Limelight Rockband/Expert Drums

[Alan VEX]

Don't know if this has been posted, but I just saw it for the first time... pretty cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdTWsV_QNYk

[Mixxit]

Wow, that guy's good even by real drumming standards, much less as a Rock Band drummer. Well done!

[PumaPhreak]

That looks very difficult.

[stickinthemud]

Very impressed by his playing except when doing the improv fills. I know part of it is the booming sound - very different from the tone of the drums in regular play mode, but they sounded (to me, anyway) uneven and not interesting - sounded like straight 16th notes to me.

But that's nitpicking. That's a tricky tune with lots of syncopation and he scored very high. I seriously doubt I could do that.

[Jack_]

You guys are killing me!

One thing for sure is it's a lot easier to learn songs in Rockband. I've been struggling with a song on my e-kit for a week or two now. Trying to learn the grooves with 16th note triplets and then playing along to the drumless track is kicking my ass. In Rockband I would have breezed through the song, but then I wouldn't be able to sit here right now and play each of the grooves from memory, albeit not very well.

[Fullback32]

Rockband....you know, the squadron I work for as a contractor is getting ready to have it's summer picnic. So the announcement goes out on e-mail. Get your four man group together for the "Battle of the Rock Bands". So, I'm thinking, cool...a battle of the bands. I starting to look up the musicians for this thing; I planned playing the bass as one of my friends is a better drummer than me...gotta a guy to play guitar, etc. I think, wow this is pretty cool....then I read further...this is a Rockband GAME competition. Lame....just lame.

[evil1rox]

Don't know if this has been posted, but I just saw it for the first time... pretty cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdTWsV_QNYk

Cool, I've been wanting to get Rockband for a while now...that fuels the fire! What's the deal with the little patches on the that guys drum controller?

E

[Jack_]

Cool, I've been wanting to get Rockband for a while now...that fuels the fire! What's the deal with the little patches on the that guys drum controller?

E

The pads are probably to prevent double triggering. There are two versions of the drum controller and I think both have little inadeqacies. One modification is to rubber band sox to each of the pads to get them to trigger reliably.

As you can see from the video, the guy playing also has done the bass pedal mod which is mounting a reed switch and magnets to a regular bass pedal and using a Gibralter practice pad. The stock bass pedal is pretty flimsy.

[Colquhoun]

Nah, the pads are to quiet the RockBand kit, and make the pads feel better while playing. The first thing I noticed when playing with my kids is that you need to turn the tv up LOUD to hear the music over those pads. I read about a guy that used standard circular mousepads turned upside down and glued to the pad. I did it, and it makes hitting the pads MUCH better in sound and in feel.

[sshu]

I don't know if folks have seen the recent Modern Drummer mag, but there is an article dedicated to Rock Band and how it is inspiring a new set of drummers. I found a few things kind of interesting in the article (which is by a drum instructor). Don't quote me verbatim as I'm doing this off the top of my head:
a) One of his students came in and played some nice single stroke rolls. When asked if the person practiced drums, the student said "no" but something to the effect that they played Rock Band all week.
b) The person was able to play the drums parts (on the real drumset) to cover tunes on the Rock Band game well
c) When asked to read a tranditional drumset transcription, the student said something to the effect "can I color in the notes" so that it's more like Rock Band. The person then proceeded to play the drum parts on the regular kit.

I was pretty shocked after reading that article ...

Steve

[CLK]

Edit: I didn't realize how upset my opinion would make everyone....No more opinions from me.....Be well......see ya in the future!

[wdreamsmaycome]

don't knock it until you've tried it, yeah, it's a video game, but it has a lot of x-over to real drumming (especially compared to the 'guitar'). It won't teach you dynamics, left foot or prepare you for moving around the kit with your arms a lot, but if you can play well on rock band expert you're already halfway to where you'd want to be independence-wise.

I think some people get too sidetracked by the 'it's just a videogame' aspect and don't realize that in fact it is a very good thing for this to be out, as it will for sure get more people into drums, which is all good. Also don't forget that if you have rock band you automatically will have all those songs as 'music minus drums' if you go in practice mode (if your real kit is close by to where you keep your rock band console), which is very cool.

Check these out also, believe me, even after having played drums for half of my life, these are not easy at all, since you have to play EXACTLY what the game wants you to, which in complex songs is not as straightforward as you might think

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTKF7S38Dgk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7Bk8kb7Pow

btw, the 'free form fills' always sound like crap because the game seems to give a lot of extra latency when doing them, which throws you off quite a bit (and it doesn't trigger that well either)

[CLK]

Edit: I didn't realize how upset my opinion would make everyone....No more opinions from me.....Be well......see ya in the future!

[Iceroid]

you must not have tried a hard song... on expert

its a lot tougher than it looks

[stixmanshead]

Not all of my friends are musicians. (including my wife) But we all get together and jam out on rock band all the time. Playing rock band wont make you a good drummer, but it is fun and in MY 17+ years of experience. I still have trouble on some of these songs. Of course alot of them i can play on a real set with no problem. I'm not a drum snob. If a kid wants to jam out to a game that may turn him on to music and the arts. Then play the game. There is a serious lack of real art in the world today.