***Offficial Rock Band 2 Thread****

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: Oyeve
Yeah, I guess being that I play real guitar and real bass and really sliding on real guitars has made me pretty good playing with fake guitars in expert modes. The flat RB fret is great for that. I do find the clakity clack of the GH guitars help me with the timing of the songs but as a guitarist I usually get into the sound and basically ignore the counting of colors and just go with the flow so to speak.

Yeah, it looks like it'd be easier if I had a better grasp on some musical basics or at least remembered them from my 5th grade music class . Sometimes during long streaks of notes ( usually the rather fast ones ), I cannot get them all perfectly as I just don't have the proper spacing. My brother will be all "oh 16th notes" and just goes along with it (he did band and choir quite a bit, so he knows music a ton better than I do). There was this one song in GHWT last night that had a ton of really closely spaced notes and I had maybe 80% accuracy during it. It was rather long of a streak, so I tried doing up and down strumming rather than just down, but that didn't seem to help.

Oh and I'm kind of deviating into GHWT, but people are so nerdy . I went and looked at the fan-made stuff in GHWT and someone made Final Fantasy songs for it (Those Who Fight Further (also called Still More Fighting) and One Winged Angel of course). But I don't think that's nearly as bad as me downloading said songs . I'm tempted to play Those Who Fight Further, 'cause it's one of my favorite songs from FFVII.

How the fuck would music theory help you in a game like rock band? The ONLY thing that already playing a guitar/bass helps with is that you already have the well established hand-eye coordination you need as well as the use of all the fingers including the pinky.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: gorcorps
How the fuck would music theory help you in a game like rock band? The ONLY thing that already playing a guitar/bass helps with is that you already have the well established hand-eye coordination you need as well as the use of all the fingers including the pinky.

I already explained it, but I guess I can repeat myself... it comes down to knowing the timing of the notes rather than me guessing the timing of the notes. This is typically an issue with the faster notes. If I actually could tell you more about a 1/16th note and such, it might be easier as I could apply the timing to the strumming rather than saying, "Oh they're close together... hit it fast and hope I don't miss!" It's kind of funny when I get it all wrong and it's just *miss miss miss miss miss miss hit miss miss miss miss miss hit*

EDIT:

To give an example, if I messed up on said set of notes, my brother would just tell me, "Oh those are such-and-such notes, you need to do it like this" and he'll just strum the bar to the proper umm rhythm... err whatever musical term applies.

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: gorcorps
How the fuck would music theory help you in a game like rock band? The ONLY thing that already playing a guitar/bass helps with is that you already have the well established hand-eye coordination you need as well as the use of all the fingers including the pinky.

I already explained it, but I guess I can repeat myself... it comes down to knowing the timing of the notes rather than me guessing the timing of the notes. This is typically an issue with the faster notes. If I actually could tell you more about a 1/16th note and such, it might be easier as I could apply the timing to the strumming rather than saying, "Oh they're close together... hit it fast and hope I don't miss!" It's kind of funny when I get it all wrong and it's just *miss miss miss miss miss miss hit miss miss miss miss miss hit*

EDIT:

To give an example, if I messed up on said set of notes, my brother would just tell me, "Oh those are such-and-such notes, you need to do it like this" and he'll just strum the bar to the proper umm rhythm... err whatever musical term applies.

Alright fair enough. But after listening to the song and seeing the notes coming your way it shouldn't be hard to know what you're up against. Since tempos change every song I personally don't get much advantage out of knowing if it's a 1/16 or 1/8th or anything like that, I just know how to play it. Everybody has their own thing though I guess.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: gorcorps

Originally posted by: Aikouka
Yeah, it looks like it'd be easier if I had a better grasp on some musical basics or at least remembered them from my 5th grade music class . Sometimes during long streaks of notes ( usually the rather fast ones ), I cannot get them all perfectly as I just don't have the proper spacing. My brother will be all "oh 16th notes" and just goes along with it (he did band and choir quite a bit, so he knows music a ton better than I do). There was this one song in GHWT last night that had a ton of really closely spaced notes and I had maybe 80% accuracy during it. It was rather long of a streak, so I tried doing up and down strumming rather than just down, but that didn't seem to help.

