Jao's Rock Band 3 Pro Guitar Experience

[JaoSming]

(This thread was originally for a NLSC based Rock Band 2 story...but I left it up for a month and no one responded)

As most of you know, I rock at Rock Band. I got over 500 DLC songs, all the games exported, and over a year played of Rock Band 2 since it's release.

Rock Band 3 changes things, it adds a 2 octave Keyboard, cymbal support for the Drums, and a $150 (or $280) Pro Guitar/Bass that charts real tabs for the songs.

Now, I had a drumset when I was younger so Expert Pro Drums is a piece of cake for me. I had piano lessons as a kid too and surprisingly the Keyboard stuff in RB3 has been "easy" for me to pick up and play. I can beat most songs on Expert.

So, that leaves Guitar. I am good at Rock Band/Guitar Hero. I can beat every song on expert and get my 5 stars but I play for fun, I don't try to 100% everything nor try to beat Mazzochi's scores. I have been playing plastic guitars since Guitar Hero 1 and, due to my interest, Kathryn got me a real guitar after Guitar Hero 2 came out. I played it, I attempted learning the chords but instead I played around with popular riffs from songs. I never really played more than once a month and truthfully since I've been up here in VT I haven't touched it other than to show it to people.

So that leaves me with the premise of this (Wii Fit v2) thread. I'm going to chart my progress with the Pro Guitar (pending interest) and start playing around with my real guitar again and maybe record a video or something to show how that goes.

So sit back and enjoy the

[JaoSming]

Day 1
Today was day 1 with the pro guitar. Of course I jumped right into Walking on the Sun on Medium of all difficulties only to fail out at 10% because of the chords I didn't know. I also realized I have no idea how the game handles chords so I don't know what to play. After dropping it down to Easy I was able to pass the song as well as a few other easy ones.

Easy Pro Guitar IMO any drunk at a party should be able to play. It is about the same difficulty as normal Expert and provides no help to learning a song or learning a real guitar for that matter. It's all press 1 fret and strum a string, bit confusing at first but not difficult. So after that I've been deadset at learning everyone on Medium, which hits me with real Chords (G, C, and D are the only ones I've noticed so far), as well as some power chords and more accurate strumming.

After the Easy difficulty stint I did the basic tutorials, which were mostly annoying finger exercises, but eventually I got all the way up to learning basic chords. The game threw G, C, and D chords at me which took a minute to get my fingers correctly positioned but all I had to do was keep my hand in the same position and strum....not that hard....

Then the next lesson was going G, C, D, C in that order with only a second or so between the switch. This frustrated me the same way it did when I was learning these chords on the Real Guitar and I actually stopped, played a song with Pat and ate before I came back to try and beat it. Off a fluke I did pass that lesson but I stuck with that tutorial for another 15 minutes or so until I could switch between them easier.



So that is a basic wrap up of today....if you are lost....good, that was a bunch of rambling. I'll try to post some YouTube videos of the tutorials so you guys can have an idea of what I'm doing and agree or disagree that this will help me learn a real guitar.

[kibaxx7]

Lol, this is actually a nice idea Jao. Will follow!

[Cartar]

Cool idea, don't own the Rock Band 3 (I own The beatles and GH 4, but not very good at neither, Medium-Hard at best), but I've tryed doing couple songs from youtube on my real guitar, rather interesting, even without the game (if there was a way to connect my guitar with the game, RB3 would be a must buy for me). Couple questions also, are you planning to buy the real guitar in March? Can you make your own songs in the game with the pro guitar? Out of interest, what guitar do you own?

[JaoSming]

thanks guys, Ill do my best to get some images/videos in here soon.

There is no way to use a real real guitar and plug it into RB3 and have it work...which sucks, but there are rock band type of games that came out on the PC that just requires a midi to usb. in RB3 the controllers track where your hands are which is why they wont let any guitar get used.

Day 2
To my surprise I remembered all the chords (C, D, G) from yesterday. I actually passed all of the trainers I failed yesterday without any issue whatsoever. Those trainers include basic Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs, playing individual strings after a chord, and quickly switching chords.

I am officially officially on Medium difficulty now. I am refusing to lower the difficulty to Easy and if I can't pass a song yet then F it, I'll wait till I can. I have beaten (some only 2*) every 0 and 1 difficulty tier songs except for Low Rider.....which is all strumming 1 fret at a time on different strings which gets really confusing.

Anyway, I left for a good chunk of the day and tried some CoD BO multiplayer so I didn't play as much as yesterday but I got a few more trainers done and remembered the fingering for the chords so horrah!

[Patr1ck]

I hate Low Rider's guitar part even with the plastic guitar. It's long and and so boring that I mess up from lack of concentration.

[JaoSming]

I have actually only played Crazy Train, Free Bird and a handful of others on regular guitar. Before I got this I was mostly playing pro drums or the keys

[JaoSming]

Here is I want to be Sedated. I played this a few times yesterday. Gives you an idea of what I am playing on Medium.

phpBB [video]

The number in the power chord is where your index finger should be and then the medium sized hump on the 2nd string means you want your middle finger 2 frets higher (a small bump means 1 fret, flat means same fret, huge means 3 higher). These get a bit more complicated with the C, D, G chords I've noticed but the game is actually pretty generous (at least on Medium) when it comes to hitting all of those properly.



