Sound System: The Rhythm Game That's Fixing Guitar Hero's Mistakes

0:01Spawn on Me is the premier podcast spotlighting people of color. Every week we talk news, what we've been playing, and tell you who's invited to the cookout. Our show is all about talking about gaming through a prism of blackness because we are the culture. Welcome to Bricago, y 'all. Yo, what's good everybody in Bricago? This is the Spawn on Me podcast with Kahlief Adams. I'm your host, Kahlief Adams. I hope you're doing well and hope you are having a wonderful, wonderful March. We're almost in April. Time is flying. This year is going by super, super fast. But what is not going by super, super fast is for you to go check out more of our show.

0:40Go check it out on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, on all the places where podcasts reside. And also go check out our social media channels. We're on YouTube. We're on Instagram. We're on TikTok. All of those places where you see some clips from the show and from appearances that I have been doing around the world. But this week, we have a really great interview with Lennon Lang, who is coming to us to talk about Sound System, which is a game that you may know and love, but not have gotten the chance to check out yet. Because if you're a big fan of rock band or amplitude or rhythm games in general, this game is definitely for you.

1:14We had a blast talking about what this game is, what's it bringing to the market, how it's kind of looking at the overall space and how it's bringing back some of that sense of fun and nostalgia in a real way. So I'm very excited to check it out. And you check out this interview that's about to drop right about now. What's good, everybody in Burkago? We have a really, really great interview with some dope folks here on the show today because I got a chance to check out Sound System. And I have to say, I have been blown away by all of the goodies that we got a chance to hang out with the team. We got a chance to go and get a demo and get a chance to play.

1:49And I am here with co-founder and president of Echo Foundry, Lennon Lang. So good to have you here. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Yeah, GDC was awesome for us, and I'm excited to talk more about the game. Yeah, thank you again for coming back. Double-time champion, two-time champion on the show. For all the folks at home, when you saw me kibitzing online about how do you fix a thing because you lost some footage, we lost footage doing our amazing interview with the team. but I'm excited to have you back on because Sound System has been a game that I've been thinking about a lot since GDC.

2:27I've been seeing all the great coverage coming from so many corners of the internet. It's been really good to be able to see you all get your flowers and be able to see a game that I am really excited for, get the love that I think it really deserves. Talk to me a little bit about exactly what Sound System is for folks who may not know. Yeah, so Sound System is a next generation rhythm game, guitar based. So it pretty much goes back to how I envisioned it is I worked on the original Guitar Hero. So it was Sound System to me is what could I have done different with the evolution of Guitar Hero?

3:06And that's what my goal is with Sound System is to fix the wrongs that were made so many years ago and make the great game of my dreams. Honestly, I'm a huge rhythm game fan and a musician myself. So this is just a love project. I'm hyped for all the enthusiasm that you and the team are bringing to the project. And we have, I get to sound like an old school late night host, we have a clip. We're going to show the trailer right about now.

4:00Your psycho disposition is clouding over me A modern version of a galactic It must be so rewarding to see the castle burning When you love the smell of kerosene

4:37I'm very excited after seeing that because there's a lot to dig into in terms of what we got to see in that particular trailer. So let's run through some of the bits that we saw. So we saw classic mode. We saw a pro mode. We saw multiplayer there. We saw kitty cats. We saw a bunch of goodies there within the trailer. Talk to me a little bit about each of those modes and kind of what they bring for a player who is, you know, a veteran of that space. Someone who's been playing rhythm games like this for a long time. And newbies like me who are still trying to figure out where their thumbs and their pinkies go.

5:13So let me know what you think about those and share with the audience, you know. Yeah, so going to the newbies that are still trying to figure out what to do with their thumbs and pinkies, that's what classic mode is for. Classic mode is basically taking the old school feel of rhythm game, guitar, bass, controller, music games, and adding an element of just ease and just comfort for new players. There's no failing in that mode. You can just play. You can figure it out along the way. Get a groove to it. Because what we found is a lot of people will pick it up, and it'll take a little bit before they're like, oh, okay, I get this.

