Cracked Rabbit Gaming » Rock Band

Rock Band Expert Drum videos now for download

Tommy Gun — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:31:18 +0000

I put up high quality divx versions of all the drum videos. You can find them all here:

http://crackedrabbitgaming.com/download/Rock-Band-Drum/

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Rock Band Expert Drum videos!

Tommy Gun — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:30:44 +0000

I finally put up some drum videos. There are eight of them; the first three have a separate camera for the bass pedal, the rest are zoomed out to show both hands and feet. The three with the separate bass camera are Chiron, Indestructible (gold stars), and Inside the Fire — I did those specifically for people who bitch "why does HMX put out songs that are impossible to play with one pedal?"

Because there are so many different things happening, the compression is terrible, so clicking "watch in high quality" is definitely recommended. My drums drop tons of notes, but oh well.

YouTube playlist for my drum videos

I will put up downloadable divx versions later.

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Hayley Williams almost a capella (Paramore)

Tommy Gun — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 13:14:30 +0000

Why this was done: So you can hear Hayley's voice almost isolated.

How this was done: The video you're seeing is not what the audio came from. The audio was captured by turning off all sounds (crowd, instruments, etc.), and playing with No Fail mode turned on, with a full band (but not playing). Some tracks can still be heard, as well as some booing, but it's fairly quiet.

The video was done a second time, vocal only (no fail) just so you don't have to stare at the full band charts. You can see my Hayley character singing (it's hard to get an actual likeness with the RB creator).

That's What You Get:

crushcrushcrush:

Video: Tommy Gun's Rock Band 2 Manual Calibration Guide (papercraft)

Tommy Gun — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:24:25 +0000

I spent a bunch of time messing around with the RB2 manual calibration settings (I don't have the new Strat), and decided to make a short video explaining them clearly and simply (I hope). I used this method to calibrate my system, and it works really well. So if you're confused about exactly what the settings do, and which way you need to move them in order to sync up the game, this should explain all of that. I use the drums as an example, but obviously this also works with the guitar.

Let me know if I made any mistakes, and I can add some annotations to the video.

** Download the high-res divx version on the downloads page **

Kodu Game Lab: Full Game Video Tutorial with Narration! – Generic Wars You can download this tutorial as a single divx file...
Kodu Game Lab video tutorials: 3 Keys, Popcorn Popper You can download both of these videos from the Downloads...

Quick "Rock Band 2" Review

Tommy Gun — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:54:47 +0000

Yesterday, I got up and played Rock Band 2 from around 8am until 10pm, with a few breaks to eat. I still have a lot to unlock. My roommates were gone, so I played the whole thing Solo — which is a great new feature. World Tour can be played alone, and since I'm pretty good, I was able to amass stars and fans very quickly, which meant new venues kept unlocking and I didn't have to replay many songs.

There are a lot of features I have yet to try, but let me run down some of the biggest improvements (and worst removals) Harmonix has made, and suggest some more changes. I haven't played online at all, so I can't comment on that, nor do I have any of the new instruments. I'm calling this a "quick" review only because I'm focusing on specific things that matter to us RB-obsessed players, not reviewing every part of the game.
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Read the rest of Quick "Rock Band 2" Review (1,592 words)

Some news about the Rock Band ION drumkit

Tommy Gun — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:50:11 +0000

As I've mentioned before, I have an electric Yamaha drumkit, and I would love to use it with Rock Band (my RB drums are pretty messed up now). Since the ION kit uses 1/4" plugs, I was hoping I could just buy their brain and use my pads with it. I started a thread about it on the RB forums, and a lot of other people want it too (see whole thread). I emailed the company and actually got a direct response back:

Tommy,

Thanks for getting in touch. While we do expect to eventually offer the controller module separately, we intend to do so to allow Drum Rocker users who own multiple consoles to use a single Drum Rocker kit with all of their systems.

