) are joined by a stay at home office blob (Aaron) to recap their recent trip to San Diego Comic Con and mentally prepare themselves for upcoming trips to Gamescom and PAX. It’s a solid run down of what we’ve shown for Dance Central Spotlight and Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved and what we’ll be showing later in the summer. If you won’t be able to catch us on the road you can tune in for the next best thing!

The Amplitude team stops by the Harmonix podcast to let us know what they’ve been up to since the Kickstarter’s been funded. Get an update on development, a sneak preview of design ideas the team is kicking around, plans for the game’s soundtrack, and hear about that one time during the original Amplitude days where DeVron almost got into a fight. Sort of.

The Harmonix crew takes a break in between convention travel to welcome our brand new officemates, the fine folks from Proletariat, Inc! We dig into their awesome game *World Zombination*, run down our travel plans for the summer, and we learn a little bit about each other… and ourselves.

We did it! We all made it out of E3 in one piece! Except for Pope, but he’s a leper. Join us for our first show back from E3 2014 where we discuss the recent announcement of Dance Central Spotlight, the sheer joy of demoing Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, and the weirdness of meeting famous people at giant industry events. Chuck Liddell, magic, the Lieutenant Governor of California, gummy bears… this episode has it all!

With Dance Central Spotlight just announced, it was a perfect time to sit down with Project Lead Matthew Nordhaus and Designer Alli Thresher to get the scoop! Tune in to hear all about (and we seriously mean ALL about) the new cool things we’re doing this time around. Get the inside track on the characters, the vibe, the talent, and the crazy shenanigans that have kept us busy every day of development so far. No, but seriously, there’s all sorts of warm fuzzies in this. You’ve been asking about a new Dance Central title and we are psyched to deliver!

It happened. We did it. After a rough and tumble 18 days, we got Amplitude's Kickstarter fully funded!! The gang sits down for a short show to talk about how exhausting running a Kickstarter truly is.

On this week's show we sit down with John Drake and Amplitude Project Director Ryan Lesser to chat at length about remaking Amplitude, as well as our new mobile game, Record Run!

The stalwart crew of the good ship Harmonix has returned home from another PAX East, their stores laden down with riches and a fanciful song in their hearts. Delight in their retelling of adventures past, of myriad panels, parties, and announcements! Their bold triumphs are sure to thrill and inspire all listeners, from enthusiasts of electronic entertainment, to fans of frivolity. Here be dragons.

The keynote speaker for PAX East 2014 was our own CEO, Alex Rigopulos. Instead of hearing the usual crew yammering, we though you might enjoy to hear Alex's talk instead! If you prefer to SEE as well as HEAR, you can check out the video, embedded below!

With PAX East a mere week away, the Harmonix Zoo Crew is preeeeeeeetty loopy. Tune in to check out our gradual meltdown as we realize Harmonix folks are hosting two parties, the keynote speech, and making appearances on TEN different panels. Plus, get some essential deets on Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, Chroma, and how to properly pronounce Aaron and Erin.

Join us for an exciting discussion about the ins and outs of game design with our very own Ken Strickland! Ken is Lead Designer on Chroma, an alum of Bioshock Infinite, a Carnegie Melon grad, and a noted enthusiast of Alex Baldwin’s 1994 film The Shadow. We cover everything from Ken’s secret origin, Chroma’s Closed Alpha, drippy walls, and our plans for PAX East in April!

This week on the show we sit down with Chroma’s narrative designer, and all around good guy, Matt Derby. Derby is a published author (Super Flat Times, The Silent History) and is a noted expert in the field of user experience design. Revel at the juicy narrative details he shares about Chroma, and be enraptured by his tales of Arby’s and Pawtucket, RI!

Join the Three Amigos (Pope, Aaron, and Matt K) as they discuss the recent announce of Chroma, the new music-driven shooter from Harmonix! We run down the broad overview of what Chroma is, some details on the upcoming alpha, dish some dirt on the extensive playtest approach to our first Steam title, and marvel at Matt’s cassette collection.