5:55But once you get in the groove, you're there. So classic mode is just have fun. Just enjoy the music. Enjoy the rhythm of it. And then that's in all four difficulties, easy, hard, medium, and expert. Yeah, I switched those around, but you know what I mean. And then there's pro mode. Pro mode is more of a hardcore mode for any veterans of the genre. You get 11 misses and once you get 11 misses, then you're donezo, game over or retry, as we like to say. and then multiplayer right now we have we showed in the trailer two player which is guitar and bass you can also do guitar and guitar bass and bass whatever combination and then what we didn't show in the trailer is we also have vocals so there is currently three players so you can do vocals bass and guitar and then we will be expanding onto drums as well so for those in the community who have been calling out for drums it's comments it's it's it's my favorite part of that equation because that's the one i actually know what i'm doing but it's great i love the fact that you're mashing up you know traditional the traditional kind of senses and genres are parts of that genre in this game and giving folks who are of multiple layers of of expertise the ability to kind of really do their thing and shine in these spaces i mean i also love of course leaderboards are a big part of any game for me like this it's like how many stars can you get what's what's the score you can get to kind of showcase across you know your profile and against other folks like that when you were thinking about the process of um how you want this to be an analog to something that a lot of folks already know but bringing something different to it how do you all think about you know incorporating multiple players into the game how you're thinking about difficulty and how you're thinking about you know this the general bringing back of so many folks to an audience uh many folks in an audience back to a game that they know and love yeah yeah for sure um I mean one of the big things that we're we're pushing for is um creators it is just doing everything we can for it we're in a creation type of like um situation at this point I mean everybody is creating something whether it's Twitch streamers, YouTubers, musicians, and we want to cater to that.

8:25So we're making the game as customizable as possible to cater towards the creators, but as well as catering towards the new and old gamers, because there's a lot of games out there, a lot of rhythm gamers out there that have been fans of this genre for years. It never died with them. And we've been on the Clone Hero and Yarg and so many other titles. And we're trying to make sure that we appease them and we make sure that they get what they want, which is full customization, full... We'll get into it later with Pulse Map, but all the stuff you can do with Pulse Map, our note chart editor. Really give what we can to the new...

9:16to the fans of the game already. But also, there's a lot of people that just were casual gamers, and we wanted to make sure to get them as well. They haven't dabbled in Clone Hero and everything. There's a little bit of a setup to do with Clone Hero, so we wanted to make sure something was easy where they can just download the game, get in, start rocking out, and just have a good time. So a big thing was just kind of like catering towards everybody. We want to make sure that this does feel like when we say a next-gen rhythm game, it's next-gen for everybody. It's not just like PS5 graphics or anything like that.

9:57It's an evolution of what was made back in the day. What I also loved that you all talked about during our chat during GDC was not only trying to bring back, you know, the player base in a different way, but having Sound System be a platform for new music to be found. And that to me was really, really cool. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit more about how you're thinking about bringing new artists into a fold where they are now getting visibility they might not have been able to get before. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I always go into my story of back when I did Guitar Hero 1, I did a contest called Be a Guitar Hero Contest.

10:37And that was the chance to get an artist, an unknown artist, their song into the game. And that came from just the idea of how many amazing musicians are out there that have not been discovered but are just killer. And so with Sound System, we just said, like, how can we expand on that? and it really became with letting players upload their own music. So any indie artist, they can treat Sound System almost like you would treat Spotify, another distribution platform that if you can upload your stuff on Spotify, you can upload it in Sound System. And then we have a note chart editor so that you not only get to have people listen to music, but experience it.

11:20And I think that's a whole new way to really get your music out there is for people to actually feel like they're being you. They're playing your music and just really interacting with it. And that's one of the cool things is we want to make sure that people get the chance to be exposed in a mass amount. I don't know. I'm losing my train of thought. But basically, yeah, we're going to make it so that people can publish and users can vote on their songs. So if a person puts their song up, they can get to the top of the leaderboards, top of the charts through sound system. Yeah, I love that. And I also love the fact that when you talked about that, one of the visuals you showed was also not only just the music that they might be able to, that they will be able to upload to the game, but visuals too, which I thought was really cool.