The module was designed specifically for use with the Drum Rocker drum and cymbal pads, which have a unique set of output characteristics (as do all electronic drum and cymbal pads). Lots of work has been done to ensure that Drum Rocker is optimized for Rock Band performance, in terms of trigger sensitivity, crosstalk rejection, latency, and more, and the design of the module has been tuned to deliver the best possible performance in conjunction with the Drum Rocker pads. Plugging another set of pads that happen to have 1/4" outputs into the Drum Rocker module will not yield the same results as using a Drum Rocker kit, and in fact may not work at all, so we don't recommend it.

However, if your goal is to have a single electronic drum set that can be used with your existing drum module and Rock Band as well, you can go at this from another angle. We would suggest that you get a Drum Rocker set, and use the Drum Rocker pads with your existing electronic drum module. If it's got 1/4" inputs and its input sensitivity can be adjusted, you should be able to combine the Drum Rocker pads with your existing module, and have exactly what you're after – a single kit for playing games and playing music!

Hope this helps!

Customer Service – DrumRocker
Ion-Audio

So of course their solution is to have me buy the whole drumkit, as you'd expect — no thanks. I hope someone buys the brain anyway and tries it out.

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Rock Band: 5-starred Blackened! (expert drums)

Tommy Gun — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:23:22 +0000

I really didn't expect to do that; I guess it's all thanks to my new pedal. I still need work on Kool Thing, Hammerhead, The Perfect Drug, and a few others. I added some of my high scores to ScoreHero, and will add more later.

I've also been trying to raise my career score, and have almost broken the top 500 on the 360 leaderboards. I've been reading about the best overdrive paths to use, so I just thought I'd let everyone know:

Public Service Announcement

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The Best Rock Band pedal, 5-starred Disturbed Expert Drums

Tommy Gun — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:52:17 +0000

I haven't been able to play Rock Band for the last week and a half because our 360 Red Ringed. Luckily, a friend came over today and brought his Xbox, so we swapped HDDs, bought some new songs, and played for a while. I've been really wanting to play the MTV pack, and now the new Offspring/Avenged Sevenfold.

I finally decided to just mod the pedal that came with my Yamaha DTXplorer, since I play Rock Band more than Drummania nowadays (and it doesn't disable the pedal or anything). This is the best Rock Band pedal there is now (click for large):

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Read the rest of The Best Rock Band pedal, 5-starred Disturbed Expert Drums (117 words)

This picture speaks for itself.

Tommy Gun — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:15:11 +0000

No, I don't care about Gold Starring it!

Now that my drums are working almost perfectly, I'm trying to raise some of my scores. I just re-calibrated Rock Band, because it still felt off. I tried harder this time and tested it, and it really felt like it made a difference. I basically have to just guess the settings though, because the "calibration tool" never works.

I five-starred a whole bunch of songs: Dead on Arrival (as you can see. I don't think I've played it since the first month we got RB), Next to You (Yes!), March of the Pigs (although I think I've only played that one once before, not a huge NIN fan), and some others. I still haven't gotten 5 on Run to the Hills, but I'm closer (4 and 3/4?).

I even passed Blinded by Fear for the first time (3 stars), but I played cheaply and purposely missed half of the hi-hat notes. If you just alternate hands (hi-hat, snare) and still hit the bass pedal, it's not too hard, and you'll still maintain your health. I don't think I can physically play that song correctly all the way through, it's just too fast.

So now I only have a small bunch of 4-stars left (including DLC), and just that one 3-star!

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Podcast #2 – Rock Band Drum Mods (Tommy Gun + Mojo)

Tommy Gun — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:56:10 +0000

There are a whole bunch of mods that can be, and should be, done to the Rock Band drums if you're serious about playing. How do you increase the sensitivity? How do you dampen the noise? What about that crappy bass pedal that always breaks? We discuss all of these things, and the different solutions people have come up with.

