Rock Band, now with more actual rock

August 19, 2010 9:29 PM

Rock Band 3 features something new called "Pro Mode." What makes it Pro? Well, first of all, instead of the little colored flashers, the guitar and bass lines will stream down in tablature. Second, the guitar tracks in the game can also be played on the new Fender Squier Stratocaster (embedded video contains a couple of swear words), which is an actual guitar with Rock Band controller functionality.
posted by KathrynT (80 comments total)

Finally, I'll not have my ass stomped by people that can't even play guitars!
posted by Threeway Handshake at 9:29 PM on August 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm a singer, and I'm too dyspraxic to play even the Easy mode on anything but vocals, but this just seems awesome to me.
posted by KathrynT at 9:30 PM on August 19, 2010

TIL what dyspraxia is.
posted by RichAromas at 9:51 PM on August 19, 2010

Finally, I'll not have my ass stomped by people that can't even play guitars!

Oh Damn, you only have one of those pro guitars? Oh well. *plugs in plastic toy, puts difficulty on Easy*

Ok, you're going down.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:53 PM on August 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

OK, I don't get it. On the game screen, the same bars were shown twice in a row when but he played two different chords and got it right. It seems to me that you need to know how to play the song before you can even play the game. And then, what's the point of the game? Just play your damn guitar.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:56 PM on August 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

the same bars were shown twice in a row when but he played two different chords and got it right.

Them's palm mutes.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 10:01 PM on August 19, 2010

On the game screen, the same bars were shown twice in a row when but he played two different chords and got it right.

They're denoting power chords (root-5th-octave -- super common simple chord pattern in rock music) as 3--, 5--, 7--, etc. where the 3, 5, 7, or etc. indicates the root of the power chord. Maybe they're just flying past too quickly for you to read the numbers.

I think this is fantastic. You literally will learn to play guitar as you play the game. It's a guitar teacher in game form.
posted by LordSludge at 10:06 PM on August 19, 2010

I've been waiting for this for a long time. This will prompt me to buy my first ever game console.
posted by jimmymcvee at 10:09 PM on August 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Finally, they are using this for good . . .
posted by Ironmouth at 10:11 PM on August 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

And then, what's the point of the game? Just play your damn guitar.

I've only played one of these kinds of games once, at the mefi meetup at carsonb's place during the cortex jetblue tour. I took a stab at playing drums since it's something I have a knack for and all I can say is that it's really hard on both the "playing video games" and "playing an instrument with a bunch of people" scales of things, but it's also REALLY fun.

And I got my ass handed to me. I was sucking so bad, but if I gave it a bit of practice I would have been ok.

Anyway, I watched something like two dozen MeFi nerds rocking out for three-four hours on the Beatles edition Rock Band and it was fantastic. I wish my mom (Beatles fan) or my dad (has a great jam band with his buddies) could have seen what we were doing. It would have blown their mind to have seen their grown up kids rocking out to "playing" and actually singing the Beatles on some crazy newfangled video game.

Ever play a racing, snowboarding or other similar game that uses recorded "ghosts" so you can compete against yourself or a friend on time trails and stuff? These music-playing games are a lot like that, but with music. They're insanely fun for kids and adults, they're great party activities for adults especially after everyone gets all sloshed and wants to sing along to music stuff like they were doing karaoke.

And that's kind of what it is, really. It's a high tech form of karaoke with instruments, but you get feedback on your performance, timing, etc - especially if there's singing involved like in Rock Band.

Expanding the concept to actual instruments is a win. It will actually teach people to play music, and the new guitar "controller" will double as a real instrument. I bet people will start hacking them, too, to give additional controls to the guitar and do weird stuff with MIDI controls.

They've already kind of done this before, too. The original Nintendo had a keyboard and teaching game called the Miracle Piano Teaching System. It came with a decent keyboard but the software was a bit lackluster and, well, boring.

There's nothing about these games that say "don't play a real instrument", if anything they've helped people pick up the real thing and appreciate music more.
posted by loquacious at 10:26 PM on August 19, 2010 [7 favorites]

I'm going to be really disappointed if there isn't a way to use my existing guitars and basses with this.
posted by zephyr_words at 10:29 PM on August 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wish they could put "Bark At The Moon" on this, so I could utterly thrash anyone who's mastered it on five plastic buttons.

Side 2 of Van Halen 1 would work too.
posted by zoogleplex at 10:52 PM on August 19, 2010

I am so happy they're doing this. Even drums was a step in the right direction, but making a guitar a viable peripheral in RB3 is fantastic.

