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Rock Band 4 |OT| We're Putting The Rock Band Back Together

CloudWolf

Member
I already got five stars on Halls of Valhalla on expert guitar, and that's enough for me, the song is really cool, but unfortunately it's charted really weird with ho/po placements all over the place during the main riff, which makes it really awkward and frustrating to play.

No idea how hard the bass is, but I'll probably have more luck gold starring it there.

Halls of Valhalla isn't that hard on guitar if you just say 'fuck it' and strum everything. The hardest thing about the song are the first and third guitar solo. It's quite fun too once you get the hang of it.

isn't that what the instrument slider is for? to raise the volume of whatever instruments are actively being played.

Yes, but previous RB titles (except the first, I think) had the bass boost option to boost the bass even more, which was really great. Since even with the intrument slider all the way up, bass can still be hard to hear unless you put BG instruments all the way down (I don't even know if this option exists in RB4).
 

Gorger

Member
Halls of Valhalla isn't that hard on guitar if you just say 'fuck it' and strum everything. The hardest thing about the song are the first and third guitar solo. It's quite fun too once you get the hang of it.

Yeah that's what I am working on now, It's just unusual since most songs that are played like that lets you ho/po all the way, but here I need to strum the weirdest notes which makes playing the song the 'legit way' really frustrating.

Also gold starring seems much harder in this game than in RB3. I was like 1 or 2 notes away from FCing Start a Band on guitar, but I still didn't get gold star.
 

CloudWolf

Member
Yeah that's what I am working on now, It's just unusual since most songs that are played like that lets you ho/po all the way, but here I need to strum the weirdest notes which makes playing the song the 'legit way' really frustrating.

Also gold starring seems much harder in this game than in RB3. I was like 1 or 2 notes away from FCing Start a Band on guitar, but I still didn't get gold star.

I missed like three notes at the very end of Your Love on guitar (when the solo suddenly does semi-fast alternating chords). No Gold Stars. That's some shit.
 
isn't that what the instrument slider is for? to raise the volume of whatever instruments are actively being played.

It's kind of shit though. The bass boost option in previous RB games would keep the instrument tracks all at max volume but would then boost the bass even higher, it's fucking great hearing a track that's traditionally baked really low into the mix become really audible all of a sudden. Turning the background instrument slider down in RB4 doesn't really help enhance the bass at all, it still sounds really weak. Amd the rest of the song suffers then as you can barely hear it.

Here's an example of Bass Boost in RB3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfRJiyXmIRU
 

chunk3rvd

Member
Are Harmonix notoriously anti-ska for some reason? Looking at the entire on disc and DLC library of 2000+ songs and there are only 9 flagged as ska, 7 of which are Bob Marley tracks. Was listening to some Less Than Jake and Reel Big Fish earlier today and so many of their tracks would be such good fun in Rock Band
 
Are Harmonix notoriously anti-ska for some reason? Looking at the entire on disc and DLC library of 2000+ songs and there are only 9 flagged as ska, 7 of which are Bob Marley tracks. Was listening to some Less Than Jake and Reel Big Fish earlier today and so many of their tracks would be such good fun in Rock Band

The Wikipedia article lists only the genres as listed before Rock Band 4. Reggae/Ska didn't exist as an in-game genre until Rock Band 3, and thus a lot of Bob Marley tracks were listed as "Other" until RB4. Sublime and Rancid were also listed as Alternative and Punk, respectively, until RB4 for some reason.

That said, yeah, the games could use more ska.
 
I already got five stars on Halls of Valhalla on expert guitar, and that's enough for me, the song is really cool, but unfortunately it's charted really weird with ho/po placements all over the place during the main riff, which makes it really awkward and frustrating to play.

No idea how hard the bass is, but I'll probably have more luck gold starring it there.
Whatever I can't Gold Star on Guitar/Drums, I'm doing on Bass. I'm leaving Vocals (what I'm best at) only for the very very impossible songs like Dream Genie or Metropolis. Neither of which I think are that hard to sing.

Halls of Valhalla is doable on Bass. I tried a couple of times last night and I can definitely get it with practice. I'm not really anxious about any of the 8 songs I have left, honestly!

