News: Period-piece microphones perfectly rendered in Beatles game

Even the microphones the Beatles sang into on all their great hits have been perfectly rendered on the new The Beatles: Rock Band game.

The world’s most respected name in high-end studio microphones, Neumann, and its parent company, Sennheiser, teamed up with music-based games developer Harmonix Music Systems to add historical realism to the new game, the first of its kind.

Consumers who purchase the game will see the Fab Four sing into Neumann microphones in all the studio scenes, just as they did in real life during those now-legendary Abbey Road studio sessions.

The Beatles: Rock Band allows fans to pick up the guitar, bass, mic or drums and experience the group’s extraordinary catalogue of music through gameplay that takes players on a journey through the legacy and evolution of the band’s legendary career.

Additionally, for the first time in a music video game, The Beatles: Rock Band introduces three-part vocal harmonies to gameplay, allowing gamers to revel in the unparalleled vocal stylings of the group.

“The Beatles’ recordings are absolute magic, even on the most tired 45s”, remarks Kristy Jo Winkler, Sennheiser’s relations manager for the Americas and Canada.

“Their nearly exclusive use of the highest-quality Neumann microphones is a huge part of the overall Abbey Road recording phenomena. We’re very happy that The Beatles: Rock Band has paid such careful attention to the historical details and that Neumann will play a key role in what is destined to be a landmark in the history of video games.”

Everyone who has seen a picture of The Beatles singing into a large cylindrical microphone has seen the Neumanns, and sound engineers need no introduction as they know the U 47 and U 48 just as car enthusiasts know the Lamborghini or the ’64 Mustang. The Beatles and their engineers prized the microphones for their clear, transcendent tonal quality.