It's stealth education.

And if you told me a week ago that I'd be considering buying a fucking Squier, I'd have laughed at you.
posted by cortex at 10:59 PM on August 19, 2010 [11 favorites]

I need to get to the woodshed
posted by triceryclops at 11:00 PM on August 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

loquacious, we introduced my mom to Beatles Rock Band at my brother's house last Thanksgiving. This led to my mom receiving a Wii and a complete Rock Band set for Christmas.

I'm not really a Beatles fan, but they do seem to have pulled some people to video games who might not have otherwise ever picked up a Rock Band controller.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:00 PM on August 19, 2010

Them's palm mutes.

Okay, but it looked to me like those bars were repeated 4 times in a row and looked like chord indicators. But it wasn't really clear to me, I've never played this game.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:02 PM on August 19, 2010

I once purchased a Squier (used) in order to smash it, Pete Townshend-style.
It was fucking great, and easily the best purchase of my consumer life.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 11:03 PM on August 19, 2010 [4 favorites]

My daughter has Rock Band but she also has a Squier Mini. It would be cool to be able to retrofit a pickup and have her use that.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 11:04 PM on August 19, 2010

I'm reasonably certain that there is actually a sensor under the fretboard for one's fingers, which would make it rather tough to retrofit into an existing guitar.
posted by leviathan3k at 11:09 PM on August 19, 2010

A good friend of mine (band-mate, actually) has been saying for years that Rock Band is going to change the shape of music when these kids who do nothing but play video games all day get older and start making bands. He was mostly talking about drummers, because at the time drums were the only instrument that was even close to real. The expected result? A surge of highly skilled technical drummers, which will redefine the role of the instrument.

I knew it was coming eventually, but still I am really amazed and thrilled to see this product. What you're looking at is a revolution in musical pedagogy. It takes years and years of practice to build the technical skills required to play at a high level - but now instead of playing for hours because you dream of greatness and are really dedicated, you will play for hours because it's a GAME, and a really fun one, so fun you'll have a hard time NOT playing it. How many kids are going to be expert guitarists at 18, and virtuosic as adults? A hell of a lot more. You know how dedicated teenagers can be at, say, World of Warcraft. This is the same thing, except you level up in REAL LIFE.
posted by PercussivePaul at 11:09 PM on August 19, 2010 [27 favorites]

I'm not really a Beatles fan

UN-MUTUAL!
posted by Kirk Grim at 11:36 PM on August 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

PercussivePaul: Maybe, but you also may get a generation of "musicians" who can only play pre-programmed tunes without a lot of creativity of their own. Or who only see the performance of music in terms of points or a party-time diversion, rather than as an art to be created. Who knows. It could be positive for some people, but I seriously doubt that in 20 years, all of a sudden we will have a world full of amazing musicians pushing the art forward by leaps and bounds. I could be wrong, though.
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:46 PM on August 19, 2010

The original Guitar Hero was very helpful for my real guitar playing. Normally if I wanted to learn a song I'd learn the main riffs, the intro, any interesting bits, and maybe if I'm into the song I'd figure out the meat of the solo. But I was never interested in learning and memorizing the exact order to play all of those bits in and force myself to play them all strictly in order instead of going on to something else if I wasn't playing with other people. Guitar Hero, et. al., plant those song structures into your head pretty forcefully.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:59 PM on August 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

I really don't think so, Saxon. It's pure mechanics that's being rewarded and nimble fingers can't be anything but freeing. I don't claim that playing Guitar Hero makes you more creative or more artistic; but I will claim that it will lower the technical barrier of entry to musicianship for a potentially large number of people, and that this can't help but cause a splash. How many great writers did we miss out on before literacy was widespread?

In any case, who cares about the tool you use to learn the mechanics? Ever tried practicing scales? Not much creativity or expression there, but there isn't intended to be. Rock Band, or whatever games come after it and perfect the experience, isn't the end for this generation; it's the beginning.
posted by PercussivePaul at 12:10 AM on August 20, 2010 [3 favorites]

As noted, wonderful pedagogy-by-stealth tool.
posted by Wolof at 12:42 AM on August 20, 2010

I'm reasonably certain that there is actually a sensor under the fretboard for one's fingers, which would make it rather tough to retrofit into an existing guitar.

Frets and guitar strings both made of metal. So if your can insulate the strings from each other at the bridge, then you've got a standard XY keypad. From a hobbyist perspective, the hardest part will be sorting out the USB protocol.

