ROCK BAND: Old thread. Use the newer, cooler thread.

quovadis13

Man, I have fallen so far behind in following DLC and the RBN over the last month.

Any gems floating around the RBN from the last month and a half-ish?

metaghost

quovadis13 wrote: »

Man, I have fallen so far behind in following DLC and the RBN over the last month.

Any gems floating around the RBN from the last month and a half-ish?

Some of my favorite RBN drum charts at the moment:

Plans & Reveries

India

The Great Plains

skippymchaggis

mspencer wrote: »

OK, I'm dying to get my hands on Rock Band Pro for guitar. It occurrs to me that I took to drums with such passion -- spending nearly $1000 on a game drum kit for example -- because it is the only "realistic" instrument in the game, and that feeds into some sort of misguided "I could really be a musician!" fantasy that will never come true.

1) What are the various skills you have to learn? Ideally is there a document or page you can link me to where I can RTFM? I don't want a document that'll try to teach me the skills, I just want to understand the shape of the things I don't yet know.

2) Of these various skills you have to learn, how many feel like they can be greatly improved by the tighter feedback loop a game can offer? For example, getting practice fretting chords: if you can see visually on-screen that your fingers are in the wrong place before you strum, you can adjust two or three times before the note arrives. The way I imagine traditional learning, you wouldn't notice the problem until after you strummed.

3) It doesn't seem like RB Pro will teach you to read sheet music. Is that a huge handicap? Is that an easy skill to pick up outside of the game? If it's true that even expert guitarists never just sight-read a piece of music, you practice in pieces and memorize and THEN perform . . . then reading sheet music is a skill you can take your time learning, not one where you'll regret not reading sheet music from day 1. Right?

4) 102-fret-button guitar versus Strat. If I get the Strat, how much finger pain am I really in for? I know if you don't press hard enough on the frets you mute the strings and don't get much sound. And I know from attempting to teach myself guitar, and failing, as a 10 year old, that my 10 year old fingers had to press down pretty hard to alter the resonance of a string. How hard is it for adult hands?

as a guitarist, I'm really interested to see how RB3 implements the guitar lessons.

to respond to some of your comments:

as for research...there are lots of guitar sites on the web. i don't really know what to suggest you learn first, because, part of the rb3 experience will be learning how they want us to play/learn. also, as there are a lot of things to learn about guitar, what are your goals? that will help give people ideas of what to suggest in a more focused manner.

i'm sure RB3 will help with chord changes, but on the other hand, sounding good/playing clean is generally more important unless you're playing some specific styles of music. don't ever worry about speed to start. worry about fretting your notes right and hearing a good, musical tone before you try to get to shredding. again, i'm really interested in how this will work in rb3. what are their thoughts on pacing and whatnot.

it seems like you are correct about sheet music. RB3 doesn't seem to teach it, but that's basically OK, as a lot of your favorite guitarists probably can't read sheet music. knowing chord names and the various places you can play them is important, and rb3 will teach you to read TAB, which is what most guitarists are gimped into knowing. i would suggest finding a place/way to learn to read sheet music though. personally, i'm in a strange spot. i can read music and play it on a piano, but after 15+ years, i'm only now trying to force myself to learn to read sheet music on the guitar. learning it is a good goal, and helpful if you ever want to work with other people that can read it.

as for the controller of choice, i'd suggest the squire. buttons will not teach you how to play the guitar. it would probably be something similar to knowing how to write out the directions for performing surgery, but then having to do it on a human body for real. it probably won't go well the first few times. regarding finger strength and callouses...that remains to be seen. you can build em up fairly quickly, and i don't see them shipping the squire with super heavy gauge strings. even if they do, unless there are things we don't know about yet, you can just get a lighter set and string those up. as you play more and develop your chops, up your gauge back to normal, or to what you like. (also if it's a real guitar, as you develop your ear for the tone you want, you'll figure out which gauges you want, among other things.)

all the stuff about sting gauge and stuff does totally depend on what the Squire controller actually ends up being. who knows if it'll have a truss rod that can be adjusted, whether the tuners will be nice or crappy, and what sort of pickups it's gonna have. does the game have a built in tuner? will it teach/allow us to tune between songs? that's all a mystery right now. so is the price, last i saw. i hope it's not too bad. Squire's can come in pretty cheap on price, so here's hoping it's under $200. they already sell "starter packs" with a guitar and a little amp for $150, so a guitar with some video game controller parts wired in shouldn't be too bad.

