Official Rock Band DLC News, Impressions, and Comments Thread

[jersoc]

I felt the same way about the disturburbed songs. wtf @ kick pedal. i just moved into an apt at the top floor, i seriously hope people below aren't home during the day. :lol: My destroyer should be shipping this week or next, so hopefully that'll help with better rebounding.

I took a chance and got the buffett(or buffet who knows) songs. I was pleasantly surprised. Not only are they pretty good to listen to, but fun to play. I think that's awesome HMX got them to re-record that. I hope more bands do that. Stuff from the 70's and 80's that would more than likely sound like crap. But apparently Ozzie hates these games, so wishful thinking there, eh? Or at least I don't believe we got a master track from him yet.

[denoginizer]

My destroyer should be shipping this week or next, so hopefully that'll help with better rebounding.

Let me know what you think of the destroyer.  I think I am going to bite the bullet and get a 3rd party pedal.  I just ordered my 4th pedal from EA this morning.

[Gratch]

Gratch I'm bummed you don't like them on drums (not that I blame you), I was looking forward to us playing those together. But there's always Buffet 

I might play them again, just not on Expert.   I'm not a big Disturbed fan anyways (that "ooooorrrrrrr-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah" growl-thing the singer does in every song is possibly the stupidest sound ever recorded in human history), so I'm sure that doesn't help my impression.

[Purge]

Gratch I'm bummed you don't like them on drums (not that I blame you), I was looking forward to us playing those together. But there's always Buffet 

I might play them again, just not on Expert.   I'm not a big Disturbed fan anyways (that "ooooorrrrrrr-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah" growl-thing the singer does in every song is possibly the stupidest sound ever recorded in human history), so I'm sure that doesn't help my impression.

Since the Sickness Draiman hasn't done it that much at all; something about tearing out his vocal chords. I could be wrong though; I have a have a hazy memory of an interview which touched on why Believe didn't have the throat sounds.

Ten Thousand Fists also doesn't have much of it ... since I've not heard the new album (yet) I'll let you know when I do.

[Jeff]

Since the Sickness Draiman hasn't done it that much at all; something about tearing out his vocal chords. I could be wrong though; I have a have a hazy memory of an interview which touched on why Believe didn't have the throat sounds.

Ten Thousand Fists also doesn't have much of it ... since I've not heard the new album (yet) I'll let you know when I do.

True. What happened was Draiman basically shredded his vocal chords and ended up having surgery to repair it. Disturbed had to cancel a concert tour a while back because of it. That said, I always loved those sounds (sorry gratch, don't hate me ), they are very unusual and I think take a lot of vocal talent to do. They also fit with the music type. I always thought of them as being like another instrument. I've never heard anyone else do anything like it.

Also, jersoc, I'd like to know where you heard Ozzy hates these type games. That's disappointing. I'm a big Ozzy fan and I always figured him for someone who'd go along with games like GH or RB.

Lastly, I agree wholeheartedly about Buffett's coolness of agreeing to remaster his classics for RB. Now I just wish we could get Rush and Black Sabbath masters

[Gratch]

True. What happened was Draiman basically shredded his vocal chords and ended up having surgery to repair it. Disturbed had to cancel a concert tour a while back because of it. That said, I always loved those sounds (sorry gratch, don't hate me ), they are very unusual and I think take a lot of vocal talent to do. They also fit with the music type. I always thought of them as being like another instrument. I've never heard anyone else do anything like it.

Slight derail:  You should listen to some of Mike Patton's music (Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, Peeping Tom, Tomahawk, Faith No More, etc.).  He uses his voice as an instrument more than anyone I've ever heard.  Dude can do the most amazing things you've ever heard with those pipes.  The music itself is certainly more challenging that Disturbed's nu-metal schtick, but he is truly an amazing vocalist.

[Farscry]

*ALERT*

If you're in the Boston area, and interested in RB, shoot me a PM.  I have an opportunity that may be of interest to you.

I so wish I were living in the Boston area right now!

[Jeff]

*ALERT*

If you're in the Boston area, and interested in RB, shoot me a PM.  I have an opportunity that may be of interest to you.

I so wish I were living in the Boston area right now!

Yeah, me too, but then I'd still have to deal with the whole "... and are qualified" part

[lildrgn]

Now I just wish we could get Rush and Black Sabbath masters

CHAZ MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

[Jeff]

Now I just wish we could get Rush and Black Sabbath masters

Blasphemer.

[Bullwinkle]

*ALERT*

If you're in the Boston area, and interested in RB, shoot me a PM.  I have an opportunity that may be of interest to you.