Oh and I'm kind of deviating into GHWT, but people are so nerdy . I went and looked at the fan-made stuff in GHWT and someone made Final Fantasy songs for it (Those Who Fight Further (also called Still More Fighting) and One Winged Angel of course). But I don't think that's nearly as bad as me downloading said songs . I'm tempted to play Those Who Fight Further, 'cause it's one of my favorite songs from FFVII.

How the fuck would music theory help you in a game like rock band? The ONLY thing that already playing a guitar/bass helps with is that you already have the well established hand-eye coordination you need as well as the use of all the fingers including the pinky.

Good lord, would you lay off Aikouka already? You need to stay off the caffeine or something.

Anyway, anybody downloading the country tracks next week? I'm glad to finally see some country in RB. While I'm not a fan, my wife is, and any reason to get her to play games with me is always welcomed.

 

[jdport]

People who have a really good sense of rhythm benefit a lot from knowing that a string is 1/16 notes, or triplets, or whatever the case may be. Personally I've never really benefitted from that knowledge either. I played enough music when I was in school to know what those terms mean, but I never had that sense of rhythm that allowed me to use that knowledge to know how to play. I always played by sound... and I do the same thing in Rock Band and Guitar Hero. It takes me longer to get good at a song than somebody who can play that way though because I basically have to practice it until I just know how fast to play rather than being able to feel the rhythm and just play.

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: blurredvision

Originally posted by: gorcorps

Originally posted by: Aikouka
Yeah, it looks like it'd be easier if I had a better grasp on some musical basics or at least remembered them from my 5th grade music class . Sometimes during long streaks of notes ( usually the rather fast ones ), I cannot get them all perfectly as I just don't have the proper spacing. My brother will be all "oh 16th notes" and just goes along with it (he did band and choir quite a bit, so he knows music a ton better than I do). There was this one song in GHWT last night that had a ton of really closely spaced notes and I had maybe 80% accuracy during it. It was rather long of a streak, so I tried doing up and down strumming rather than just down, but that didn't seem to help.

Oh and I'm kind of deviating into GHWT, but people are so nerdy . I went and looked at the fan-made stuff in GHWT and someone made Final Fantasy songs for it (Those Who Fight Further (also called Still More Fighting) and One Winged Angel of course). But I don't think that's nearly as bad as me downloading said songs . I'm tempted to play Those Who Fight Further, 'cause it's one of my favorite songs from FFVII.

How the fuck would music theory help you in a game like rock band? The ONLY thing that already playing a guitar/bass helps with is that you already have the well established hand-eye coordination you need as well as the use of all the fingers including the pinky.

Good lord, would you lay off Aikouka already? You need to stay off the caffeine or something.

Anyway, anybody downloading the country tracks next week? I'm glad to finally see some country in RB. While I'm not a fan, my wife is, and any reason to get her to play games with me is always welcomed.

Sorry, finals time = stress

Nothing personal Aikouka

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: jdport
People who have a really good sense of rhythm benefit a lot from knowing that a string is 1/16 notes, or triplets, or whatever the case may be. Personally I've never really benefitted from that knowledge either. I played enough music when I was in school to know what those terms mean, but I never had that sense of rhythm that allowed me to use that knowledge to know how to play. I always played by sound... and I do the same thing in Rock Band and Guitar Hero. It takes me longer to get good at a song than somebody who can play that way though because I basically have to practice it until I just know how fast to play rather than being able to feel the rhythm and just play.

