Rock Band - First Impressions

[Serren]

PART 1 - Construction

Yesterday I picked up this game. I was laughing out loud on the way out of the store carrying this huge freakin box. A box this big is WAY cool.

As I opened up the box I took a few pictures. Here they are -



The one thing that I kept thinking about while opening and building the kit was how excited people will be on xmas morning doing the same thing. It was exciting. The shiny guitar, the very real looking microphone, and then the drums, even in parts looked way cool.

It took me longer to unwrap everything then it took to follow the required steps to get everything built. The guitar was just one step. The drums were I think about six easy steps. No problems at all and everything snapped together easily and firmly. All very well designed. The cord connecting the bass kick pedal to the back of the drums main body seems short, but its of a stretchy nature and I had no problem with this later.

Next, Wires!

[Serren]

PART 2 - Wiring and Setup

With assembly behind me, I moved on to hooking all these parts to my 360. The included 4 port USB IS the key to all of this. My 360 sits on the top of my 65" TV, about 5 feet above the floor. The included hub cable has a very short USB lead out, about six inches or so. The power cable for the hub is not very long either. About three feet. Note: The hub in my kit looks different from some I have seen from the review units. Not sure if they are all the same or not at this point though.

So with the limitations of the hub wiring, I used both of my old USB extension cables that were hooked up to my two GH2 controllers. This allowed me to place the hub in the center of my living room, errr, stage. But the power cord for the USB hub was to short to reach a wall outlet. So I had to grab an extension cord and an outlet. Sorry Wii, I need to rock more then you need to flash blue at me! So now I have two wires running from the front of the room to the center of the room.

So I plug the hubs little power brick into the extension cord, and then plug this into the hub itself. This connection seems a bit odd. Plus, as the plug goes in, a little green led flashes, then goes off. Bad connection? I'm thinking so. I fiddle with this for a moment, but can seem to find a happy place where the led stays on. I'll move on and see what happens.

I know plug in the drums, the included guitars, one of my GH guitars and the mic into the hub.

At this point I turn the 360 on and plug in my 12ft extension (two 6ft extenders) that runs to the hub. As soon as I do this, the little green led on the hub comes on and stays on. Non existent problem solved.

I place the game disk in and note that the guitars and the drums each have the glowing guide button on, each indicating their positions (1-4) on the quadrants. The mic does not have any lights or anything on it. I use the drum kits built in controller interface to select quick play, multiplayer.

On the select your instrument/character, I can see the guitars and the drums, but the mic says not plugged in, even though I have it plugged into the hub. Oh oh.... I try plugging it into each of the ports in the hub, as well as the on the 360. Nothing. I cant make the mic player activate.

I read the instructions and see nothing about this. It does mention I can use a controllers headset and mic instead of the included mic. I figure I'll try this. Maybe the included mic is defective, but I can use my headset for now. So I activate a regular controller and the mic players selection screen comes to life. So at least I can play with four players.

As were getting ready to start jamming, my daughter picks up the still plugged into the hub included mic and pretends to sing. Her voice comes out of the 360! Ding ding! I get it, you have to have a controller plugged in to the 360 to control the included mic's character. This may seem obvious to some, but it was not to me. And I don't think the instructions make this clear either. Anyway, problem solved with the included mic.

At this point, there are a TON of wires all over my living room floor. Two guitars, the drums, the mic, the hub, the extension cord. A bunch! It looks rather ugly, but yeah, rocking out can get a bit messy I guess.

Next, Rocking Out!

[Serren]

PART 3 - Game play (Drums and Mic)

With all the assembly and hook up behind me, it was time to rock. Since nobody wanted to be the drummer, that was me. My wife was on lead guitar, and our friend Rick was on bass, and my daughter, at seven years old was on vocals.

The selecting your instruments, and characters screens were a bit confusing. If one player clicks a wrong button, all the choices get wiped out and your thrown back into the prior menu. At one point, I was directing each person on how to make these selections so we could move on after a bunch of miscues. I was doing all the selecting for my daughter using the controller which was sitting next to me.