What's the electric guitar midi protocol look like? (I assume guitars with midi output exist.)
posted by ryanrs at 12:45 AM on August 20, 2010

The original Nintendo had a keyboard and teaching game called the Miracle Piano Teaching System. It came with a decent keyboard but the software was a bit lackluster and, well, boring.

Today there's the fantastic Synthesia. (formerly Piano Hero)
posted by Ljubljana at 2:02 AM on August 20, 2010 [3 favorites]

Frets and guitar strings both made of metal. So if your can insulate the strings from each other at the bridge, then you've got a standard XY keypad. From a hobbyist perspective, the hardest part will be sorting out the USB protocol.

What's the electric guitar midi protocol look like? (I assume guitars with midi output exist.)

Yeah, that's my understanding of how the original MIDI guitars worked, isolate each string and then trigger by measuring how far up the neck the string was pressed into the fret. These guitars were notoriously unpopular because they were really finicky to play.

I finally played a MIDI guitar just a few years ago. I thrashed out some Ramones tune I was so familiar with that I could play it in my sleep. I could not get the guitar to produce any sound at all, no matter how I played it. I asked a clerk if the guitar was hooked up correctly. He played it with a very precise finger-picking style and it worked fine. So the problem is, you have to play it absolutely perfectly to get it to play at all. Every note has to be distinct and separately plucked, even when playing a chord. This is useless for someone like me who loves the guitar for its ability to thrash out some wonderfully sloppy tones.
posted by charlie don't surf at 2:59 AM on August 20, 2010

It's pure mechanics that's being rewarded and nimble fingers can't be anything but freeing.

Is this where we have another Satriani derail?

NO.
posted by inigo2 at 3:33 AM on August 20, 2010

I see your Satriani and raise you a Malmsteen.
posted by dr_dank at 3:55 AM on August 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

This is the Squier into which I would like the sensor installed, thanks.
posted by Cantdosleepy at 4:45 AM on August 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

On the topic of stealth pedagogy and also awesome news: don't forget there's also a keyboard, which has a strap and can be played keytar style!
posted by Monster_Zero at 5:42 AM on August 20, 2010

I have to admit that if anything I actively dislike the notion of using RB3 to learn how to play guitar. I don't want to learn how to play guitar. I have no interest at all in playing a guitar. I want to keep playing what amounts to Missile Command synchronized to a soundtrack. I'd much rather have a more expansive character editor and the ability to import/buy characters (I WANT TO PLAY AS THE ELECTRIC MAYHEM. OR THE CANTINA BAND. OR THE CREW OF THE TOS-ENTERPRISE.) than a built-in guitar teacher.

RB3 also has a new keyboard controller, which you can apparently also use to play guitar/bass levels. Also, every controller will have a pro mode; it isn't just guitar/bass. Also pro mode has difficulty levels; there's pro-easy to pro-expert. But no pro-magnon.

Here's the current best guess at the soundtrack, put together from confirmed tracks and tracks transcribed from a video where the track list was scrolling by on a monitor in the background.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:49 AM on August 20, 2010

This and Little Big Planet 2 are going to get us to finally upgrade to the PS3. There's lots of great PS2 games out there we haven't played so we'll keep the old system around, I expect, but DAMN I want RB3.

Friend Dan, who by virtue of being a coder at Harmonix, wondered a couple weeks ago if he might be the first person in the world to have gotten "3+ stars on Expert Pro Keys" in RB3, although he admits a QA person might have done it first. Shivers with jealousy.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:54 AM on August 20, 2010

MTV Games had an awesome panel with Harmonix staff at Comic-Con where they spoke about this being the plan all along: trick you in to learning to play instruments. In addition to the songs there are more tutorials and trainers that are basically an interactive GUITAR/KEYBOARD/DRUMS FOR DUMMIES that teach technique.

The fret board definitely contains sensors that determine your finger placement. There is also a new fake-plastic-guitar that has a button for each fret and nylon strings to make it feel more "real".
posted by barake at 6:21 AM on August 20, 2010

(TIL what TIL is.)
posted by Ian A.T. at 6:39 AM on August 20, 2010 [3 favorites]

To answer charlie don't surf's question:

In the original Guitar Hero / Rock Band, the five rows represent five buttons on the plastic guitar and you push the green button when a green icon comes down the green row.