Can you mix and match the instruments to gold star? Like Vocals on Dream Genie, Guitar on Panama and it will count?
Yupp. It stinks that the UI doesn't show individual instrument tracking. I'm actually very very unhappy about it

But I'm trying to make the best of the situation by setting a self imposed goal of Gold Starring every song on any instrument so I can have a wall of Gold when I accomplish it! It'll be gone when/if (please let this not be an if) it gets patched but I'll be more than happy about that
 

FyreWulff

Member
Are Harmonix notoriously anti-ska for some reason? Looking at the entire on disc and DLC library of 2000+ songs and there are only 9 flagged as ska, 7 of which are Bob Marley tracks. Was listening to some Less Than Jake and Reel Big Fish earlier today and so many of their tracks would be such good fun in Rock Band

They like ska. And as pointed out above, they actually had an engine limitation until RB3 where ska songs couldn't be labeled as ska (they probably didn't expect the genre sort to be come as useful as it'd eventually be)
 
So, drum questions:

1. How is drumming in this compared to RB3? Is it any different, or is it basically just new songs to play. What I mean is, any reason to jump to RB4 other than for the setlist in terms of drumming?

2. How is the actual new drum kit, quality wise? Is it better? Does it come with cymbols now or do you still have to get them separately?
 
So, drum questions:

1. How is drumming in this compared to RB3? Is it any different, or is it basically just new songs to play. What I mean is, any reason to jump to RB4 other than for the setlist in terms of drumming?

2. How is the actual new drum kit, quality wise? Is it better? Does it come with cymbols now or do you still have to get them separately?
1. Drums added dynamic fills, which are randomly generated fills built on the fly for songsnto activate Overdrive. Personally, I think just like Classic Fills, that they're terrible. Also Static Fills now count towards your points and multipliers, which is weird but I think it's for the best and makes the best Overdrive activation option for Drums even better

2. From my experience the new kit is okay. From everyone else, the pedal is terrible and the hit detection is off. Also it did not come with cymbols and it'll probably be available next year
 
Where'd You Go was in Rock Band 2.

Is weird that it took this long to get *the* mmb song. :p


Anywho, I'm pretty annoyed by the star tracking as well. Didn't rb3 have a similar issue that they patched? I feel like it might have lost gold star info or something when they updated it though.

I just hope that stars for individual instruments are being tracked behind the scenes and just not presented, so that they will be there already if it's patched in.
 

pacman85

Member
Has Harmonix said anything about adding double bass pedal functionality for RB4? I have a RB2 kit with the triple cybmal expansion and 2 pedals. In RB3 both pedals plugged in and I used them both to hit the kicks/bass.
 
I missed like three notes at the very end of Your Love on guitar (when the solo suddenly does semi-fast alternating chords). No Gold Stars. That's some shit.
Not played Your Love for ages, but if it's from the solo that's why. They added the 100% Solo bonus to the gold star threshold in RB3 and it made some songs a pain to gold star. Free Bird and Green Grass & High Tides pretty much need to be FC'd in order to get the gold stars.
 
Okay, I'm pissed off. I had to dig out an old netbook to find something with a bluetooth adapter, and after tons of tries I manage to connect both the drums and guitar. And then the updates fail at the test stage since both instruments disconnect every time.

Basically, from what I've read on the Harmonix forums, it's random if it will eventually work. Meanwhile I'd have to reset the instrument and delete the connection and try reconnecting. And my netbook makes everything take forever, and it's Win7 so it might be borked either way.

Fuck this. Get a driver onto the console that's running the damn thing. This is not 1997. I shouldn't have to jury rig a completely different system to get this console accessory to work accurately.
 
Okay, I'm pissed off. I had to dig out an old netbook to find something with a bluetooth adapter, and after tons of tries I manage to connect both the drums and guitar. And then the updates fail at the test stage since both instruments disconnect every time.

Basically, from what I've read on the Harmonix forums, it's random if it will eventually work. Meanwhile I'd have to reset the instrument and delete the connection and try reconnecting. And my netbook makes everything take forever, and it's Win7 so it might be borked either way.

Fuck this. Get a driver onto the console that's running the damn thing. This is not 1997. I shouldn't have to jury rig a completely different system to get this console accessory to work accurately.

If you're on PS4, you have to unregister the controllers from the PS4 In order to update them with your computer. At least, that's what I hear.
 

