Rock Band: The Next Great Franchise - Page 17

Haha, I know, but it still doesn't exactly feel like a pick. Feels more like you're just wiggling one of the strings. Kinda. I guess. I'm only using a fancy cardboard cut-out pick, because the strum bar is cutting out some notes. The pick gets them all. No idea why.

Yup, makes a huge difference in the game. Like I say, it makes you feel like you're right in the middle of everything. So, I make do with the drum lag. Usually I'll kinda ride the cymbal and the snare, as they see to be a little less effected by the lag.

My replacement took about 3 days to reach me, no free game.

Sorry for taking up all the posts, but I just came across this, about how to fix your Strat's strum bar. Anyone wanna try it before I do, and wreck everything?

http://www.bsams.net/front-page/2007...nd-guitar.html

Pictures: http://www.arabefamily.com/galleries/blog/rockband/

Questions about Warranty come into play, I suppose. Probably best just to get a new guitar send off to you, but it does sound like this guy has solved the problem. Hm.

I just do a drum roll on the snare. Well, actually it's not a true roll cause I can't do that yet, but I hit the snare quickly alternating hands. That way it doesn't even attempt to emulate a beat, and doesn't seem to throw my bandmates or me off as much.

Dan

I had been using a cardboard pick also (posted about it a while back). But I decided to try to get used to the strum bar without it. Now I'm pretty good without the pick. The one thing I discovered, at least on my guitar, is that if I'm strumming up and down, I have to make sure my "up" strum goes far enough up, or the strum doesn't register. So that might help you, if you want to try without the pick.

Oh, and for the strum bar not feeling enough like a pick -- I try to hold it as much like a pick as possible. With my thumb almost parallel to the guitar face, and my index finger curved around so the end of it is almost parallel with my thumb (but pointing back the opposite direction of my thumb). For me, this makes it feel a little more like a pick, and also allows me to be as fast as I want. Of course, on slower power sections that don't require up and down strums, I may change my hand position, but you get the general idea.

FWIW, I've decided to get my guitar replaced like others have, because the buttons are sticking, and I'm hoping the new strum bar will eliminate the "up" strum issue.

Dan

How are you guys contacting Harmonix about replacing your guitars? I couldn't find any numbers at the RB website.

Go to http://support.ea.com/rockband it's a piece of cake. I received my replacement about 72 hours later. With it already being later on Weds I'm guessing a replacement ordered today will get to your place on Monday (2-day UPS not delivering on Saturday to residential).

Wow. That was pretty slick; I already have a tracking and RMA number.

Does anyone know when the stand-alone guitars will be sold?

I've been reading stand-alone equipment as being available late January 2008.

also got a replacement coming which was processed today. upstrokes and sticking buttons are my main issue.

The frets on the new guitars suck. They're very loud. The original guitar was perfect except for the strum mechanism.

my replacement is scheduled to arrive Monday.

fwiw, i read that the ps2 bundle version having the same exact hardware as the ps3 bundle was confirmed, except for the game of course. the actual ps2 rock band game though doesnt have the create your rocker, online play, and of course downloadable content (all 58 songs are on the game though).

i may end up grabbing the ps2 version of the game for the younger ones at my household, since they already have the guitars and mic that would work, and will transport the drum set back and forth rather than the whole ps3/rockband setup.

Quoting my own prior post simply to refute it now that I actually own the game.

The strum bar is fine, unlike my problems with the demo version. Stupid Best Buy apparently didn't calibrate the lag correctly and that's why I had problems with fast up/down passages.

I can't fully speak about long-term durability, but I now prefer the Rock Band guitar over the Guitar Hero guitar. It definitely feels like it's better made.

I love Guitar Hero, but Rock Band is simply miles and miles above it. With the grand slam that Harmonix put out with this game, the Activision/Red Octane folks will have some SERIOUS work ahead of them to match this.