In the Rock Band 3 real guitar version, the six rows represent the six strings of the guitar. What comes down each row is a number telling you where on the string (which # fret) to put your finger. So there's twice as much information coming at you at once. It's not just which row to push a button on, but which "button" (numbers that could presumably range from 0 to 22) to push on a given row.
posted by straight at 6:42 AM on August 20, 2010

I have a feeling that this won't be as cool as it looks and it'll be really hard, if you've never played a guitar before, to learn by playing this game (I hope to god that I'm wrong).
posted by geoff. at 7:08 AM on August 20, 2010

loquacious wrote: "I've only played one of these kinds of games once, at the mefi meetup at carsonb's place during the cortex jetblue tour. I took a stab at playing drums since it's something I have a knack for and all I can say is that it's really hard on both the "playing video games" and "playing an instrument with a bunch of people" scales of things, but it's also REALLY fun."

I've found that people who actually play the drums but have no Rock Band/Guitar Hero experience have a harder time of it because they can't quite read the note cascade fast enough yet to play on expert, but want to play too much stuff because they're trying to play along with the song instead of the "notes" on the screen.

I also have yet to meet anyone who has actually played the game who didn't have fun with it. I know several folks who refuse to try it, though.

Personally, I'm looking forward to plugging in a MIDI keyboard with RB3. Or using the keytar. Not sure that I want to go out and buy the keytar, since I have this perfectly good MIDI keyboard here...
posted by wierdo at 7:15 AM on August 20, 2010

PercussivePaul: I see what you're saying, and it's not that I disagree entirely, but I'm not sure that the technical facility developed by the game will necessarily transfer over into anything beyond the game. If anything, I think Rock Band/Guitar Hero might serve as a disincentive to many people to play actual music -- I'm thinking of the South Park episode "Guitar Queer-o" here. It serves as the fantasy outlet so you don't NEED to become a musician -- we've got all these complex fighting games, but people aren't roaming the streets doing Mortal Kombat fatalities.

Now, of course as I'm sure you'll point out, the difference with the new RB3 is the immersiveness of the controller, and the difference that could make is unknown and potentially much different than the less realistic controller. If we had fighting games where you had to learn the moves for real (or in a somewhat simplified version of them), maybe that would change things majorly. But, I still contend that playing guitar through RB3 is different than, say, learning scales. Both are patterns, but the former is a pattern that has only one applicable setting: the game. The second is a building block that can be broken down, modified, used to construct new things. I think what the unknown here is: what is the experience of using a realistic controller that mimics the actual performance of music, and how does that change the nature of videogame playing. Again, like I said, gaming is a fantasy outlet, a pressure valve of sorts that gives a sort of relief to unfulfilled desires or imaginations. It's also very Pavlovian, and GH/RB is more Pavlovian than many other games. So, the combination of that with quasi-musicianship... well, it doesn't necessarily fill me with hope for the future of music. It doesn't fill me with dread, but I see, if anything, a broader swath of people who can play Iron Man or Smoke on the Water or something, or hell, maybe even jam out a Dragonforce solo, and then.... ????? A few will become great, perhaps, but most will not.

As a guitar player myself, and someone who is pretty good at RB/GH, I'll say that I think my musical talents helped me much less than my video game skills w/r/t playing the guitar/bass parts. My fairly decent ear for pitch does help when singing, and my limited drumming skills mean that when I'd have RB parties I was one of the few people who could even attempt to play drums on "Medium" (no one else could get the hang of the bass drum pedal).

Finally, regarding your question about how many great writers we missed out on before literacy was widespread: not many, I don't think. They were storytellers, or singers, or bards, or troubadours, or shaman, or village elders, or ... etc.
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:20 AM on August 20, 2010

All that said, I think the games are super fun, and I will totally get this once I have the cash. I do think that the net effect can only be positive, but I just am less optimistic than PercussivePaul -- I think it will be minor, rather than major. But, what do I know...
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:24 AM on August 20, 2010

we've got all these complex fighting games, but people aren't roaming the streets doing Mortal Kombat fatalities

I try, but when I back up, step forward, back up, jump, step forward, and jump again, all that happens is I get funny looks from my adversary instead of spewing a mighty torrent of adversary-dissolving acid from my navel.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:32 AM on August 20, 2010 [8 favorites]

And if you told me a week ago that I'd be considering buying a fucking Squier, I'd have laughed at you.

i have a squier affinity telecaster and a squire vintage modified fretless jazz bass - if you try out enough of them, you will find an instrument that's good

cheap guitars have improved a lot
posted by pyramid termite at 7:33 AM on August 20, 2010

Frets and guitar strings both made of metal. So if your can insulate the strings from each other at the bridge, then you've got a standard XY keypad. From a hobbyist perspective, the hardest part will be sorting out the USB protocol.

