Rock Band

[cmlancas]

I want Sultans of Swing ASAP, people.  Get on it.

Or Brothers in Arms, or Romeo and Julet, or Money for Nothing.... or Calling Elvis... lalala the list goes on 

I think that would push me straight out to buy a 360 and Rock Band.

[Mosesandstick]

I vaguely remember someone talking about playing GH/Rock band with a real guitar...

http://gizmodo.com/341959/soundtech-ediface-will-play-guitar-hero-with-real-guitar

[sidereal]

That would no worky - at all.

First, if you config'd it to use 5 frets on one string as the RB/GH notes, you wouldn't be able to play chords.  So you'd have to config 5 separate strings, probably on the same fret.  And then probably no strumming, so chords would have to be simultaneous picking.  Second, no matter how you config'd it, your guitar would sound very shitty (or at least a bunch of repetitive, dissonant notes) so you'd have to tune out your own guitar, which seems like it kind of defeats the purpose.

The ideal would be to custom reconfig it on each song, so each meatspace note would map to one of the 5 bubbles in the game (but with a custom mapping per-song).  However, I'm fairly confident that even in a single song an absolute note gets mapped to different bubbles depending on where in the song you are.  Plus good luck with chords, harmonics, and distortion.

So yeah. . I don't see it.

[Lantien]

Some possible relief (coming in March, mind) for PS3 players who want a guitar for GH3 AND Rock Band...

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3165316



Way to dodge getting used for copying the Explorer design folks! 

[schild]

Those buttons look unplayable.

I'm telling you, get some korean sanwa buttons, mod them into a guitar. You'll have the smoothest clickiest enjoyable guitar on the planet. And will never strain your fingers. Also, replace the strummer on the guitar with some sort of modified shallow joystick. Or even better, 2 arcade buttons. Maybe grooved player 1 and player 2 buttons since your fingers will always be there.

[NiX]

That left guitar looks like ass. Nyko proves once again they can make quality accessories

[NiX]

This weeks DLC:

This week at $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points) we have-

"Action" made famous by Sweet (cover)

"Last Train to Clarksville" made famous by the Monkees (cover)

"All the Small Things" by Blink 182

[WayAbvPar]

Why the fuck are the covering so many Sweet songs and they haven't gotten to Fox On The Run yet???

[Strazos]

Been able to play a little bit of RB lately...

I can actually do the singing...sort of. Especially for a guy who cannot sing normally, and who doesn't know most of the songs.

I can also probably do Bass on medium. I say probably because I have not tried medium yet; I'm still getting accustomed to actually using those other fingers on the frets, instead of having just my index finger jumping around like mad.

[Big Gulp]

I can actually do the singing...sort of. Especially for a guy who cannot sing normally, and who doesn't know most of the songs.

I can do the songs where the vocals are all pretty much at the pitch I normally sing at.  Beyond that, I'm screwed.

Oh, I can get past them if I just turn up the mic's pick up volume and hum, but for some reason I just can't change my pitch when singing.  And truthfully, my voice isn't bad when I sing, I just seem to be unable to alter my pitch to match what's showing up on the screen while actually singing and enunciating the lyrics.

[NiX]

I will come visit and proceed to kick you in the genitals until your pitch changes. You will sing Maps.

[Strazos]

NO. Fuck Maps. I fucking hate that song. It's stupid.

Also, I don't wanna say Fuck Bowie, but I can't do his songs either.

[Selby]

You know, I played Rock Band at a friend's house over the weekend.  Some of those setlists are brutal (they played a 10 song setlist and ALL of them were 6-9 minutes long).  It's actually quite an interesting game and we had a great time with it (especially considering both of them were good at drums and I was able to play guitar or bass for the hard songs for them).  The wife says I *will* be picking it up for her, but I hesitate due to all of the complaints of broken hardware (and my friend's mic actually broke while we were playing, funny enough).  Is there any end in sight for them actually releasing hardware that doesn't suck, or are a handful of vocal people just really unlucky?

[Tairnyn]

I can do the songs where the vocals are all pretty much at the pitch I normally sing at.  Beyond that, I'm screwed.

Oh, I can get past them if I just turn up the mic's pick up volume and hum, but for some reason I just can't change my pitch when singing.  And truthfully, my voice isn't bad when I sing, I just seem to be unable to alter my pitch to match what's showing up on the screen while actually singing and enunciating the lyrics.