Sound can kind of hurt me in these games as at times, I'll misconstrue the bass with the guitar and well... that doesn't work so well . There's also the issue of missing notes/steps that's prevalent in (I think) all music games where you simply expect there to be more notes/steps but they removed some to make it easier. I get that in DDR a bit as well since I am just transitioning into Hard on that (which is why I included Step).

It definitely takes me awhile to get better at it too though. I think my friend's girlfriend is even better than me and she's not really a gamer and I think I'm the only person out of the gamers I know personally that isn't past Medium .

Originally posted by: gorcorps
Sorry, finals time = stress

Nothing personal Aikouka

Oh, I don't care . I wasn't exactly peachy keen yesterday as I don't really deal with snide criticism very well (daddy issues... but we'll leave those out of ATCG ).

Originally posted by: blurredvision
Anyway, anybody downloading the country tracks next week? I'm glad to finally see some country in RB. While I'm not a fan, my wife is, and any reason to get her to play games with me is always welcomed.

I assume those are going to be more of the "new age country" type of stuff?

I'd kind of like one of them to release some more Muse music... I do have a lot in Frets on Fire, but that's not as good and very hard to navigate with lots of music .

 

[jdport]

I will DEFINITELY be buying all those tracks. The Dixie Chicks pissed me off getting all political on stage, but their songs are still pretty good and Brad Paisley is awsome on guitar, and I wish it hadn't taken them this long to get him in. Brooks and Dunn have some good stuff too, so this is gonna be a very good DLC week for me

 

[Aikouka]

Oh I just thought of an interesting little question/poll. One thing I noticed when playing Guitar Hero (or rather any guitar-based rhythmic game) with my friend is that he plays sitting down and prefers that. Personally, I cannot play sitting down... I try it and do much worse.

Do you prefer sitting or standing? Can you only play decently one way?

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: jdport
People who have a really good sense of rhythm benefit a lot from knowing that a string is 1/16 notes, or triplets, or whatever the case may be. Personally I've never really benefitted from that knowledge either. I played enough music when I was in school to know what those terms mean, but I never had that sense of rhythm that allowed me to use that knowledge to know how to play. I always played by sound... and I do the same thing in Rock Band and Guitar Hero. It takes me longer to get good at a song than somebody who can play that way though because I basically have to practice it until I just know how fast to play rather than being able to feel the rhythm and just play.

Yep. Some knowledge of chords and notes helps. Like I stated before, if its a song that I know (I know most of em in all RB and GH games) and you can get into a groove then you pretty much just have to see what color is coming and play. For me I only play on expert (occasionally on hard if its some retarded heavy metal song) and knowing the song and knowing how to play guitar and bass I utilize sliding and hammer-ons and hammer-offs. The hammers or sliding in GHWT can really net you some high scores and higher accuracy as you dont have to kill yourself strumming like a madman when 500 1/16th notes come barreling at you. You strum once and finger the whole sequence, if you miss a note strum again and just finger the fast note. Trust me, it makes the games much more fun and you will feel like a rockstar when you nail a whole sequence of fast notes on expert using real guitar tecniques. I wish they would make a RB/GH game that uses 6 buttons and program the songs more accurately to real notes. Or even a fake RB/GH guitar that has strings. I read long ago when GH was really taking off that someone was working on a semi-real guitar controller. That would be sweet.

I am also happy that so many kids who play Rockband and GH have actually picked up an interest in music and guitars. I know off the top of my head 6 kids who have actually gotten real guitars and are taking lessons, my son is one of them, although hes been playing around with my real guitars for years he has really improved greatly since RB and GH. I am also happy, being a mid 40s old fart, that this teen generation is listening to classic rock and pop songs from long before they were born and digging the music. Now if only one of the guitar game franchises could land some Led Zep and some Floyd and a whole bunch of other groups.........

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
Oh I just thought of an interesting little question/poll. One thing I noticed when playing Guitar Hero (or rather any guitar-based rhythmic game) with my friend is that he plays sitting down and prefers that. Personally, I cannot play sitting down... I try it and do much worse.