No, you buy a chip for that. Hell, just get a microcontroller prototype board with the chip already on it, and USB signaling is done.

However, why bother with XY signaling -- esp since you miss Z (whether a string is sounding or not).

You already have the input -- six pickups producing AC current which frequency encodes the string's fretting point, and if the string is sounding (and, as a bonus, how hard the string was stuck and how loud it is sounding!) Six inputs, frequency counter, lookup table, and a calibration routine -- hit button, strum strings. You can even pick up the whammy bar, just look for a simultaneous drop and rise in frequency across all six strings, though it might be simpler to drop an encoder on that. However, if you don't, what your game encoder has become is a box with a USB port on one side and a 1/4" jack on the other, and the controller is your actual electric guitar!

You might need to split the smarts into a GPU, but the encoding task looks to be pretty simple. You'll want some filtering, but given that we're talking about a game encoder, not a MIDI encoder, you can bin the samples pretty roughly and get the info you need -- did the player fret string #3 at the right place to produce the correct note and did they play it?
posted by eriko at 7:34 AM on August 20, 2010 [2 favorites]

Err, CPU, not GPU....otherwise, what I said.
posted by eriko at 7:36 AM on August 20, 2010

I have been considering somehow taking my adequate level of skill at fake plastic drums and somehow trying to see if I can learn the real thing. Perhaps this game will be the intermediate step I need before blowing a wad of cash on a genuine drum set.

Also, I eagerly await the return of drunken rock band parties.
posted by utsutsu at 7:42 AM on August 20, 2010

Friend Dan, who by virtue of being a coder at Harmonix, wondered a couple weeks ago if he might be the first person in the world to have gotten "3+ stars on Expert Pro Keys" in RB3, although he admits a QA person might have done it first.

That's me! I am really psyched at how Pro Keys turned out. Back when we started I had big concerns about 1) making the Expert track parsable in real time and 2) having a reasonable difficulty ramp from Easy up to Expert. I think we nailed both of them. Playing through the whole game on Expert was a blast.
posted by dfan at 7:51 AM on August 20, 2010

It serves as the fantasy outlet so you don't NEED to become a musician -- we've got all these complex fighting games, but people aren't roaming the streets doing Mortal Kombat fatalities.

Honestly, nobody sticks with a musical instrument purely on the strength of fantasy. Fantasy gets you as far as picking up e.g. your first acoustic, or your first electric and an amp, or getting your parents to buy you same; it gets you as far as discovering that closing your eyes and twanging awkwardly at your new possession doesn't create the sounds you had been half-imagining would come out as a result said eye-closing and twanging.

If your fantasy is really specifically of working and working and working at something difficult in order to achieve rock stardom, it may carry you a bit farther than that.

But for most people, the rockstar fantasy fades pretty quick with the realization that learning an instrument is a hard thing. That happens pretty early on. From there, the options are do the hard work or quit. And there are a lot of unplayed guitars out there owned by people who realized that what they wanted was not to learn to play the guitar so much as to have already learned it, to be able to just do it, and who didn't end up getting any real pleasure or satisfaction out of the slog through the learning curve.

And then there are the fraction who stick with it. Maybe because they're naturally inclined for whatever reason to pick it up quickly; maybe because they find making music, even awkwardly and painfully at first, to be particularly rewarding or emotionally engaging; maybe because they're just stubborn enough to not give up on what they started at; maybe because, again, they actually have a very specific and ambitious fantasy of going through years of work and coming out the other side a solid musician.

But all those people who stick with it have in common having pushed through the hardest early unsatisfying stages of musicianship in which you really can't do a very good job of making music. You suck at your instrument, the gulf between where you are and where you want to be is impossibly far, you can't play well enough to keep even your friends in the room if they have a choice. But you push on through. Eventually, you pick up enough of the basics that you can pull off campfire songs with some sort of workable singalong proficiency, or can keep up your end of a the bargain in your crappy first band, or make some other breakthrough that takes you from playing badly by yourself to playing at-least-a-bit-less-badly with others. And that's one of the bigger thresholds in a budding musician's history—the introduction of a social aspect, an opportunity to share a fun experience while continuing to work on their craft.