Weird you mention this. Last night I had a dream that you put in a plug for me, and I got hired by Harmonix.

If you were in the Boston area, interested, and qualified, I would do that for you.  However, this may not be that moment. 

How "Boston Area" are we talking?  I'm in Connecticut, and it's a very familiar drive...

[Chaz]

Now I just wish we could get Rush and Black Sabbath masters

CHAZ MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

You have a surprising amount of faith in my ability to do things that people much smarter than me and with way more experience and connections haven't been able to do.  Thanks for the thought though.

[jersoc]

My destroyer should be shipping this week or next, so hopefully that'll help with better rebounding.

Let me know what you think of the destroyer.  I think I am going to bite the bullet and get a 3rd party pedal.  I just ordered my 4th pedal from EA this morning.

yeah, i'll post impressions. i've had this thing on order since march 

right now my pedal is rigged up with some wood since it's cracked in like 4 spots. this works surprisingly enough. so I'm pretty pumped to be getting this soon.

[jersoc]

Since the Sickness Draiman hasn't done it that much at all; something about tearing out his vocal chords. I could be wrong though; I have a have a hazy memory of an interview which touched on why Believe didn't have the throat sounds.

Ten Thousand Fists also doesn't have much of it ... since I've not heard the new album (yet) I'll let you know when I do.

True. What happened was Draiman basically shredded his vocal chords and ended up having surgery to repair it. Disturbed had to cancel a concert tour a while back because of it. That said, I always loved those sounds (sorry gratch, don't hate me ), they are very unusual and I think take a lot of vocal talent to do. They also fit with the music type. I always thought of them as being like another instrument. I've never heard anyone else do anything like it.

Also, jersoc, I'd like to know where you heard Ozzy hates these type games. That's disappointing. I'm a big Ozzy fan and I always figured him for someone who'd go along with games like GH or RB.

Lastly, I agree wholeheartedly about Buffett's coolness of agreeing to remaster his classics for RB. Now I just wish we could get Rush and Black Sabbath masters

I wasn't being literal. Pointing out we've yet to get a master. I think maybe Bark at the moon was a master, but i'm not sure. outside of that, pretty sure we haven't gotten another.

[Chaz]

Bark at the Moon was definitely a cover.  Nothing on GH1 was a master.

[lildrgn]

^^^

Why are you wasting time here when you should be on the phone with Rush's management company (SRO) and their manager (Ray Danniels) begging them to release 2112 (side one please) or Hemispheres (all of it please) as master tracks for your brilliant game????

Get to work!

[Chaz]

Because I'm posting while I'm on hold with the record label working on getting some Avril Levigne and Coldplay for the game.

Wait, Coldplay's spoken for?  Well crud. 

[jersoc]

coldplay is blah anyways. let them goto the milk franchise i say.

[JayDee]

coldplay is blah anyways. let them goto the milk franchise i say.

Oh how much I would pay to play "Yellow" on my plastic instruments!!

[wonderpug]

coldplay is blah anyways. let them goto the milk franchise i say.

Oh how much I would pay to play "Yellow" on my plastic instruments!!

$2 or $1.67 if purchased with a 3 song bundle?

[jersoc]

Look at the cash signs, look how they buy you blow. it was all white.

[rshetts2]

Love RB but WTF is up with the Who's Next album release.  That was one of the major selling points for me and after waiting more than 6 months Im finally officially pissed off!  Is this ever coming out?  What exactly is the hold up?  I need answers or someones gonna get a large plastic guitar up the side of the head, El Kabong style!

[wonderpug]

Love RB but WTF is up with the Who's Next album release.

What exactly is the hold up?

It's all ready to go but whenever they get into a conversation about who's releasing The Who's Who's Next it devolves into a Who's on First? routine and they just throw up their hands and release something else instead.

[The Grue]

So...they're automatically issuing a replacement bass pedal to anyone who downloads the Disturbed pack.  Right?   Seriously, playing every kick of looooooong double-bass runs on a single pedal is not my idea of fun.   Fuck those songs, they'll never get played again.

The Buffet pack is a blast though.   Margaritaville and Volcano are loads and loads of fun, with Volcano being especially awesome.  It's tougher than I expected, especially since the kick pedal keeps a steady rhythm all the way through.   Both covers are great, and really do the originals justice.  I do agree with Jeff that the Cheeseburger in Paradise remake just sounds...wrong.  The guitars are way to heavy, and Buffet sounds somewhat disinterested.

Have to disagree with you on the Disturbed tracks.  They were a ton of fun to play and very challenging on the foot.  I got home from my last trip and downloaded all the stuff I was missing:  The Cars album, Disturbed pack, and Buffet pack.  I am pleased with all of them.