TubularLuggage

It doesn't seem like RB Pro will teach you to read sheet music. Is that a huge handicap?

Not really. What it teaches you is tabulation. It's probably much easier to find tabs for contemporary music than sheet music.

Dehumanized

Lighter gauge strings hurt more than heavier gauge strings when you're building callouses. Best to just stick with something relatively standard (.10-.48 or some such).

Anyways, the thing is... as someone who has never played guitar or hasn't played for a loooong time, you're in for some hand pain. A couple things you ought to keep in mind:
1. Don't push your hand too hard. If your hands are hurting, stop playing and come back later. The next time you do, your fingers will be tougher and thank you for the break. There's stories of rock musicians that stayed home all day and played until their hands bled. Don't do this.
2. You're better off if you don't play immediately after doing things that'll soften up your skin. Like, say, immediately after swimming or taking a hot shower.
3. After you've built up some nice callouses, keep mind of things that are hot. You might not notice that you are touching something that you shouldn't be until it's too late!

TubularLuggage

Some of my favorite RBN drum charts at the moment:
Scale The Summit - The Great Plains

I fully endorse this song.
I got to see those guys live when they opened for Dream Theater back in August. They were fantastic.

mspencer

I know so little about it, I think I meant tablature when I said sheet music. So they do make guitar sheet music with treble and bass and quarter and half notes and rests and whatnot? I thought it was all that grid-with-dots stuff.

Shows how little I know.

This might sound crazy, but . . . since it sounds like the journey from Pro Easy to Pro Expert will be a journey of years, not months like fake plastic guitar . . . do you think it might be worthwhile for me to try to get a feel for how much I might light guitar by buying a used guitar now and trying some basic lessons? Is the beginning part of the learning curve nice and shallow?

Or, knowing that I'm definitely buying the Strat as soon as it comes out, would I be better off waiting?

(Can you plug an electric guitar into a mixer that provides phantom power? What do you need, 1/4" TRS? I don't want to be loud.)

Dehumanized

Buying a cheap guitar now is probably a good idea. If you've got any friends that play you should have them help you out -- cheap instruments can tend to have horrendous quality issues that will make them extremely painful to play (mostly with regard to the fretboard -- poorly filed frets will cut the shit out of your hand).

Not positive if phantom power would be a go for input, but 1/4" TRS is indeed the correct cable. If your mixer hooks up to a computer then it's quite possible that you could find some software to emulate amplification. Otherwise, there are very compact and quiet options available. None of them will sound particularly great but they will run on batteries and tend to also have 1/8" headphone output.

Raybies666

mspencer wrote: »

I know so little about it, I think I meant tablature when I said sheet music. So they do make guitar sheet music with treble and bass and quarter and half notes and rests and whatnot? I thought it was all that grid-with-dots stuff.

Shows how little I know.

Tablature is easy enough, its six lines representing the six strings and the line at the bottom represents the top guitar string so if you are looking at tab, its like looking at the strings from above while you hold the guitar. I didn't understand that when I bought my first tab book, and couldn't figure out wyh Teen Spirit sounded nothing like the cd :lol:

There are numbers on each line represesnting the frets where you are touching the string. I know I haven't explained it too well, but it will make more sense when you actually sit down with a guitar and some tab.

The only problem is that there are techniques that tab will include, but it doesnt tell you how to do. In my case, I didn't know what tapping was, so the solo in metallica's One was unbelievably hard until I found out.