CloudWolf

Member
My paranoia kicked in and I bought the EU exclusive RB1 songs that were DLC. You can never be to careful, if for any reason the EU exclusives aren't included when the RB1 export becomes available for RB4, at least I already have them.

Also, I could swear that Rock n Roll Star by Oasis was delisted, but I could download it anyway. Weird.
 

BrokenBox

Member
Has Harmonix said anything about adding double bass pedal functionality for RB4? I have a RB2 kit with the triple cybmal expansion and 2 pedals. In RB3 both pedals plugged in and I used them both to hit the kicks/bass.

I know they're adding the ability to use two pedals sometime down the line. Maybe the December update. I'm on mobile so it's harder to look up.
 

DagsJT

Member
My paranoia kicked in and I bought the EU exclusive RB1 songs that were DLC. You can never be to careful, if for any reason the EU exclusives aren't included when the RB1 export becomes available for RB4, at least I already have them.

Also, I could swear that Rock n Roll Star by Oasis was delisted, but I could download it anyway. Weird.

Can you advise what the tracks are?
 
WHAT ELSE CAN I SAY
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Has Harmonix mentioned anything about adding sound effects for the Star power queues that were in the other RB games? It's weird to not hear the effects after them being there.
 
Can you advise what the tracks are?
From memory...

Beetlebum - Blur (Cover)
Hysteria - Muse
Rock 'n' Roll Star - Oasis
Countdown to Insanity - H-BlockX
Perfekte Welle - Juli
New Wave - Pleymo

And the delisted ones...

Monsoon - Tokio Hotel
Manu Chao - Lea Wampas
Hier kommt Alex - Die Toten Hosen

Rock 'n' Roll Star wasn't available in RB3 or Blitz, but is still available for download on the 360. So who knows. Does it work on RB4?
 
Well, that's the "Rock Band Immortal" achievement unlocked!

"Earned 5 Stars on every disc song in Rock Band 4 on Expert in Quickplay Mode"

Expert Guitar 100% FC's: 62/65 songs
Gold Starred Songs: 63/65 Songs

Only song really stopping me from Gold starring the whole game on Expert guitar is "Dream Jeanie". "Dead Black (Heart Of Ice) should be easily doable with a bit of practice. But I'll handle that later. Now I can play my DLC more often!
 

DagsJT

Member
From memory...

Beetlebum - Blur (Cover)
Hysteria - Muse
Rock 'n' Roll Star - Oasis
Countdown to Insanity - H-BlockX
Perfekte Welle - Juli
New Wave - Pleymo

And the delisted ones...

Monsoon - Tokio Hotel
Manu Chao - Lea Wampas
Hier kommt Alex - Die Toten Hosen

Rock 'n' Roll Star wasn't available in RB3 or Blitz, but is still available for download on the 360. So who knows. Does it work on RB4?

Cheers!
 

Bauer91

Member
Well, that's the "Rock Band Immortal" achievement unlocked!

"Earned 5 Stars on every disc song in Rock Band 4 on Expert in Quickplay Mode"

Expert Guitar 100% FC's: 62/65 songs
Gold Starred Songs: 63/65 Songs

Only song really stopping me from Gold starring the whole game on Expert guitar is "Dream Jeanie". "Dead Black (Heart Of Ice) should be easily doable with a bit of practice. But I'll handle that later. Now I can play my DLC more often!

Now I'm curious, which song were you not able to FC but could GS?
 
Oh! Scratch that. 64/65 songs Gold Starred on Expert Guitar now. "Dead Black (Heart Of Ice)" was an easy song to suss out after a few repeat plays! Fuck gold starring "Dream Jeanie" though, not worth the hassle. The sooner an option to hide songs you hate appears, the sooner I can hide it. Horrid song.
 
I'm gonna see Lightning Bolt live later this month. Will post my experience in this thread.

It's gonna be crazy I can tell you that. I saw Lightening Bolt like I think in 2011, and it was one of the craziest shows I've ever been to. Enjoy yourself, it'll be a hell of a time.
 
DLC hints, apparently.

"In the house of marbles the second stone is cast by the sons of Cain who left Eden on their knees."

"Water imprisons the divine and turns their screams into a rallying cry."

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say mixed classic singles.
 
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