I forgot how good that Cars album is.  There are only two songs I have never heard of and one of them is really good.  The other one is kind of weird...I like it, but not sure how often I would play it.  The rest of the songs are gold.  The drum parts aren't incredibly challenging, but still fun to play.  Can't wait to do the guitars as they sound great.

The Buffet songs were also fun to play on drums and actually a little harder than the Cars drum parts.  I don't mind the remakes too much, but my only complaint is the sound quality doesn't seem very good.

The Disturbed songs were crazy fun to play on drums.  Very hard....you need a leg of steel to play them.  I got through all three on my first try, but there is certainly tons of room for improvement.

Bring on next week's stuff!

The Buff

[Gratch]

Have to disagree with you on the Disturbed tracks.  They were a ton of fun to play and very challenging on the foot.  I got home from my last trip and downloaded all the stuff I was missing:  The Cars album, Disturbed pack, and Buffet pack.  I am pleased with all of them.

 

Challenging?  Yes.  Fun?  You and I apparently have different definitions there.    I was able to get through all three, but I was afraid my pedal was going to snap in half the entire time I was playing.  Probably would have been tolerable if I had some sort of pedal mod, but there's no way I'm playing them again until I get one.

The Buff

  

BTW, do we get a debrief on the PeteRock Rock Band experience?

[The Grue]

The Buff

  

BTW, do we get a debrief on the PeteRock Rock Band experience?

Hah, I am not sure how that "The Buff" thing got in there.  Guess my cursor jumped around or something.

As for the PeteRock Rock Band experience....are you spying on me?   

[The Grue]

Alright, well I stalked Pete Rocks posts and see now where he mentioned I was coming over.  Rock Band was fun, but I had some issues where I felt like I had to play ahead of the actual music as I heard it in order to not be counted off.  So, my drumming sucked and I killed us all on Run to the Hills because how do you play ahead of something like that?  I did some singing and guitar playing as well and a good time was had by all, though I think Pete got tired of me complaining about the drums.   I was trying to defend my honor because I am sure he thought I sucked after witnessing that.

[Chaz]

I would argue that it sounds like Pete sucks at calibrating his system, and has simply gotten used to his sucky calibration.

[Jeff]

I would argue that it sounds like Pete sucks at calibrating his system, and has simply gotten used to his sucky calibration.

That's an important point. I went to a friend's house who had RB on a PS3 with a 42" LCD TV and the calibration was god-awful on his setup. I showed him how to calibrate and he couldn't believe the difference afterwards.

[The Grue]

I would argue that it sounds like Pete sucks at calibrating his system, and has simply gotten used to his sucky calibration.

That's an important point. I went to a friend's house who had RB on a PS3 with a 42" LCD TV and the calibration was god-awful on his setup. I showed him how to calibrate and he couldn't believe the difference afterwards.

Well, for Pete, he felt it was right.  We talked about it and he said he had gone through the calibration and it showed a value of 0 for him.  When he played drums he felt they were dead on.  So, it can also be about perception as well.

[denoginizer]

I would argue that it sounds like Pete sucks at calibrating his system, and has simply gotten used to his sucky calibration.

That's an important point. I went to a friend's house who had RB on a PS3 with a 42" LCD TV and the calibration was god-awful on his setup. I showed him how to calibrate and he couldn't believe the difference afterwards.

I have a friend who has a rear projection TV.  At home I only have LCD and Plasma TVs'.  Whenever I go over his house to play I fail out constantly.  It seems like I am hitting the notes early but my brain cannot adjust.  I've tried calibrating his TV for my profile but it doesn't make much of a difference. 

[jersoc]

I would argue that it sounds like Pete sucks at calibrating his system, and has simply gotten used to his sucky calibration.

That's an important point. I went to a friend's house who had RB on a PS3 with a 42" LCD TV and the calibration was god-awful on his setup. I showed him how to calibrate and he couldn't believe the difference afterwards.

every so often we get a group for RB at a friend's place. He has like a 60 some inch DLP. Well about 3 weeks ago we were playing and I noticed me in the red. Wtf this is a tier 1 song, no way im off beat. Afterwards I had him check the latency, it was at a NEGATIVE number. I was like, uh, having a negative is impossible. So we spent a good 20 mins getting it right. I was amazed that he had it like this.

then we went on to be the number band on a few songs like zero, which are probably long beaten now.

[PeteRock]

I would argue that it sounds like Pete sucks at calibrating his system, and has simply gotten used to his sucky calibration.