I'd recommend a few lessons or a friend helping you out. You can get tab books of lots of albums, see can you get one for one of your favourites, but don't learn entirely from books like that. I did, and i could have been way better earlier if I had gotten some help.

You'll struggle at first but keep at it, everyone sounds like shit at first (I had someone quit during their first lesson because the F chord was too hard and refused to believe he could do it), and practice slowly to get your fingering right.

Spoiler:

:winky:

They do indeed make guitar musical notation, and i used to see lots of books with notation and tab together, but these days the books I get have tab only.

UnbreakableVow

I'm kind of shocked that the RB forums seem to be all about sucking Muse's cock

It is the one they seem to bring up most

Even though there's already a Muse song

DarkPrimus

One song is not enough for a lot of artists.

There are very few artists where I think most people would say "Yes we have a reasonable number of songs from them".

Not sayin' those posters are being rational and all, but there are definitely more songs by Muse (and other artists) that could be in RB.

UnbreakableVow

Well yeah

But think of all those deserving acts with no songs

People can complain about the lack of Rolling Stones, Muse and Guns 'n' Roses but at least they all have a track

Still waiting on some Springsteen or U2, anything at all

DarkPrimus

Even if we got U2, it would almost assuredly be a piece of shit from their most recent album, rather than something from a decade-plus ago back.

Homestar Gunner

TubularLuggage wrote: »

Yeah, some people are way too entitled, but there are always going to be some people like that. It's best to just ignore them.
It's not just metalheads either. I think it would be safe to say that there were probably indie rock fans who had that kind of reaction when Moving Pictures was announced as DLC, for example.

Let's not kid ourselves though, it is mostly metalheads. Even as an indie dork I can still appreciate some Rush and Megadeth from time to time.

Tommatt

So, this is going to come up eventually now I"m sure, I may as well kick it off. Electronic drums. The who, what, why, and when. What am I looking for? Good prices for something that will be used for RB and late night drumming. Hopefully something easily stowable, pulloutable.

I have a decent acoustic set with crappy equipment. Middle of the road everything, cheap shells, lots of cymbal stands and some nice stands (Got a sweet setup for $150. $200+ hi-hat stand, a cymbal/2tom stand, and a ride and 2 crash stands, the hardware alone to combine with the 5 piece cheap kit I had.) So it would be mostly for RB and when I felt like drumming late at night. And with pro mode.... yeah so pretty much just rock band.

Does this actually make the ION the right choice? The think I liked about a real drum kit plugged in was so you could make it so you swapped mapping and yellow stayed the hi-hat for songs like everlong, RttH, etc.... pro mode may yet change this again though.

Sir Carcass

The ION kit is just a rebranded Alesis kit. You can buy the same kit and drum brain that ION offers for a good bit cheaper, and it'll also come with a kick pedal and trigger, which you would have to buy separately for the ION kit. Before there was the problem of interfacing with the Xbox, but now with the midi box, if you want a kit that you can use in game and outside of it, getting the actual kit would probably be a better option.

This is basically the ION kit. $400 with free shipping. You're probably looking at at least $600 taking an ION kit and making it work the same.

Edit: Actually, that DM6 drum brain doesn't seem to have a MIDI out, instead using USB. So it's possible it wouldn't work with the MIDI box, unless it has USB functionality (which I really hope it does).

mxmarks

I was just thinking - any word on a "play along" style mode?

I used to have a "play along with Radiohead" CD. Due to copyrights, it had no lyrics on it - but it was the tracks with the guitar track stripped out, and a tab booklet with the stripped guitar in it. So you could learn the song and the play along, with the band, with the CD. It was my favorite thing EVER because it sounded like a full band when you played (again, minus vocals), and when I added a little personal touch, because I wasnt competing with a real track, it made me feel SO BADASS.

So since RB3 will have tab flow down the screen, I'd like to be able to play along on my awesome Fender American Standard Telecaster. Since I can't use my real guitar in game, I'd love to just be able to let the tab scroll, and play along, with no scoring and no failing out or anything.