I was hoping you'd have a different feeling when you tried your new guitar. I can't stress enough how important it is to have your lag EXACTLY right on for those long, quick 16th note sections. Think of it like trying to sync a metronome up to the second hand of your clock. If the metronome is exactly 60 beats/ second, both the clock and metronome should always keep in perfect time with each other. If, however, your metronome is set for anything else, even just 61 beats/second, eventually the metronome will fall out of time with your clock.

Same thing with the game. If your calibration is even just a little off, eventually you're going to be missing notes in those longer note sections. The trick, however, is finding your exact lag calibration. It's, unfortunately, very tricky. Spent about two hours the other day....calibrating....going into Paranoid on HARD...trying to fine tune out the missing notes. It'll drive you crazy if you don't get it right away. And then, as if by magic, you'll find it, and it'll be effortless to hit every single note.

It doesn't help that the calibration tool isn't at all helpful. The first screen, where you line up the little icon to where the note makes a sound is very...subjective. You can move that little thing within about a 40-50 beat zone, and it can look like it's hitting the note. The second screen is no better. I've done the test sometimes 15 times in a row, and got calibration numbers anywhere from -10 to 120!! Now I know I can't be off each time THAT badly!

So yeah, it's all about calibration. I finally found my zone. But it was hell. (I also found that a cardboard pick also helps to nail a long string of 16th notes....like in Paranoid on HARD. It's waaay more accurate than the strum bar, I find.)

Well, I was shopping on thursday and target had one ps3 version of rockband left.... we had a 10% off coupon and I couldn't resist. I bought it under the idea that I would "decide later whether or not I could really afford it/wanted to open it".

That lasted 2 days...

I opened it last night and had a blast with 2 friends. I love the guitar! It feels much better than the GH one, but as many others have said, fast notes are not picking up as well. I'll have to try the cardboard pick.

I did have a question though. When we first tried playing, we couldn't get the microphone to work. It was showing that it was connected, but it wasn't picking up any vocals. I had it plugged into the 3rd USB port from the left, and the controller that it was assigned to was technically the 2nd. We swapped it over to the second USB port and it worked just fine. (2nd controller was with the 2nd USB port, but I have no idea if this really did anything)

Is this normally required? I looked in the manual and didn't see anything about setting up the microphone with a controller. I'll have to try something else out on that USB port to make sure it's working ok.

I've only ever tried the mic in one port, but I've never had a problem.

Dan

Yeah, because the mic doesn't have any buttons on it, you need to work it with a controller. Otherwise you couldn't select things like difficulty level, or even which song you wanted to sing...if you were doing a solo singing tour.


I think that's what you were asking about.

They need to release paranoid android

I am buying buddy holly and my iron lung for sure. Dont care for the pretenders song.

What file extension do the song additions come in?


I was wondering because is their any chance in the future of someone hacking the file and being able to put any song they want on rock band?

Im sure there are dozens of processes that the song goes through before it can be played in RB, but if they can do it, why cant we?

Rockband.com is currently down as they upgrade the Community Website.

Can't wait to see the changes!

Controllers purchased with the PS2 or PS3 versions are identical and work in both PS2 and PS3 versions Rock Band.

Me too. Although I am definitely not missing my morning browse through the complaints about the PS3 patch situation, the complaints about the DLC, the complaints about the PS2 version... there's great info on the boards but man it can be a challenge to wade through.

WHile it'd be cool to be able to do our own songs it'd also be such an undertaking that I'm happy to leave it to HMX. I mean that's 16 note charts per song to make and sync up. Plus the headache of the audio managment.

I've been giving this idea some thought as well. With MIDI triggers for guitar and drums, and a sequencing program, it wouldn't be too difficult to pull off. You could play along to the track while recording the notes into the sequencer, and edit any imperfections on the screen.

Here's the rub......you'd need multi-track versions of the songs (though you could record a cover version) in order to have your individual instrument cut out when you screw up.

There's also the animation, but I'm too busy following notes to worry about that. (it's borderline distracting, as it is)

Edit: you'd only need to "track" the songs once. (which would be expert mode) You could then simply remove notes to create the easier levels.