See a quick video of the mods at the bottom of this post, along with links to all things discussed (you might even want to watch the video first so you know what the stuff looks like when you listen). I also posted some score pics below to show my drums are working pretty well.
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Read the rest of Podcast #2 – Rock Band Drum Mods (Tommy Gun + Mojo) (275 words)

The Rock Band Drum "In-between Sock Mod" (guide now up)

Tommy Gun — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:19:51 +0000

The Rock Band Drum "In-between Sock Mod"

Here's a little guide I wrote for a Rock Band drum mod (based off of another mod). It's working great for me, but I'd love to get more feedback on it. If you try it, let me know how it works!

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Review: "Rock Band" Part 2: Bullet points!

Tommy Gun — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:34:28 +0000

This is part 2 of my review, also see part 1.

Quick Summary: Rock Band is Guitar Hero/Drum Hero/Karaoke Revolution combined. Made by Harmonix, the creators of Guitar Hero, it's the ultimate party music game.

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Read the rest of Review: "Rock Band" Part 2: Bullet points! (832 words)

Review: "Rock Band" Part 1: hardware, difficulty, modes

Tommy Gun — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:28:10 +0000

Note: we have it for the Xbox 360. Each person needs to be signed into an Xbox profile (it can be the same one). Some things may be a bit different on PS3.

I started writing this review right after getting the game, two months ago, and have since added to it. There is so much more to say about the game, though, that I have left some things out to talk about later. I have broken it into two parts, and apologize for the unorganized format. It's not so much a review as it is a discussion.

Quick Summary: Rock Band is Guitar Hero/Drum Hero/Karaoke Revolution combined. Made by Harmonix, the creators of Guitar Hero, it's the ultimate party music game.

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Read the rest of Review: "Rock Band" Part 1: hardware, difficulty, modes (990 words)

AN-I-MAL!!

Tommy Gun — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 03:57:22 +0000

I finally beat the last Expert drum song. I would have done it much sooner, but the final song, "Won't Get Fooled Again," has tons of bass notes towards the end (plus we've been playing TONS of BWT mode). If I had a real bass pedal, it wouldn't have been a problem at all, but the crappy plastic pedal just wears your leg out so quickly. The song itself really isn't very hard…which is true for most of the songs. Other songs I had some trouble on:

Dead on Arrival:
This was the first song I failed on. Maybe it's because I really didn't know this song at all, but it also has a weird pattern that's pretty fast. I got it on my third or fourth try, scraping by with overdrive.

Foreplay/Long Time:
This song is fun, but the beginning is pretty tough, mostly because of the lack of rebound on the drum pads (haven't modded yet). There's a fast "L L R" pattern you need to do, but after that the song is easy.

Next to You:
I forget if I actually failed this song, but it's definitely hard. Very fast, lots of bass.

Run to the Hills:
Very fast rolls, not very complicated though. The problem was that the pads weren't registering all the hits, so I failed a few times. On my next try I played really lightly, which helped tremendously, and I passed it. It must have been pretty funny to watch.

In other news, we just got a whole bunch of DLC, including the Metallica pack. I'll have to see if I can get through Blackened, as that has tons of notes close together. Hyperspeed, please!

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Rock Band Drums: Score Duel TIE! Same 1 note miss! (screenshot)

Tommy Gun — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 12:29:40 +0000

I have a free month of Xbox Live Gold because I just signed up, so I figured I might as well try to get the online achievements while I can. I'm not really an online gamer for the most part, but it was fun. I was trying to get the "five-in-a-row wins" achievement.

I kept running into the same few people online — because it was late, or not many people play on Hard*, or everyone's playing Guitar.

* I would play Expert, but the songs are random, and I can't stand playing "Don't Fear the Reaper" with its ten billion bass notes in a row.

After playing Shoombabi I think two times, we played again and got "Should I Stay or Should I Go." This was the final result:

TIE! We both missed the SAME SINGLE NOTE! It wasn't even an off-beat note or anything! It was almost at the very end of the song (the 986th note, not sure how many there are total). I know I hit it, and he said he hit it too, so what's up? Either both our drums happened to glitch on us at the same time, or the game glitched. Crazy. Who else has gotten a tie (not counting 100% ties)?