I'm assuming I can use the current "jukebox mode" trick, and play on pro, with no fail on, and crowd noise set to zero. But it would be nice if they had a dedicated mode for people who want to use it to get better at real guitar, but not for scores using Squires guitar. That way it could keep crowd noise in.

mantis23

heres is the official DLC announcement. looks like "Start All Over" was the missing song.

---

Hey gang,

Here's the DLC hitting the RB Music Store next week! 5 Miley Cyrus singles, perfect for the pop fans out there, the female vocalist, parents looking for more family friendly content for Lego Rock Band and HMXjohnd. Yes, HMXjohnd dances to Miley Cyrus and at one point he explained that "her hooks are insane". Between Ozzy last week and Miley this week, we've pretty much got both ends of the spectrum covered!

Available on Xbox 360®, Wii and PlayStation 3 system (June 22):

“7 Things” +
“Can’t Be Tamed”
“Fly On the Wall” +
“See You Again” +
“Start All Over” +

(All tracks are original master recordings)

(These tracks will be available in Europe on PlayStation 3 system June 23)

These tracks will be available as individual tracks on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 system and Wii, as well as “Miley Cyrus Pack 01” on Xbox 360. Songs marked with “+” will also be available in the family-friendly LEGO® Rock Band Music Store.

Price:

$1.99 USD, £.99 UK, €1.49 EU (160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) per track
680 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 for Miley Cyrus Pack 01
$2.00 USD (200 Wii Points™) per track

** Dates for Rock Band game tracks are tentative and subject to change

cloudeagle

DarkPrimus wrote: »

Even if we got U2, it would almost assuredly be a piece of shit from their most recent album, rather than something from a decade-plus ago back.

o_O

Their latest album is awesome. The music critics ate it up too.

The lack of U2 is pretty shameful... hell, I'd argue they're one of the few bands big enough to truly support a single-band game with the breadth of their material (others being Rolling Stones and maybe Led Zep)(though yes, I realize that pretty much any single-band game won't sell all that great gooing forward). There could be a number of reasons there's no U2 though... the band could be iffy on music games in general or are holding out for a single-band game, their music could be too pricey to license, the music charts for the songs might not be all that interesting (The Edge is a notorious minimalist), the lack of recent radio play could be a factor (though that's largely due to U2's recent fight with the indie system), etc.

Dehumanized

Tommatt, you're looking into the rabbit hole. When it comes to e-drums setups, you can get as elaborate and expensive as you want. I'd recommend doing some research figuring out exactly what you want, then getting that. You just end up paying double if you start with something that's not quite what you want then upgrading up to there.

There's a wealth of information located right here:
http://docsrockbandmods.netforums.us/drum-mods-drum-gear-discussion-vf4.html

Ah_Pook

so is there any actual gameplay footage using the pro guitar or what? i didnt see any anywhere, and i am very curious about it.

Brainiac 8

Is it so wrong that I really want some Men at Work added to one of these music games....I mean c'mon guys! Even just a three pack, and I'd be super happy.

Overkill
Down Under
Be Good Johnny

Phyphor

Ah_Pook wrote: »

so is there any actual gameplay footage using the pro guitar or what? i didnt see any anywhere, and i am very curious about it.

There's a stage demo at E3 which has some

Spoiler:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzUFjH1_AOU

Towards the end

Bolthorn

This morning I realised that if the Squier uses the same sort of MIDI tech that Roland users for their GK series pickups, we may be looking at adding about $200 to the cost of the guitar. I'm guessing about $350 to $400 total then. These better be the best Squiers ever to come off the line at that price.

TubularLuggage

I'd argue they're one of the few bands big enough to truly support a single-band game with the breadth of their material (others being Rolling Stones and maybe Led Zep).

Rush.

18 (soon to be 19) studio albums, with a good amount of diversity.