Day 3
I beat Freebird on Medium today....I can die happy.

I decided to pick 1 song from each difficulty level and I picked the hardest song as the last one and I fucking beat it. Also took out No One Knows which was pretty damn tough. After beating it I contemplated moving up to hard difficulty but to be honest, I wasn't having as much fun. I just barely learned how to move my hands on the guitar again and make sure I'm hitting the right strings I dont need to try and move faster when i am still 3* most of the medium songs. So while I am still going to work on my chords everyday and move on with the trainers, I am going to stick to Medium until further notice.

This evening I dragged out my real guitar and tuned it. I've been jamming around now for about an hour while Kathryn was talking to me about the wedding invitations or something. The fingering skills have definitely transferred from Rock Band Pro to real life! After feeling strangely comfortable with it I looked up my old tabs for Come as you are and December and was able to play them pretty easily (the main riffs). I worked on my chords a bit and played a bunch of the power chords Medium uses (only 2 strings) and I found out that playing the Medium tab from Rock Band actually mimicked my favorite part of Freebird pretty damn well. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ENd3Uhghq0#t=9m20s) [my favorite part is the lead-in to the solo but it sounds better there]

So, in all, I beat Freebird on Medium, worked on my chords, and played around with the real guitar with surprising results and painful finger tips.

If you want to follow my progress, my account finally got linked with the Rock Band website.
http://www.rockband.com/users/jaosming

Also Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive is DLC next week and I can upgrade it to Pro Guitar! ah, ah, ah, ah......

[JaoSming]

I didn't get to play at all yesterday, spent all day cleaning out the closet, hanging up the kayaks and other fun chores, so.

Day 5
I am still grinding my way through the setlist. The game wants me to 3* everything so dammit that is what I am going to do. It took 4 tries on Low Rider but I finally got the fingering down to 3* that sucker. Everything else has gone down on the first try which is satisfying.

I did screw around more with the real guitar keeping up with my chord exercises and I played a few more tabs from the internets too.


Nothing really big to report on, no breakthroughs, just the main surprised feeling remains about how well I am learning the real guitar with RB3 pro.

[JaoSming]

had to take Monday off from playing really any games, but here we go

Day 7
I didn't get a chance to play the real guitar at all yesterday but I did get to play ~8 songs in RB. I am now passing everything and anything on medium without much issue and hitting the individual strings/frets which was giving me issues is getting easier. Bee Gees are fucking awesome and I've come to realize that playing these songs on medium, while giving me some kind of idea for playing the song on a real guitar, is more of a finger exercise than anything. I have another 30 songs or so before I have played everything on Medium. Once I beat everything I will move up to Hard.

[JaoSming]

Day 8/9
Still chugging through all the songs in RB3. Only the 2 hardest teirs (about 24 songs) stand between me and bumping up to Hard difficulty. I am now noticing how much better I've gotten at the game and whenever the game hits me with an E, G, or C chord I can hit it without looking at my fingers.......D chords not-so-much. Still working on that one.

Anyway, I will probably pick up the real guitar tonight sometime but I think I'll stop with daily updates and just post when I finish up medium and get to hard difficulty.....unless something cool happens.

[JaoSming]

Day 12
Had all Medium songs beaten Friday but after finding out that I have only really learned 2 finger power chords and the basic 3 I can't say I feel the same sense of "good" as I did when I beat Free Bird. I started the Hard tutorials and they just smack you in the face with barre chords and other 6 string chords that I thought would come in Expert. Going to start with the easy songs on Hard and then work my way up just like Medium....but when I play with other people I'm just going to stick with Medium. Looking at the advanced tutorials they have a bunch of solo techniques that are going to take a bit to understand and a looong while to master....I doubt I will be hitting Expert for all songs in a year's time.

On a real guitar note, I had an issue with this when I first changed my strings, but my guitar is buzzing again. Strings are hitting the frets somewhere and it just sounds shitty. The problem went away when I switched strings just barely when I knew I was getting the pro guitar but it's back.

[Patr1ck]

"check the locking blocks at the nut, it was usually there - the source of the buzz."
"First check the relief. Put a capo at the first fret and fret the top E at the last fret clear of the body. Measure the clearance under the fret halfway between. You should be able to just get a 2nd string under there without touching as a general rule. If the gap is huge you'll need to tighten the truss rod. If no clearance, loosen it. Go gently, 1/8th turn at a time."

Goo Gull.

[Cartar]

Any videos coming? Preferably Free Bird on Medium.

[JaoSming]

none in a mix but I can do that

the buzzing actually stopped when I tuned it again, not good that it came back but good that it went away.

still trying to play everyday on both but the jump to hard with the new chords is still killing my sight reads. however if I practice it I can play hard songs and actually have it sound good (in game, not missing notes) I have yet to load a song and try to play it on the real guitar but I think that it wont be too far off.

pulled my left forearm getting our christmas tree, so I might be taking some time off for this since it hurts to play.