Do you prefer sitting or standing? Can you only play decently one way?

I can't stand sitting down. It's just uncomfortable and I play better standing. Most of my friends who play real guitar stand as well, and most that don't play sitting.

 

[BRObedoza]

the no doubt songs are fun to play on drums, especially Sunday Morning and Spiderwebs

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: sleepmachine
the no doubt songs are fun to play on drums, especially Sunday Morning and Spiderwebs

I think Spiderwebs comes by default on GHWT, so I'll have to try that on there (as I believe I did it on Guitar while doing Career Mode).

I ended up buying a couple songs from Offspring, George Thoroughgood (I couldn't resist!) and Dream Theater. I started playing Drums as well and I don't know what it is... I remember trying drums on my brother's RB1 set last Christmas and I couldn't even do it on easy. This time I played decently on easy and I went and tried a song on Medium and no problemo! Okay, it wasn't pretty, but I didn't fail. But man... them drums will tire your arms out .

 

[ShOcKwAvE827]

Sunday Morning is my favorite on drums from the No Doubt pack. I have the Rock Band 2 drums with the 3 cymbal pack and it's a blast to play. Once I get my Roland TD-3 hooked up to rock band it'll be even more fun. Play drums for a week, you'll be playing hard/expert by the end of the week. It shouldn't really tire your arms out if you use the right technique. Only songs that I get tired on are really fast songs like Dammit.

 

[abaez]

Where did you get the 3 pack? We've been looking everywhere and ended up buying a 2 pack. We might just buy another 2 pack and a splitter to have four cymbals.

The only songs where my arms get tired is electric version. I don't play any of the harder songs on expert though.

 

[oznerol]

I'm curious - why haven't we set up an ATCG band yet? You can do an online world tour, right? I imagine we have enough fake musical talent here that we can gold-star our way to the top.

 

[ShOcKwAvE827]

I got the the 3 pack at Fry's. I just sold my two pack I had before that for 48 on ebay so demand is really high.. Problem with a 2 pack is how are you going to mount the extra cymbal to the frame?

 

[ShOcKwAvE827]

I'm down for a AT band.. I call drummer, my Live handle is shockwave827

 

[tdawg]

Originally posted by: ShOcKwAvE827
Sunday Morning is my favorite on drums from the No Doubt pack. I have the Rock Band 2 drums with the 3 cymbal pack and it's a blast to play. Once I get my Roland TD-3 hooked up to rock band it'll be even more fun. Play drums for a week, you'll be playing hard/expert by the end of the week. It shouldn't really tire your arms out if you use the right technique. Only songs that I get tired on are really fast songs like Dammit.

Any specific resources for drumming technique? I can only complete a handful of songs on hard drums, though I can dominate all of them on medium. The rest I just get destroyed. Oh, and those songs with quick yellow notes (but not rolls, or whatever they're called) on hard make my arms tired. Songs like PDA and The Middle with sustained, fairly rapid yellow hits.

 

[glenn beck]

Originally posted by: tdawg

Originally posted by: ShOcKwAvE827
Sunday Morning is my favorite on drums from the No Doubt pack. I have the Rock Band 2 drums with the 3 cymbal pack and it's a blast to play. Once I get my Roland TD-3 hooked up to rock band it'll be even more fun. Play drums for a week, you'll be playing hard/expert by the end of the week. It shouldn't really tire your arms out if you use the right technique. Only songs that I get tired on are really fast songs like Dammit.

Any specific resources for drumming technique? I can only complete a handful of songs on hard drums, though I can dominate all of them on medium. The rest I just get destroyed. Oh, and those songs with quick yellow notes (but not rolls, or whatever they're called) on hard make my arms tired. Songs like PDA and The Middle with sustained, fairly rapid yellow hits.

http://www.freedrumlessons.com/


as far as your arms getting tired, wait till you get to expert, make sure
you are using your wrist not your arms for the fast notes

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: ShOcKwAvE827
It shouldn't really tire your arms out if you use the right technique. Only songs that I get tired on are really fast songs like Dammit.