That's an important point. I went to a friend's house who had RB on a PS3 with a 42" LCD TV and the calibration was god-awful on his setup. I showed him how to calibrate and he couldn't believe the difference afterwards.

Well, for Pete, he felt it was right.  We talked about it and he said he had gone through the calibration and it showed a value of 0 for him.  When he played drums he felt they were dead on.  So, it can also be about perception as well.

I have gone through the calibration process.  And after a number of tries it came back as 0.  It could very well not make a difference, but I calibrated with the guitar, not the drums.  But also in my defense, the drums have never felt "off" to me.  Then again, I don't play them that often, but when I do I don't have any trouble keeping beat.  Knightshade has played at our house a number of times and has never expressed concern about the calibration.  Guitar and vocals have always felt spot-on, and never before has anyone expressed concern, so I had no reason up until now to question the existing calibration settings.  Maybe they're off.  But why would they feel off on one instrument but no others? 

I would argue that it sounds like Pete sucks at calibrating his system, and has simply gotten used to his sucky calibration.

Perhaps I suck at calibration.  Perhaps Grue sucks at drums in Arizona due to the arid climate ().  Rock Band only comes out when guests express interest in playing.  I don't play enough on my own to notice any issues in calibration, but when I do play it hasn't ever been an issue.  Perhaps I should have had Grue give calibration a try to see if I inadvertantly did something wrong.  The next time we break it out I'll give it another try.  But it'll probably be a while. 

[wonderpug]

I have gone through the calibration process.  And after a number of tries it came back as 0.

From the sound of it you're under the impression that there is a single number to set for calibration, a confusion I held for a while.  There are two.  The first one you set determines the delay between audio and video.  The second one sets the delay between user input and display.  You almost certainly don't want the two numbers to be the same.

This calibration guide worked wonders on my setup. 

It may sound complicated, but the gist is that you first do the 2nd calibration--the one where you strum--with the sound off.  Then you play some easy songs, also with the sound off, to test the setting.  This way you're calibrating the controller lag and only the controller lag without the possible A/V lag interfering.  Then once it feels good you can go back and set the first setting for A/V lag.

[The Grue]

Thanks for the link.  I have messed around with it a little and definitely improved my own calibration.  I never realized there were two values.  I always felt like I could quite get the sound to match where I was supposed to hit and it was because I would always put the same value in both places.

[wonderpug]

Thanks for the link.  I have messed around with it a little and definitely improved my own calibration.  I never realized there were two values.  I always felt like I could quite get the sound to match where I was supposed to hit and it was because I would always put the same value in both places.

That's what I did initially as well.  I thought the first number given was the number I was supposed to set in the second screen.  I don't know how I somehow ended up with a playable setup doing it that way, but it actually felt pretty good.  Now that I have it set the right way, though, it's so much easier to play.

[JayDee]

I wonder what the DLC announcement will be today. In the past few weeks we've had.

Euro Tracks (mix)
Cars (80's music)
Disturbed (2000's music, metal)
Buffet (70's music)

That means today should be all about the 90's. This game needs some more 90's love and since this is the musical generation I grew up in, I hope they give us something great from that era today.

[Gratch]

I wonder what the DLC announcement will be today. In the past few weeks we've had.

Euro Tracks (mix)
Cars (80's music)
Disturbed (2000's music, metal)
Buffet (70's music)

That means today should be all about the 90's. This game needs some more 90's love and since this is the musical generation I grew up in, I hope they give us something great from that era today.

I would kill for a grunge pack.  Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, etc.

[JayDee]

I wonder what the DLC announcement will be today. In the past few weeks we've had.

Euro Tracks (mix)
Cars (80's music)
Disturbed (2000's music, metal)
Buffet (70's music)

That means today should be all about the 90's. This game needs some more 90's love and since this is the musical generation I grew up in, I hope they give us something great from that era today.

I would kill for a grunge pack.  Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, etc.

I would enjoy that very much. I would also enjoy some RHCP, Green Day, Foo Fighters (my #1 most wanted song is My Hero), and Nirvana.

If they wanted to back to the 80's again I could use another dose of Bon Jovi. Wanted Dead or Alive is fun to play, but I've burned out on it.

[denoginizer]

I wonder what the DLC announcement will be today. In the past few weeks we've had.

Euro Tracks (mix)
Cars (80's music)
Disturbed (2000's music, metal)
Buffet (70's music)

That means today should be all about the 90's. This game needs some more 90's love and since this is the musical generation I grew up in, I hope they give us something great from that era today.

I would kill for a grunge pack.  Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, etc.

I couldn't agree more.