In this episode of the Harmonix podcast, our very own Dawn Rivers joins the community team to talk about her undying love for our studio, discuss her work as a lighting artist on , plus offers tips on how to get more involved in your local gaming community! Tune in and stay tuned to the podcast for some big announcements in the coming weeks!

A short podcast this week, with a bunch of the crew out for various reasons. We talk about our office move, upcoming events, and just how hungry and cranky we are when we book a podcast recording over lunch.

With the gang all back from the holiday break, we sit down and jaw and jabber about what we've been up to. Talk, as it tends to do, drifts toward that manly beacon of acting, Emilio. Estevez. Enjoy.

Another year is coming to a close at Harmonix. Tune in as we start to discuss what we did this year, but then throw all that away in favor of doing an impromptu game of the year discussion.

As has begun to be an annual tradition for us on the podcast, for Thanksgiving, we decided to talk about all our favorite foods. Also, please pay attention to the new hit opening track to this episode: a tale of a boy and his love of fudge and cannolis. Happy Thanksgiving, America!

3 years ago, on a night JUST LIKE tonight, Harmonix released upon the world a magical new dance game experience: . Hear stories about how the company created the "killer app" for the Kinect!

We've got a very special episode of the podcast this week! Award-winning composer Inon Zur joins Harmonix Community Manager Annette Gonzalez and Project Lead Daniel Sussman to discuss his work on our upcoming game Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved. In this podcast you'll hear about the original compositions and remixes Inon created for Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved.

On a brisk day in late October, almost 3 years ago to the day, Rock Band 3 was released into the wild! It remains the most ambitious RB title we ever released, as well as the highest Metacritic ranked music game of all time (even though we couldn’t remember that while recording). Join us as we swap stories about our favorite RB3 memories, our harrowing convention trips, Jessa’s wedding, and Michael Keaton.

Did you know that one chunk equals $50,000? Tune in to find out how we determined that, based on a letter Steve Albini wrote to Nirvana! We also dive into other current events in the world of Music, Movies, and Games, and have a spirited discussion of dog owner ethics.

This week's episode was recorded in front of a LIVE studio (panel) audience at PAX Prime 2013. We invited some of our indie game dev friends to join us and talk about their awesome projects coming up! Tune in and hear what Double Fine, Young Horses, Capy Games, and SuperGiant Games are up to!

Back from a whirlwind trip to the Disney D23 convention, and with the bulk of the team still on the road, a skeleton crew sits down to talk D23, karaoke, Aaron Neville, and eating food from strangers.

Trying something new this week, the gang brings a slew of current headlines from music, gaming, and everything in between to discuss. It's like The McLaughlin Group but younger and with more yelling.

The 100th episode is here!! And we neglected to even talk about how it's the 100th episode in the podcast because we are too focused on THE FUTURE! We chat with Harmonix Audio Director Eric Brosius, who is also serving as the Audio Lead for Fantasia: Music Evolved. Tune in for excellent insights into how audio and music are integral to bringing the magic of the game to life.

99 Episodes! Holy moly! The gang celebrates this (almost) momentous occasion by doing the only thing they know how to do: inanely discuss their favorite family restaurants. They also dip into their travel schedule for the rest of the summer, in case you're wondering where you can see us!

With the team back from debuting Fantasia: Music Evolved at E3, they've got a lot of excitement to share with you. Tune in to find out how the show went for Harmonix, and hear about the amazing reactions to our new game!

In case you missed the news, we've announced the next game from Harmonix! Teaming up with Disney, we've created an incredible new game, Fantasia: Music Evolved, for Kinect on the Xbox One and the Xbox 360! We have the game's Creative Director, Matt Boch, and its Project Director, Daniel Sussman, on this episode to talk all things Fantasia: Music Evolved!