Well, to be honest, I actually ended up straining my wrists playing drums . They hurt pretty damn badly the next day (yesterday).

Are the cymbals what connects into that other mini-jack that's on the drums? I noticed that when plugging in the foot pedal and had no idea what it's for... now if the manual says, I have no idea, because no one reads manuals .

 

[abaez]

No one knows. Alot of people think it's for another bass pedal, but I'm pinning my hopes on a keyboard addon.

 

[tdawg]

Originally posted by: glenn beck

Originally posted by: tdawg

Originally posted by: ShOcKwAvE827
Sunday Morning is my favorite on drums from the No Doubt pack. I have the Rock Band 2 drums with the 3 cymbal pack and it's a blast to play. Once I get my Roland TD-3 hooked up to rock band it'll be even more fun. Play drums for a week, you'll be playing hard/expert by the end of the week. It shouldn't really tire your arms out if you use the right technique. Only songs that I get tired on are really fast songs like Dammit.

Any specific resources for drumming technique? I can only complete a handful of songs on hard drums, though I can dominate all of them on medium. The rest I just get destroyed. Oh, and those songs with quick yellow notes (but not rolls, or whatever they're called) on hard make my arms tired. Songs like PDA and The Middle with sustained, fairly rapid yellow hits.

http://www.freedrumlessons.com/


as far as your arms getting tired, wait till you get to expert, make sure
you are using your wrist not your arms for the fast notes

Thanks. Yeah, I watched a video of some people playing Run To The Hills and it's insanely fast! I just don't think I can play fast enough, though with enough practice, maybe I'll get faster.

 

[glenn beck]

Originally posted by: tdawg

Originally posted by: glenn beck

Originally posted by: tdawg

Originally posted by: ShOcKwAvE827
Sunday Morning is my favorite on drums from the No Doubt pack. I have the Rock Band 2 drums with the 3 cymbal pack and it's a blast to play. Once I get my Roland TD-3 hooked up to rock band it'll be even more fun. Play drums for a week, you'll be playing hard/expert by the end of the week. It shouldn't really tire your arms out if you use the right technique. Only songs that I get tired on are really fast songs like Dammit.

Any specific resources for drumming technique? I can only complete a handful of songs on hard drums, though I can dominate all of them on medium. The rest I just get destroyed. Oh, and those songs with quick yellow notes (but not rolls, or whatever they're called) on hard make my arms tired. Songs like PDA and The Middle with sustained, fairly rapid yellow hits.

http://www.freedrumlessons.com/


as far as your arms getting tired, wait till you get to expert, make sure
you are using your wrist not your arms for the fast notes

Thanks. Yeah, I watched a video of some people playing Run To The Hills and it's insanely fast! I just don't think I can play fast enough, though with enough practice, maybe I'll get faster.

there's your answer

 

[jdport]

That is only part of the answer though... with guitar I found that with enough practice I was able to play pretty much anything. Stuff I originally thought to be impossible became more and more doable over time.

With drums though, I hit a brick wall and never seemed to improve. It seems like there are physical limits to anybody's ability to play the drums that aren't there, or at least are much less with the guitar. My foot can only twitch so fast, and it isn't fast enough to hit the fast double or triple bass hits.

The coordination and such you can improve on with practice, but there are some things you really can't improve.. .or so it seems to me.
In Rock Band 1 I never did get past Don't Fear the Reaper on expert drums... and I practiced it a ton.... kept going to practice mode and doing it slowly then increasing the speed slowly.... but never was able to get through it. Rock Band 2 seems significantly more difficult than Rock Band 1 drumming to me...

so while practice is a key to getting good, I think that drums moreso than guitar there are natural attributes that are needed in order to be able to play well.