12:16Like there's the generated ones that the team has made in terms of backgrounds that you see underneath the fretboards that are there on the train. But like also things like this. You can be able to show awesome stuff like this as a part of the song that you may potentially be putting up on the platform. Talk to me a little bit about what the thought was to be able to make this a part of the equation, too, where you're giving folks the space to not only share their music, but the visuals that they've branded and kind of styled alongside the work that they do. Yeah, for sure. I mean, again, it goes back to the creators.

12:51We want to give everybody the opportunity to customize the game. And full motion video is just one of the ways that we're doing that. We have the cats video, which I just I love. I'm a big cat lover. But it's really we just use that to showcase what you can do. I joke about people putting their home movies like instead of doing a vacation slideshow, you have a vacation like rock out session. But also we have things like music videos with the full motion video. Bands that have their own music video can upload the music video as well. So it's a whole nother way to experience it. It doesn't have to be mean type of stuff, but it could be music videos or anything they can think of.

13:37I mean, that's the cool thing with like giving the tools to the players is just seeing what they're going to come up with because people get creative. People get creative, but don't be gross out there. I know you folks are going to try to put up some weird gross stuff to be good. Be nice. Be nice. It's for the community. Besides that and alongside that, I think that's brilliant. I love the discoverability aspect. I love the feel of getting back on hardware again to play a game like this. as a person who grew up on Amplitude and the Rockman series and all of the pieces that go along with it, one of the biggest parts of that community has been around, you know, the actual guitars and drums and sets and all of those things being in the mix too, that I'm sure many folks in our audience maybe still have one or two of those in their garage somewhere.

14:27It's great to see you're all thinking about that too. Can you talk a little bit more about how you're incorporating hardware into the game in that way? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, one of the first things that we thought of is there's so many controllers out there. It was exciting to see in the recent years that new controllers are being made with the advent of Fortnite Festival and games like that. So new hardware is being made, but there's still so much hardware in people's garages and basements and wherever. And so it was really important for us to make sure that all of that was compatible. So if you have your old controllers and they're USB, just plug them on in.

15:07Or they're a dongle for the PS2. I mean, however you can connect to your PC, just like in Clone Hero and other games, we want you to be able to use your mics, your guitars, your basses, and then hopefully your drum sets once we get that in the game. But it's, yeah, really making sure that we support everybody. um again it goes down to we want this game to be as accessible as possible so you don't need to buy a brand new hundred and something dollar controller if you have your other controllers lying around yeah and i loved i love the fact that you all talked about that especially when and we'll talk about this a little bit later towards the end of our chat but like the fact that you're pricing this game at such a reasonable price and how that is going to be reflected in you know not only what the game we priced at, but also you're all working, working with the folks at turtle beach as well to kind of work towards some hardware as well.

16:01Right. In terms of getting a controller with them too. Yeah. We partnered up with turtle beach. They've been great. So we're, we were showcasing with their controller, which is, which is an awesome controller. And yeah, they were, they were very, they've been very good to us. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about pulse mat. because of most of the games that I've played in this genre, I think everyone has been looking for various editors to kind of tweak the gameplay in ways that feel good for them. And also a little bit on the creative side to be able to say, oh, I have this song in my head and I've wanted to change it for years.

16:43I want to know what this sounds like at a different cadence or adding some more difficulty to it in that way. Talk to me about what I think is one of the coolest features of the game in Pulse Map. Yeah, Pulse Map is, honestly, it's amazing. It has already surpassed everything that I thought it could be, which I'm just so proud of it. Because it's made by musicians. It's made by people that have made note chart editors before with Rocksmith, but they have a musical background. So what we're actually doing is we're taking elements of a DAW, a digital audio workstation, and putting those into a note chart editor.

17:25So it's not just a note chart editor. It's a tempo mapper. So literally, you can take your music, put your stems in. You can remix them. You can adjust the audio so that the bass is louder if you just want to be like, I want the bass to be louder on this song. and then yeah with with the audio do you have so much control but then the note charting you can do all four difficulties at the same time so there's an option to bring up all four difficulties so you can kind of like place your expert tracks and then look visually like okay this is what I would think hard would be reduced to and then medium would be reduced to so you can all do it real time, instantly you can hit play and just go right into straight gameplay and try it out and just see how your note charts are feeling.