Ah_Pook

damn, that looks really really cool

Brainiac 8

As much as Bono annoys me, I would so buy a U2 centric game.

lionheart_m

cloudeagle wrote: »

DarkPrimus wrote: »

Even if we got U2, it would almost assuredly be a piece of shit from their most recent album, rather than something from a decade-plus ago back.

o_O

Their latest album is awesome. The music critics ate it up too.

The lack of U2 is pretty shameful... hell, I'd argue they're one of the few bands big enough to truly support a single-band game with the breadth of their material (others being Rolling Stones and maybe Led Zep)(though yes, I realize that pretty much any single-band game won't sell all that great gooing forward). There could be a number of reasons there's no U2 though... the band could be iffy on music games in general or are holding out for a single-band game, their music could be too pricey to license, the music charts for the songs might not be all that interesting (The Edge is a notorious minimalist), the lack of recent radio play could be a factor (though that's largely due to U2's recent fight with the indie system), etc.

High Five cloudeagle. I actually loved their last album. There's an interview on their site with Adam Clayton stating that they had issues with how they were portrayed. Basically they wanted The Beatles treatment and not just a song pack.

mxmarks

I cant wait until the modding community rips the Strat apart and figures out what you need to do to make your own.

I bought, on a whim, when I was younger and my band was doing well and I thought money would be endless and I'd be a rock star, a PURPLE 1960's "Hendrix" Fender Strat. I played it like 3 times ever, and then took it apart because I was STUPID.

Then I was even STUPIDER and decided to customize it, and tried to sandpaper the finish off. It was hard, and now I just have a horribly scratched purple body, and a box of pieces, and a rosewood neck - totalling $600 - in a box in my closet.

I'd love to mod that thing into a Rock Band guitar.

cloudeagle

lionheart_m wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

DarkPrimus wrote: »

Even if we got U2, it would almost assuredly be a piece of shit from their most recent album, rather than something from a decade-plus ago back.

o_O

Their latest album is awesome. The music critics ate it up too.

The lack of U2 is pretty shameful... hell, I'd argue they're one of the few bands big enough to truly support a single-band game with the breadth of their material (others being Rolling Stones and maybe Led Zep)(though yes, I realize that pretty much any single-band game won't sell all that great gooing forward). There could be a number of reasons there's no U2 though... the band could be iffy on music games in general or are holding out for a single-band game, their music could be too pricey to license, the music charts for the songs might not be all that interesting (The Edge is a notorious minimalist), the lack of recent radio play could be a factor (though that's largely due to U2's recent fight with the indie system), etc.

High Five cloudeagle. I actually loved their last album. There's an interview on their site with Adam Clayton stating that they had issues with how they were portrayed. Basically they wanted The Beatles treatment and not just a song pack.

Given the amount of visual flair and incredible staging the band's done over the years (their latest tour featured them playing under something that looked like a gigantic spaceship) it wouldn't be a design stretch at all to give them the Beatles treatment.

Though the cost involved would probably be pretty hefty, with no guarantee it would sell well enough to make that money back. And if U2 really is holding out for the Beatles treatment, we may never see them in Rock Band. Sigh.

Phyphor

mxmarks wrote: »

I cant wait until the modding community rips the Strat apart and figures out what you need to do to make your own.

I bought, on a whim, when I was younger and my band was doing well and I thought money would be endless and I'd be a rock star, a PURPLE 1960's "Hendrix" Fender Strat. I played it like 3 times ever, and then took it apart because I was STUPID.

Then I was even STUPIDER and decided to customize it, and tried to sandpaper the finish off. It was hard, and now I just have a horribly scratched purple body, and a box of pieces, and a rosewood neck - totalling $600 - in a box in my closet.

I'd love to mod that thing into a Rock Band guitar.

Well, I know nothing about guitars, but the fret sensing is probably done by putting a small voltage across each of the strings and when you press the string down it makes electrical contact (you could measure resistance, or modulate the voltage signal to differentiate between the strings). That's what I would try first if I was designing one anyway.

