We’ve had a lot of “policy” discussion happening in individual playtesting threads, so I want to move those discussions here and use this OP as a living log of rules that are different from or not listed in the RBN documentation (which is otherwise the design bible for customs).

Stuff in this post:

• Rule: Non-negotiable while the rule is in place. Songs that do not follow these will not be released. If you want to break a rule, you need to persuade us as to why it should be changed.
• Guideline: How we prefer for you to do it, but we usually won’t “fail” a song if you don’t agree. That does not mean it’s OK for you to break a guideline on every one of your songs! You should break a guideline only if the song you’re working on really needs it for some reason. Like a rule, if you intend on breaking a guideline on all of your songs, you need to convince us that the guideline should be changed.
• Reminder: Things from the RBN docs and/or things that add an extra level of polish that you should keep in mind.

Change log:

– November 18, 2013: Initial post.

Rules

• The Catch-All Rule: The C3 admin team always has the final say when it comes to our rules and guidelines. This rule is not in place as a “fuck you, we make the rules, sucka!” Seriously, let me reiterate that: We are not trying to rule with an iron fist. Every time we enforce a rule, it’s because we think it will result in a better end product for people downloading your song. We care about how your song looks and plays above all, because those reflect on C3 as a whole. We are not targeting you specifically.
• All songs in playtesting must include the REAPER project file and the song media, not just the CON. Playtesting in REAPER is much faster and more efficient than testing in-game for everything but vocals and PK.
• Guitar and bass parts must represent a single instrument through the entire song whenever possible. One of the driving forces behind Rock Band as a franchise is a constant desire for realism. This was often not the case in RBN and is frequently not the case in customs, but C3 upholds this value. Even if a guitar part is boring, it should be what you are playing on guitar. Pitched notes that do not sound like a guitar belong on Keys, period. It is way more acceptable for keys to jump between instruments than guitar. Now, the exception here is if a song’s guitar part is really buried in the mix or it has no guitar part at all. In those cases, you may chart synth/etc. to guitar, but it should be the most “guitar-ish” of the synths (if applicable) and it needs to always represent that part throughout the song. Also, obviously, you can switch between two different guitar parts to author whatever is most interesting — they just have to be actual guitars.
• Album art must exactly match other songs from that album. This means getting the png_xbox file from previous releases to make absolutely sure. If you don’t have it, we will provide it for you. If you and another author are releasing tracks from the same album in the same week, make sure the art matches!
• Obvious animation markers are required, but more subtle ones are not. Specifically, every instrument needs to [play] and [idle] correctly, and the drummer needs to animate correctly. Not required: Left hand animations and chord mappings for G/B, left hand animations for K/PK
• We require practice sections. These were optional in RBN. Most of us need them for venue autogen anyway.
• No additions to song audio without artist consent. If you simply must, release an alternate version fo the song with your extras. This rule does not apply to the count-in audio.

Guidelines

• Pro Keys should be authored whenever possible. The only possible exceptions are if the keys part is really buried in the mix or the the keys part is not important to the song (i.e. not a recognizable hook), AND there is no MIDI on the Internet that includes the keys part. Ask yourself: “could anyone author this part given the mix that we have?” If the answer is yes, the song will not be released until PK is authored.
• Vocals should only be used for human vocal noises whenever possible. Woodwinds/etc. on vocals is a topic that is still under debate. At the very least, we may require such charts to be released as an alternate version.
• Use an isolated dryvox file to generate lip-sync whenever possible. Putting the fully mixed song through the lip-sync generator usually looks pretty bad. Record yourself singing or speaking the vocals part if you don’t have a vocals stem. No one will ever hear that recording but you (just make sure not to include it in your RAR!)

Reminders

• Make sure your vocals phrases leave space at the beginning and end (i.e. they don’t sync up with the start of the first note or the end of the last note). This looks bad in game.
• Check your vocals capitalization and spelling, and then check it again. These are the easiest errors to notice in a preview video, and the most likely to make us look bad.
• Tubes should sync up between HARM1/HARM2/HARM3 whenever possible. It is OK for harmony notes to be a little bit desynced if it means it’ll look better in-game.
• Be very familiar with the E/M/H (reductions) standards for all instruments. Most reductions are very similar, and this is how it should be. Don’t try to do fancy/unique reductions.
• Make sure your chart is quantized to the grid — 16ths (preferred) or 32nds for instruments, 64ths for vocals.
• Remember to add a count-in.
• Remember to add practice sections.
• You can open multiple harmony tracks in one MIDI editor simultaneously to compare tube lengths and relative pitches.

This thread is subject to change, and will be updated regularly as our standards evolve. If you have any other helpful reminders, would like to suggest a guideline or rule, or want to discuss the existing policies, post away!