I would unleash Brock Sampson upon you, if only I could.

I forget who it was that said something about their game taking ages to load up after all the DLC, but I think I have encountered a similar problem earlier this week. I didn't think much of it then but on Monday I would go through the menus to get to a multiplayer mode and it would hang there for a while then take me to a black screen that would only get fixed if I pressed my Xbox Guide button. Well, yesterday, my sister showed me that now it was hanging on a black screen after pressing Start on the Highway Star intro and the Loading Downloadable Content pop up wouldn't show up until we would choose our characters. I'm worried that it might be related to my 360 but I'm still considering the possibility that my DLC might have to change it's home. I don't want a busted 360 before RB2. EDIT: Also, that Weezer pack took 27 minutes to download despite my everything else internet related working on our end. Sometimes things just take awhile on Xbox Live's end regarding the last part. The Too Human demo literally took like 2 days for me to download but it takes around a minute and a half to download any individual song on average. Regarding your issues with the song list and such, perhaps you should go in and delete your two inventory related files for the music store and the DLC list (not sure exactly what the files are called but they're noticeable). The next time you start your game up it will take awhile for it to remake the files but in theory it should be recaching them all at the same time so hopefully it will speed things up. And yeah, I'm just kinda grasping at straws since I've never run into this issue personally. It's worth a shot since it doesn't actually do any harm though.

Yeah, I figure it has to be the music store cache thingo. There was a drunken night a couple of weeks ago when I just downloaded all the previews and I figure that must take up a good amount of space.

There are exceptions though: Monsoon has this "red red red yellow red kick yellow+blue kick red+green" thing near the end you have to lead off with your left hand, or else you'd have to cross your left over your right to hit the yellow. I would play the beginning of that part as RLLRL, with R being right hand and L being left. The vast majority of the time, you'll just be doing traditional single stroke rolls, which is just RLRLRLRL etc. This is good if the notes are on 8th or 16th notes (not triplets so much. It's possible, but you'll alternate your left and right hand on the beats which can be confusing. See: Foreplay) and the drums you're hitting are going from left to right. Another rudiment which is much less common in RB is the paradiddle, which is RLRRLRLL. This can be useful for a number of instances. I can't think of any songs that require it off of the top of my head. If there's an 8th note roll that goes from blue to to yellow (somewhat rare) a paradiddle is handy, because the last blue hit will be with your right hand. leaving your left hand to move to yellow to finish the roll. A rudiment that is very usefull for triplet rolls like RRRYYYBBB is to play them as either RLLRLLRLL or RRLRRLRRL. The hard part of foreplay uses RLLRLLRLL, so if you can get that down you wont have too much trouble. I'm left handed, so I'm better at RLL, but RRL works just a well for most instances. Now, in the context of Rock Band, you don't really need to know any of this. All you need to realize for RB is when to hit a drum twice with the same hand, which is a skill that builds with practice. Heh in one of IBitePrettyHard's videos he is doing paradiddle-diddles on the long rolls in RttH... he's sick though :0)

The hard-ass fill on Are You Gonna Be My Girl is a paradiddle. I still cant hit it consistently.

Holy crap paradiddle-diddle is real drum terminology. That is awesome.

The hard-ass fill on Are You Gonna Be My Girl is a paradiddle. I still cant hit it consistently. If it was just a straight paradiddle it'd be easier but the second diddle is across 2 drums which is what really messes me up... I'm terrible at that fill also.

The Ned Flander's Book of Drum Terminology.

The hard-ass fill on Are You Gonna Be My Girl is a paradiddle. I still cant hit it consistently. i can get it fairly regularly but only because i know the song well. i have trouble moving across pads even fairly slowly, like in Toxicity's drum rolls, which are what i'm working on now.

I default my winnings to metaghost as a sign of good will. *sniff* I...I appreciate it. Thanks. Also, not to invoke the Evil Spirit of Sakeido, but I was thinking about my suggestion for how to better simulate arpeggios (or at least, finger-picked arpeggios), and, well, actually before I get ahead of myself: how exactly does the game differentiate between the two inputs (solo buttons v normal buttons)? Well, anyway, assuming they could implement a similar type of input programming trick to enable what I was talking about before, it'd be way nice if they had a secondary array of solo buttons arranged ergonomically in front of the strum bar. That way, even though you're not plucking (which seemed to be why Sakeido got all indignant), you'd at least be better able to approximate the finger motions.

The solo buttons are just normal fret buttons outside of solos and Big Rock Endings. In those specific cases, it counts as a fret + strum. They're detected as normal fret buttons on bass but still do the fret+strum in BREs.

Yeah, I figure it has to be the music store cache thingo. There was a drunken night a couple of weeks ago when I just downloaded all the previews and I figure that must take up a good amount of space. The file is actually small (probably about 50 MB), but the cache could be causing problems. Here's the how to on going about this.

I default my winnings to metaghost as a sign of good will. *sniff* I...I appreciate it. Thanks. Also, not to invoke the Evil Spirit of Sakeido, but I was thinking about my suggestion for how to better simulate arpeggios (or at least, finger-picked arpeggios), and, well, actually before I get ahead of myself: how exactly does the game differentiate between the two inputs (solo buttons v normal buttons)? Well, anyway, assuming they could implement a similar type of input programming trick to enable what I was talking about before, it'd be way nice if they had a secondary array of solo buttons arranged ergonomically in front of the strum bar. That way, even though you're not plucking (which seemed to be why Sakeido got all indignant), you'd at least be better able to approximate the finger motions. But if you're going to go to that point, why not 6 smaller (Dare I say - string sized?) strum bars aligned horizontally across the face of the guitar? The basic premise that people aren't liking about your idea is that you're taking the act of finger-picking, which is really just the same as picking except with more than one device (whether you're using pick and finger, thumb-pick and finger, multiple fingers, etc.) and turning it into a button which is a completely different experience and simulates playing guitar much less than just not being able to fingerpick does.