18:15And it really gives full customization, not only for new charts, but you can actually load up any chart that's currently in the game and you can make it easier, you can make it harder, you can just make your own version of it. If you have a family and every person in the house wants to have their own customized version of a song, their favorite song, go for it. We want full creative control for people. Like I said earlier, we're giving you the tools to do whatever you want to with this game. And Pulse Map is, I can't wait to show more of it in the coming months. But it's a very, very powerful tool.

18:56And the nice thing is it's all in game. You don't have to leave to do another program. You don't have to go into a DAW to arrange the audio. It's all done from within the game and you instantly can play and see how it feels in the game as you're creating all in real time. I loved getting a quick overview of the software or at least, you know, of the program itself because it did feel super robust in terms of what you were able to be able to do and making even those small tweaks to a song like changes so much of how that thing feels how it plays and then how you know your enjoyment as a person who's trying to get through that song you know at whatever level you're at um how that kind of changes the the vibe of what that means for that um what i love also about the game is that besides all of the features that are in that mix it feels like this is a love letter to to fans in that space it feels like this is a game where you have really been thinking about you know the the the potentials of what you wanted to put into those games that you worked on prior you know this being a new a new version a new um evolution of what that might be what do you think is the kind of biggest takeaway for folks who are kind of coming back to a game like sound system like what's the thing that you're hoping will be that day one kind of vibe and experience for those folks when they get a chance to play for the first time.

20:22I just, I hope that people fall back in love with music. When we were making Guitar Hero 1 and 2, a big part of it was just the love of music. I was one of the people that picked the music that went into those games. And as I was choosing the music, it was kind of a love letter to rock and roll of like, what songs do people need to know about that they might not know about? And I've heard from countless people of like, you've shaped my music taste. And like, what I'm hoping is to do that again, but with new artists and really have a new way to discover music and experience music. A lot of people have been away from this genre.

21:09And to get back in it and experience music in a whole new way, and hopefully inspire musicians again. It's one thing we did back in the day is we got people to start picking up the actual guitar. And I want to see that again. I want to see people just going from plastic controllers to picking up the real thing and, and then putting their own music in the game and just full cycle at that point. Yeah. I think that that was evident from the time that we all got a chance to hang out at GDC and talk about the game. I feel like one of the pieces that I walked away from that, that that meeting was man this team really gets it and this team really understands the the the want to see that kind of live music experience that is kind of translated into the home into the living room um come back in a really fun way because i miss i miss those moments there was a whole generation of us that grew up having people come over and being like we're gonna jam for like five six hours straight and learn and play and it opened me up as a person who was a my hip-hop head more than anything else but i was opened up to a ton of different music through throughout those games and being able to learn um you know what that genre really encompassed and what really drove it it made me it made me want to learn how to play drums more than anything else actually a really quick story uh i i for a year i'm in i'm in i'm in this is going to get mini religious i'm an atheist and when i was talking to my wife when we first started to date uh she was she was heavily into the church uh and her band leader uh we went to go see them and go hang out uh at a sunday morning and we first time we met and he was the band director and he was like he had that glint in his eye when he saw anybody who he wanted to kind of recruit to come in and play music and he said kalief do you play any music and i was like no i was like I have never played an instrument.

23:07I was like, I play rock band though. I play rock band on drums. And he was like, good. Come back next week. You'll play drums in the band for the next. And I played band. I played drums in the band for the next year. Based on a conversation about rock band and about that. And I'm no longer, no longer there, but it was great to be able to have that moment where a game that I knew and loved brought about this, this feeling in the, in an almost talent. Cause that was never good, but it was an almost talent to, to a space around something that I loved. So it was great to be able to kind of pull from that space where you talked about that analog of playing at home and then having that translate into real life play in those ways.

23:49Sorry for the long tangent, but it was, it was a great moment. It was a great moment to think about when, when hearing about the connection. Well, that's the nice thing. It reminds me just of that translation between controllers and the game and actual musicians. One of the key things with our team is we're all musicians. So a lot of musicianship has gone into the game and really bridging that gap between what is a game and what is actually like playing an instrument. And I think that's a thing that can't be faked. The fact that we know our music, we know what it takes to like, what makes a fun song in general and what's going to actually still give you that feeling of like, I'm a freaking rock star once you just finish a solo on the game.