Oh, and I did eventually get the achievement. :)

—————————
Update: Regarding the probability of this happening (if it wasn't just a glitch):

Assuming there are exactly 1000 notes total, for the sake of simplicity, there's a 1/1000 chance of randomly selecting a "chosen" note. ~~But we BOTH missed the same note, which would be:~~

~~1/1000 * 1/1000 = 1 in 1,000,000!~~

Correction by WildBillKickoff:

Actually, the chances of missing the same note in a scenario like that would be 1 in 1000, assuming you both intentionally missed one random note. You can't count the first 1 in 1000. It's one in a million that you would both miss that one exact note.

However, that probability is only if we CHOSE to only miss one note! But we didn't, we *accidentally* each missed only one note, and it was the same note. We could have missed more notes. So there's the probability that we each missed one note only, and the probability that it was the same note, and the probability that we were playing against each other when it happened, and…. [insert head spinning emoticon]

Anyway, the point is, it was very unlikely!

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Rock Band: Two #1 (in the WORLD*!) Expert drum scores, leaderboards question, Rock Band vs. Drummania.

Tommy Gun — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:14:20 +0000

That's right, I have two of the HIGHEST ROCK BAND DRUM SCORES in the WORLD*!

Okay, this isn't nearly as impressive as it sounds, but I've gotta milk this for all it's worth, since this'll surely last a whole…hour? (day? week?) Actually the first one is pretty good, five gold stars:

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Read the rest of Rock Band: Two #1 (in the WORLD*!) Expert drum scores, leaderboards question, Rock Band vs. Drummania. (857 words)

It's time to ROCK! How we got Rock Band, and what's to come.

Tommy Gun — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 19:28:30 +0000

I've been crazy excited about Rock Band ever since it was announced. Even after hearing about how tons of people's guitars/drums were breaking after a few hours, I just had to get it; largely because relatives were over for the holidays, and I wanted to play it with them.

I finally got a chance to get it (on Black Friday, ugh), even though I was about to go to sleep. We ran over to Target (close by, and I called first to make sure they had it), came back, and played for four or five hours straight. After everyone left, I played a bit of the solo tour for another hour, then went to sleep. Six hours later, I heard my roommates getting home, so I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs, and we played for another five hours. It was a strange couple of days. We don't have any Guitar Hero guitars for the 360 yet, so we only played with three people (me on drums, and my roommates switching mic/guitar).

Now we've "completed" the Band World Tour (BWT) mode, and some questions I had are answered, so I'm going to be posting a lot about it soon. I have been writing a huge review, but decided to break it up into multiple posts instead.

There's a new category specifically for Rock Band, so you can always go there to find the new updates.

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Cracked Rabbit Gaming » Rock Band

Rock Band Expert Drum videos now for download

Rock Band Expert Drum videos!

Hayley Williams almost a capella (Paramore)

Video: Tommy Gun's Rock Band 2 Manual Calibration Guide (papercraft)

Quick "Rock Band 2" Review

Some news about the Rock Band ION drumkit

Rock Band: 5-starred Blackened! (expert drums)

The Best Rock Band pedal, 5-starred Disturbed Expert Drums

This picture speaks for itself.

Podcast #2 – Rock Band Drum Mods (Tommy Gun + Mojo)

Contents:

The Rock Band Drum "In-between Sock Mod" (guide now up)

Review: "Rock Band" Part 2: Bullet points!

Review: "Rock Band" Part 1: hardware, difficulty, modes

AN-I-MAL!!

Rock Band Drums: Score Duel TIE! Same 1 note miss! (screenshot)

Rock Band: Two #1 (in the WORLD*!) Expert drum scores, leaderboards question, Rock Band vs. Drummania.

It's time to ROCK! How we got Rock Band, and what's to come.