The game is a little forgiving in that you can actually sing any song up or down octaves, as long as the relative pitch matches. It's particularly handy for singing those female songs as a man, and especially during Gimme Shelter when they cruelly make you sing the female part, as well. I can sing high notes (thanks high school choir) but I find that my throat gets sore after doing it for too long so I just shift it down to a comfortable range.

[sidereal]

NO. Fuck Maps. I fucking hate that song. It's stupid.

Wait!  They don't love you like I love you.

Wait!  They don't love you like I love you.

Ma-a-aaah aa-aaaah aa-aaaa-aaa-aa-aaaaaaaps

[Mosesandstick]

Singing part on the song isn't that hard if you happen to have a brother with a trained soprano for a girlfriend. 

[MrHat]

Noobs.

I just lower the difficulty to easy, get trashed, and yell the songs.

[NiX]

A lot of my friends demand I sing Timmy and the lords of the underworld. Apparently I do a very good rendition of the song.

[Tairnyn]

For all you drummers out there, someone has released a Windows application called Drum Machine which lets you free play the Rock Band drums and assign .wav files to each one. It comes with a decent set of drum sounds but it should be easy enough to add any sound you want. It also supports recording and playback so you should be able to hypothetically use it to play drums for a song and add the audio track. I found XP recognized the drum kit right away and it worked pretty well, although I had a few random crashes since it's in early beta. It's nothing groundbreaking, but a nice cheaper alternative to buying a real electronic drum kit.

http://andrewrudson.com/main.php

[Morfiend]

NO. Fuck Maps. I fucking hate that song. It's stupid.

Wait!  They don't love you like I love you.

Wait!  They don't love you like I love you.

Ma-a-aaah aa-aaaah aa-aaaa-aaa-aa-aaaaaaaps

My girlfriend can hit 100% on maps on expert, with out even watching the TV. She did used to sing in a band though.

[Morfiend]

Week of January 22nd, 2008

Oasis Pack-
- “Don’t Look Back in Anger”
- “Live Forever”
- “Wonderwall”

Week of January 29th, 2008

- “Siva”- by Smashing Pumpkins
- “Working Man” as made famous by Rush
- “Ten Speed (Of God’s Blood and Burial)” as made famous by Coheed
and Cambria

[WayAbvPar]

WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE FULL ALBUMS??

[Phildo]

If those Oasis tunes are all originals and not covers... I'm in love.

[Morfiend]

I want a goddamn Bon Jovi pack. That would be 

[sidereal]

It saddens me that Harmonix is making eleventy billion dollars from song downloads.  And since the download quality has been meh, we can assume they'll make double eleventy billion dollars when the song quality gets better.

Not because I don't want them to print moneyhats.  Great for them.  Awesome game.  But it's going to usher in the real world of micro-nickel-and-diming-me-to-death like WoW ushered in MMOs.  I predict in the next couple of years that half of all major releases will involve $30-40 of post-purchase DLC.  Ugh.

[Big Gulp]

WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE FULL ALBUMS??

Yeah, supposedly according to their website's FAQ in the forums "Who's Next is definitely coming out before the end of the year".  This was written in late November.  What the fucking hold up could be is anyone's guess, I just want my Who.

[Azazel]

They might be making too much money by selling people 3 songs at a time...

changed plans on the full album thing perhaps?

[Margalis]

Why the hell isn't this out for the Wii? Seems like a perfect fit for the audience and it's not like it has high technical requirements.

[Phildo]

Also, why are the PS3 downloads a week behind again?  I was all excited for Oasis =(

[schild]

Also, why are the PS3 downloads a week behind again?  I was all excited for Oasis =(

That's because you're a tool.

[Tairnyn]

[Lantien]

OXM reveals March's DLC.  February is still unknown.

http://kotaku.com/350962/rock-band-dlc-for-march-outlined-in-latest-oxm

March 4 - Thrash Pack
At The Gates: Blinded By Fear
Evile: Thrashes
The Haunted: Shadow World

March 11
Bad Company: Shooting Star (COVER)
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Simple Man
The Police: Message in a Bottle

March 18 - NIN Pack
Nine Inch Nails: March of the Pigs
Nine Inch Nails: The Collector
Nine Inch Nails: The Perfect Drug

March 25 - Metal Pack
Iron Maiden: Wrathchild (COVER)
Black Sabbath: Supernaut (COVER)
Metallica: Fuel

So.. Message in the Bottle, maybe the Perfect Drug for me.

[schild]

They're doing a great job with that "full album" shit.

[Azazel]

Really seems to be thay've changed their minds and decided to nickel and dime the userbase with 3 songs at a time instead.

[Morfiend]

Anyone got the DLC info for this week?