Comments on: Rock Band: First Impressions http://nicholsonrecords.com/paul/2007/11/rock-band-first-impressions/ Random musings. Mostly about geek stuff, movies, and of course, the Nashville Predators Fri, 21 Oct 2011 02:56:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Anonymous http://nicholsonrecords.com/paul/2007/11/rock-band-first-impressions/comment-page-1/#comment-347 Anonymous Fri, 14 Dec 2007 07:19:00 +0000 http://nicholsonrecords.com/paul/?p=342#comment-347 your sister and wife may be singers but i dont think that rock band was only made for people who know how to see....just like Guitar Hero wasnt designed for people who know how to play guitar(if it did. i'd suck and wouldn't have been able to play bark at the moon behind my head)<br/><br/>so i think that Rock band's mic was set up so that anyone has the potential of being able to sing regardless of talent your sister and wife may be singers but i dont think that rock band was only made for people who know how to see….just like Guitar Hero wasnt designed for people who know how to play guitar(if it did. i’d suck and wouldn’t have been able to play bark at the moon behind my head)

so i think that Rock band’s mic was set up so that anyone has the potential of being able to sing regardless of talent

]]> By: Paul Nicholson http://nicholsonrecords.com/paul/2007/11/rock-band-first-impressions/comment-page-1/#comment-334 Paul Nicholson Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:23:00 +0000 http://nicholsonrecords.com/paul/?p=342#comment-334 Thanks for your take. I certainly hope you're right! Thanks for your take. I certainly hope you’re right!

]]> By: Ekim http://nicholsonrecords.com/paul/2007/11/rock-band-first-impressions/comment-page-1/#comment-333 Ekim Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:25:00 +0000 http://nicholsonrecords.com/paul/?p=342#comment-333 Strange. I had an almost overall different experience with the demo unit at my local Best Buy.<br/><br/>The guitar I used felt solid enough. Much more solid than my GHII controllers, without a doubt. The strum bar worked well, and the buttons were well synced up with the screen after a peek at the Options. (At first they weren't, I had to go into the lag calibration options and set it to a different LCD TV pre-set. It was lagging with the "LCD TV 1" setting. LCD TV 2 worked the best for me. Fortunately, the retail version will have a manual setting, a la GH, for better calibration.)<br/><br/>The solo fret buttons worked well, and within a few songs, I was able to move up and down the neck fairly easily. It's still going to take some practice getting used to the differences, but compared to the GHII and III guitars, I think in the long run I'll find the the Rock Band guitar the best of the bunch.<br/><br/>Maybe the guitar at your store just took a beating from all of the careless customers using it? When I first walked in, I saw two younger teenagers banging away on the drums like they were trying to crack a diamond with a penny, each kid using one drum stick each and missing the pad every other swing, while an older teen was playing the guitar pretty hard...<br/><br/>The regular white 360 controller that controls the microphone's pre-song setup had score marks and blemishes so bad it looked like somebody intentionally beat the crap out of it. Other demo kiosks in the store didn't even look much played, but for some reason, the Rock Band one took a hard beating in the few days that it's been out. I've never seen a 360 controller that looked that abused before... <br/><br/>Anyway, the drums worked after the demon kids were done. I was surprised at the overall quality of the drum set. While I'm no drummer, I've played on digital drum sets before, and it was a very similar feeling. I agree with you on everything there.<br/><br/>The microphone, I personally can't vouch for. My girlfriend tried it out, said the mic felt solid like other retail microphones she's held, and she enjoyed it well enough that she, who wouldn't even sing in front of me for the first 6 months of our relationship, wanted to sing a few more songs before we left. She's not a singer by any means, but didn't have any problems beating songs. On Easy, she was scoring 85-95% on average, singing songs she'd never sung before (she took on Black Hole Sun and In Bloom for her first time, too, with high 80's scores), so it's very possible there was something wrong with your mic.<br/><br/>After we left, we went straight to Gamestop to reserve it just to be sure we can still get it if there isn't a better deal/isn't available anywhere else on launch day.<br/><br/>We were on the fence between GHIII and RB this year, and after playing both, it's Rock Band all the way. Guitar Hero will have to wait until next year. Strange. I had an almost overall different experience with the demo unit at my local Best Buy.

The guitar I used felt solid enough. Much more solid than my GHII controllers, without a doubt. The strum bar worked well, and the buttons were well synced up with the screen after a peek at the Options. (At first they weren’t, I had to go into the lag calibration options and set it to a different LCD TV pre-set. It was lagging with the “LCD TV 1″ setting. LCD TV 2 worked the best for me. Fortunately, the retail version will have a manual setting, a la GH, for better calibration.)

The solo fret buttons worked well, and within a few songs, I was able to move up and down the neck fairly easily. It’s still going to take some practice getting used to the differences, but compared to the GHII and III guitars, I think in the long run I’ll find the the Rock Band guitar the best of the bunch.

Maybe the guitar at your store just took a beating from all of the careless customers using it? When I first walked in, I saw two younger teenagers banging away on the drums like they were trying to crack a diamond with a penny, each kid using one drum stick each and missing the pad every other swing, while an older teen was playing the guitar pretty hard…

The regular white 360 controller that controls the microphone’s pre-song setup had score marks and blemishes so bad it looked like somebody intentionally beat the crap out of it. Other demo kiosks in the store didn’t even look much played, but for some reason, the Rock Band one took a hard beating in the few days that it’s been out. I’ve never seen a 360 controller that looked that abused before…

Anyway, the drums worked after the demon kids were done. I was surprised at the overall quality of the drum set. While I’m no drummer, I’ve played on digital drum sets before, and it was a very similar feeling. I agree with you on everything there.

The microphone, I personally can’t vouch for. My girlfriend tried it out, said the mic felt solid like other retail microphones she’s held, and she enjoyed it well enough that she, who wouldn’t even sing in front of me for the first 6 months of our relationship, wanted to sing a few more songs before we left. She’s not a singer by any means, but didn’t have any problems beating songs. On Easy, she was scoring 85-95% on average, singing songs she’d never sung before (she took on Black Hole Sun and In Bloom for her first time, too, with high 80′s scores), so it’s very possible there was something wrong with your mic.

After we left, we went straight to Gamestop to reserve it just to be sure we can still get it if there isn’t a better deal/isn’t available anywhere else on launch day.

We were on the fence between GHIII and RB this year, and after playing both, it’s Rock Band all the way. Guitar Hero will have to wait until next year.

]]>