Bolthorn

mxmarks wrote: »

I cant wait until the modding community rips the Strat apart and figures out what you need to do to make your own.

I bought, on a whim, when I was younger and my band was doing well and I thought money would be endless and I'd be a rock star, a PURPLE 1960's "Hendrix" Fender Strat. I played it like 3 times ever, and then took it apart because I was STUPID.

Then I was even STUPIDER and decided to customize it, and tried to sandpaper the finish off. It was hard, and now I just have a horribly scratched purple body, and a box of pieces, and a rosewood neck - totalling $600 - in a box in my closet.

I'd love to mod that thing into a Rock Band guitar.

Shouldn't be too difficult to find someone able to piece it back together for you. So how much damage did you actually do to the pain job? It bums me to know there are discared instruments that are so close to functional in the world.

UnbreakableVow

The missing track was "Start All Over"? Sweeeeeeeet

I have to give it to Harmonix, because true to their usual form, the first songs from an artist they usually put out are based on how good they'd be in RB as opposed to how popular they are. "Start All Over", "See You Again" and "7 Things" all seem like they'd be way more fun to play than "Party in the U.S.A." or "The Climb".

Also I fear cloudeagle is right about U2 and I'm kinda bummed

Santa Claustrophobia

UnbreakableVow wrote: »

The missing track was "Start All Over"? Sweeeeeeeet

I have to give it to Harmonix, because true to their usual form, the first songs from an artist they usually put out are based on how good they'd be in RB as opposed to how popular they are. "Start All Over", "See You Again" and "7 Things" all seem like they'd be way more fun to play than "Party in the U.S.A." or "The Climb".

Also I fear cloudeagle is right about U2 and I'm kinda bummed

I don't know... Given HMX's recent trends in obtaining bands, U2 could happen as soon as next week.

Just sayin'.


And sometimes, I wonder why I bother...

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

By the way, I don't know if this came up in the last thread (I only skimmed the last few pages), but the final Miley Cyrus song is Start All Over.

UnbreakableVow

Man, you started off that post talking about the RB forums

And ended it doing the same

I assumed everything in-between also had to do with that and it was 4 AM when I saw it

Santa Claustrophobia

UnbreakableVow wrote: »

Man, you started off that post talking about the RB forums

And ended it doing the same

I assumed everything in-between also had to do with that and it was 4 AM when I saw it

Spoiler:

I just wanted to BotP something not really useful (Negativland reference) and point out you hate me.

I WIN!!!!

I forgive you. You were distracted by next weeks announced songs. Well, here's some more news for *you*...

These tracks will be available for purchase as "Miley Cyrus Pack 01" as well as individual tracks on Xbox 360, and as individual tracks only on the PlayStation 3 system and Wii. Tracks will be $1.99 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and $2.00 on Wii.

This actually registered a minor complaint...

Santa Claustrophobia

Also, Graveyard BBQ has announced they're going to put six songs up through RBN. So it seems they found a charting service that will actually stick around.

I can say I'm looking forward to this.

(Though I predict only one of their songs will sell well.)

UnbreakableVow

Um

Well, yes

That's something valid to complain about. Why the fuck would they split it up for the PS3? That's $1.50 more on PS3.

Santa Claustrophobia

UnbreakableVow wrote: »

Um

Well, yes

That's something valid to complain about. Why the fuck would they split it up for the PS3? That's $1.50 more on PS3.

What the heck is this all about? Songs only available individually? Why?? HMX just HAD to find another way to alienate their PS3 user base

But seriously, I hope this isn't a new trend

I say 'minor' only because of the last sentence. But I'm sure Wii owners feel for you on this one. As for why? Maybe packs don't sell especially well on the PS3. (Also known as: It's a surprise to me, too.)

Powell014

A Miley Cirus pack that doesn't include Party in the USA, the song that COMMANDS white people to dance? Boo-urns.