Our first song was "Should I Stay or Should I Go" on Easy for all. Since the words are easy to sing my daughter was able to sing most of them good enough. She did get shut down, but if one of the other players does something good, they can bring back a failed out player.

My impressions as the drummer.

I have never played real drums. I didn't feel I have the coordination to do so. So take that as where I am coming from. The first thing I noticed while playing was the sound of the drum sticks on the drums. It is much louder in the room then I thought it would be. Almost to the point of being distracting for some reason. I found an easy fix though, turn up the speakers!

Playing the drums on Easy was actually doable for me. In the four or five songs I played as drummer, I was in the 70% range or higher. The hard part is telling your brain to use the kick pedal at some point, and then the green pad. Sometimes it was easy, but sometime I would get things mixed up. Especially after a note that has the kick pedal and another drum hit at the same time.

Also difficult was having your left hand on one beat/rhythm or whatever they are called, and then asking your right hand do another beat. Ouch. Then you get messed up and miss a bunch while you are resetting. It happens! Easy was quite doable, Medium, was out of my league at this point.

My impressions on vocals.

I have never done the bar karaoke thing. I have seen it many times, and enjoy laughing at the singers, but I have always been to shy to actually try it myself. But not in my home! Performing the vocals on Rock Band is WAY fun. I was singing in front of people for the first time and having a blast.

The was the game works for the vocalist is that the words scroll on the top from the left to the right. There is a line indicating when you should sing. Next to this line is an arrow that moves with the pitch of your voice. I've only tried so far on easy, but the game seems to work really well at picking up pitch and tone. As you sing, it will indicate you how are doing with words, from awesome to weak. There are also indicators that tell you when to hold notes, when to change pitch and so on.

It was really fun. And then seeing my daughter singing and rocking out was a huge added bonus. She was singing "Creep" by Radio Head, and "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones, how cool is that? Since she is new to reading, she missed some stuff, but she had a good time trying and has a much better singing voice then I do!

Next, Back to the Guitars!

[Rockstar]

How was the timing of the vocals?
My ps3 version through optical audio digital surround sound has about a full second delay from when you sing to when the sound comes out the speakers.

[namehater]

i thought rockband was 360 exclusive

how lame that the usb adapter has a power plug! how many surge protectors must i have in one place to enjoy gaming!

[Serren]

The timing seemed fine. Does your receiver have any built in-sync delays? I have heard that using analog audio seems to help also.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Serren

The timing seemed fine. Does your receiver have any built in-sync delays? I have heard that using analog audio seems to help also.

Good question, I have no idea.
Any ideas how to adjust for this?

I do know that using analog audio kind of defeats the purpose of having state of the art surround sound equipment.

Any help appreciated, Thanks

PS,
PS3 does not use a "hub", just dongles for the guitars and wired mic and drums.

[Serren]

I think most modern receivers have some sort of delay that can be set in the audio setup menus. But just thinking, that would control the delay for all sounds together. So maybe that was a bad suggestion from someone on the Harmonix website.

You could also look into the mic settings inside of the game. There were two or three I think.

Another thing is that could the mic be picking up the sounds from the speakers themselves, like a feedback loop?

I cant remember if the PS3 even has analog audio out! But I do remember in the RB options a check box for Dolby Digital. Mine came set as not checked, no DD. You could try this both ways perhaps. And just for test purposes, if the PS3 has analog audio out, try that into your receivers aux input or whatever. If that fixes the problem, at least your amp could remix this signal to Prologic II.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

[lovekeiiy]

connected to the 360 via a USB hub...that totally blows. No way I'll get that game till it becomes wireless. It's so anti-next gen

[D_Litch]

I'll just be using my Les Paul with this, so I doubt the hub will be needed as I'll only have drums plugged in.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by D_Litch

I'll just be using my Les Paul with this, so I doubt the hub will be needed as I'll only have drums plugged in.

The Statocaster makes the Les Paul feel like a toy by comparison.

[RISC_Taker]

Got it Thanksgiving morning...Greatest party game ever. Everyone had a ball.

I thought Guitar Hero 3 for the WII was fun (like the cordless guitar better on the Wii), but having a friend drum and another sing was just fun as hell.

RT