Yeah, I figure it has to be the music store cache thingo. There was a drunken night a couple of weeks ago when I just downloaded all the previews and I figure that must take up a good amount of space. The file is actually small (probably about 50 MB), but the cache could be causing problems. Here's the how to on going about this. You will lose updates (game, firmware, etc.) when the cache is cleared, but these can easily be downloaded again. There is always more work involved. Always.

Yeah, I figure it has to be the music store cache thingo. There was a drunken night a couple of weeks ago when I just downloaded all the previews and I figure that must take up a good amount of space. The file is actually small (probably about 50 MB), but the cache could be causing problems. Here's the how to on going about this. You will lose updates (game, firmware, etc.) when the cache is cleared, but these can easily be downloaded again. There is always more work involved. Always. I can live without the update to Pac-Man.

I default my winnings to metaghost as a sign of good will. *sniff* I...I appreciate it. Thanks. Also, not to invoke the Evil Spirit of Sakeido, but I was thinking about my suggestion for how to better simulate arpeggios (or at least, finger-picked arpeggios), and, well, actually before I get ahead of myself: how exactly does the game differentiate between the two inputs (solo buttons v normal buttons)? Well, anyway, assuming they could implement a similar type of input programming trick to enable what I was talking about before, it'd be way nice if they had a secondary array of solo buttons arranged ergonomically in front of the strum bar. That way, even though you're not plucking (which seemed to be why Sakeido got all indignant), you'd at least be better able to approximate the finger motions. But if you're going to go to that point, why not 6 smaller (Dare I say - string sized?) strum bars aligned horizontally across the face of the guitar? The basic premise that people aren't liking about your idea is that you're taking the act of finger-picking, which is really just the same as picking except with more than one device (whether you're using pick and finger, thumb-pick and finger, multiple fingers, etc.) and turning it into a button which is a completely different experience and simulates playing guitar much less than just not being able to fingerpick does. And why stop there? Why not include a function that simulates palm muting? Or pick slides? I say the fake guitars do an adequate job of providing a simulation of real playing as well as allowing the games to be fun. Making things more realistic adds at least some level of complication and that won't necessarily mean more fun.

You know what Rock Band really needs? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIGTrVQLyR4 Seriously. Absolutely. Such a good song.

Yeah, I was thinking just the actual music cache file, stored in the Rock Band save file is what's maybe the issue. I didn't even think to consider the 360 itself would be having trouble with the cache. Definitely try the Rock Band cache first though since it's just a simple Rock Band boot-up to get back to it. There's also another method that clears the cache less thoroughly for a specific game without getting into all the major areas that the big code does. As the game is booting up, just hold A (or Green) until you see the first logo appear.

In regards to the changes for guitar: I think the music game genre has done too much and dug too far (too greedily) into the masses with the plastic guitar controller with a down/up strumbar and 5 colored fret buttons to slowly progress into a more realistic guitar playing experience. I would think it would be better to scrap the current guitar set up and go with totally revamped guitar controller that would allow the proper simulations, at least on the game level. If they keep adding knobs, levers, buttons, and dials to the controller, it'll become a Jaguar console controller with a guitar neck glued to it.

Rock Band 5 in 2012 will just be PowerTab packed in with a real Strat.

In regards to the changes for guitar: I think the music game genre has done too much and dug too far (too greedily) into the masses with the plastic guitar controller with a down/up strumbar and 5 colored fret buttons to slowly progress into a more realistic guitar playing experience. I would think it would be better to scrap the current guitar set up and go with totally revamped guitar controller that would allow the proper simulations, at least on the game level. If they keep adding knobs, levers, buttons, and dials to the controller, it'll become a Jaguar console controller with a guitar neck glued to it. Heh, you meant the console but as far as guitars go the Fender Jaguar is indeed pretty complex too. I love the thing but would be the first to admit that it's just a bit overwrought. http://www.blackguitars.com/Fender%2...1965front2.jpg Note that the guitar has 4 switches, 4 knobs (two near the input, two roller knobs near the top horn), a bridge mute, and a quite different tremelo setup from other Fender guitars. And some of the stuff that each switch does is pretty damned unintuitive. On the diamond located at the lower horn of the guitar two of the switches control each pickup, while the third functions as a tone cut. The switch on the lower horn activates the "rhythm circuit", which uses the neck pickup only (completely ignoring the state of the switches of the lower horn), and allows the two roller knobs next to the switch to function in place of the two "standard" knobs near the input jack.

Lunker, get to photoshopping.

Oh man, that Jaguar picture totally reminds me. In quickplay I noticed a bassist rocking the hell out of a badass, beat-up and stickered Jaguar design. I immediately went to look for it but there's no special finish or anything for it for what I could find. Is the only way to get that to essentially use the art tools to make it look like that?

Man... I thought all that crap was so that the guitarist could control his own lighting on the fly. You learn something new everyday. Or... Hey! I didn't know Texas Instruments made guitars.

Man... I thought all that crap was so that the guitarist could control his own lighting on the fly. You learn something new everyday. Or... Hey! I didn't know Texas Instruments made guitars. There's certain Japanese reissue models of the guitar that have some pretty funky stuff put in place of the default configuration. In some of them they've embedded an effects pedal to the guitar and have it controlled by the top horn, and then simplified the lower horn controls (by say, putting a 3-way switch and ditching the tone cut instead of having three two-state switches). Oh, and they lose the tremelo and toss in two humbuckers in favor of the "claw" single coils. I've never heard it being used, it probably sounds like crap. But the development folks at Fender Japan sure do come up with crazy awesome ideas.