24:41I mean, watching you demo, you were badass in there rocking it out. It was great. I was like, hell yeah, get it. It was super cool to be able to see folks have that enjoyment and be able to share that in a very gamified way, but in a way that felt very akin. It felt very natural to be able to see you get up in there and rock it out and have many, many years, I'm sure, of having played that game, so it's easier for you in that respect. I do want to talk a little bit about platform and price because I think a lot of folks who have been talking to me about the game have been asking about it, and I'm super excited to hear you share about where you're going to try to get this landed, where it's going to go, and how much you're charging for it.

25:25Yes, yes. So we're charging$24.99. We want to make sure it's as accessible as possible. This genre means so much to me, and I don't want to alienate people. They already are going to have to spend money to get controllers. I don't want to charge an arm and a leg for the game itself. I want people to be able to pick it up and just start rocking out. And then as far as platforms go, PC first. We're going to be launching on early access on Steam early access October 16th. That's the date, 2026. So this year, not too far away. And then soon after that, we're looking to port to consoles, PS5, Xbox Series X.

26:11And I really want to go to Switch 2 as well. I'm a big Nintendo head so That would be a big goal of mine That's great I mean again I think this is you know if you're listening at home And you should be listening at home But like The fact that you're pricing this at such a reasonable Rate and knowing That they'll want to be Able to have that moment where you're Bringing so many folks into the space and having Them come back I applaud you all for that I think that's it's not an easy thing To kind of say like we're going to price this at a really reasonable rate in a space where the industry is is pricing things in super wild spaces and not not everything for great experiences for this is going to be a robust experience for multiple hours of play for folks who are going to be able to do that so i applaud you all for for for coming in at a super reasonable uh msrp on that that's awesome um to hear um before we let you go um i do want to say one again thank you for being on the show with me this morning uh Appreciate your time.

27:14If there's one last thing you want the folks at home to know about the game and where they may be able to find more information about the game, share it with the audience at home. Yes, yes. You can go to our website, playsoundsystem.com. From there, there's all our social links at the bottom. Definitely join the Discord. I'm in there every single day talking to people, answering questions. one of the big things is we want to be one with the community. We want to answer questions. We want to be transparent. And we want to hear what you want to see, because at the end of the day, we're making this for the gamers, for the lovers of this genre.

27:55It goes back again to like Guitar Hero was my baby. I loved working on that game. And I just want to do it again, but do it right. And make a game that's just going to stand the test of time. and that is for the players first and foremost. So come on down, join the Discord, and just keep up with us. We're going to be showing all sorts of stuff in the coming months. And I'm excited for more stuff coming out of the team. I want to showcase what we can for Pulse Map stuff. I think whenever those kinds of assets get shared, we'll definitely be sharing that on our social channels and on our show. And I'm just really rooting for y 'all.

28:33I had such a good time with you all at GDC, hanging out and vibing with you all. And I love the passion and pedigree that you all shared with me. And it sounds like it's getting some really good buzz across everybody who got a chance to check it out at GDC. So I am rooting for you and the team in the biggest way. So, again, thank you so much for coming and hanging out with me. If anybody wants to do any notation and post about a podcast, you can put my podcast audio in there. I don't know how you would make that sound good on a guitar, but whatever you want to do. thank you again and everybody else go check out Sound System when it drops there'll be more information throughout the year dropping in October make sure you're getting that ready and you can wishlist it already can you wishlist it?

29:22go make sure you go do that right after you listen to this episode of Spawn on Me we're going to take a quick break we'll be right back after this huge shout out to Lennon for joining us on this episode of Spawn on Me It was a blast to get to check out the game at GDC and hear more about what I am very excited about for a game that I am very excited and looking forward to. If you're checking out more stuff around Sound System, go make sure to check out their web page. Check out their stuff on Steam and go wishlist the game as well. I had a blast hanging out and learning more about what that game is going to be.

29:59And I can't wait to play more of it. So that's our episode for this week. make sure you're checking us out this week and every week we'll have more dopeness coming in store uh and until next time we'll see you soon much love and peace