So, Rock Band? You've got a fun fantasy outlet for a ton of people who were never going to do anything but fantasize anyway. They don't want to spend three years working every day and annoying their parents/children/spouses/neighbors and chewing up their fingertips and dropping cash on instrument, strings, picks, books, tapes, whatever in the pursuit of becoming minimally proficient on an instrument. They just want to have fun. Rock Band for them is just air guitar, and that's fine. It's really great air guitar, and it's something they can do with their friends and all of that is I think fantastic in its own right. It's a fun, social videogaming experience that's accessible to a lot of people who haven't had a music fantasy outlet before or a chance to play an approachable game.

But beyond that, it's a brilliant new way to get some of the folks who would actually give musicianship a shot if they could just get over that early cliff-face learning curve a chance to get some of those basic mechanics down in a fun way. It gives them a venue for doing some of the I Suck At This grunt-work in a social setting, their friends playing along on plastic instruments instead of fleeing the room. It gives them a gamic sense of motivation to try that one thing again, to try and fret better, to try and get their hands to do that thing their hands don't want to do.

It's clever. I'm curious how well it will work out in RB3, but, yes, this is a good thing even if it's a bit flawed coming out the gate. It's not a magical You Are Now A Musician box, and it's a mistake to imagine that failure to convert any given player into a lifelong musician is some particular failing of the game rather than a bleak fact of attrition rates with music students of any sort, but it will help and certainly not harm.
posted by cortex at 8:05 AM on August 20, 2010 [7 favorites]

This is the Squier into which I would like the sensor installed, thanks.

I agree. Except I want the black model. I actually fondled one in my local guitar store. And then I hated myself.

But alas, I am a Gibson man, and while my first electric guitar was a bashed up, used Strat, I just could not think of owning anything resembling that today. Actually, that Squier reminds me a lot of the best guitar I ever owned and regret selling, a mint condition 1961 Les Paul SG Junior. Like the Squier, it is a "student model" of their top end guitar, with only one non-humbucker pickup down near the bridge. I bought mine around 1982 for $350. I sold it around 1985 for $350. Now they're worth around $5000. Played like a dream, and I wouldn't mind the single pickup, it screamed, and on my current Les Paul Deluxe I only use the bridge pickup anyway.
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:10 AM on August 20, 2010

Saxon, I'm going to have to side with PercussivePaul and say this is huge.

One of the biggest barriers preventing a creative person from making music with a guitar is that steep initial learning curve. You've got to do some work (which some find tedious, boring, and frustrating) developing some basic skills with your fingers that have very little to do with creativity and musicianship.

If kids can develop some of that basic guitar literacy by playing a game, any of them with a genuine creative musical urge are going to have a huge head start when they turn the game off and pick up a guitar.

And I can't believe that there will be many kids who would have been interested enough in guitar to work at learning it for real but whose interest could be sated by just playing a video game. Although maybe there would be more guitarists if there were no video games at all (or TV or movies or internet) competing for kids' attention.

But think about it. If you can play a RB3 song on the highest difficulty, you can basically play that song on the guitar (at least at the level of a beginning guitar student). A kid finishes the game, turns off the console, and is holding a guitar that he knows how to make music with. You really think there aren't going to be tons of kids who keep playing?
posted by straight at 8:11 AM on August 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

I think the Satriani point is an important one. RB gives you technical chops -- which are really important -- and discipline -- which is critical to mastery -- but it won't give you creativity or much musicianship.

It's dumb, but I can play RB2 drums well enough but when I sit in front of a real kit, I have no fucking clue what to do there. There's no notes streaming towards me, telling me what to play.

The solution to that problem is to just get out there and play real instruments untethered to an IV drip of commands ... like our back yard neighbours who last night stood by the fence and played guitar, harmonica and sang for a couple hours. (They were pretty good.)

At least with technical chops, you know you can play what you dream... but you do need to dream.

(I'm still loving the hell out of ThumbJam for the iPhone, thanks so much for that post a week ago. It's a musical tool that lets me dream without worrying about technical chops. Now I just need to get that stuff together!)
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:14 AM on August 20, 2010

Finally, regarding your question about how many great writers we missed out on before literacy was widespread: not many, I don't think. They were storytellers, or singers, or bards, or troubadours, or shaman, or village elders, or ... etc.

Somebody may have heard them, but unless there was literacy involved in there somewhere, you and I have missed out on their stories.
posted by straight at 8:16 AM on August 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

One of the biggest barriers preventing a creative person from making music with a guitar is that steep initial learning curve. You've got to do some work (which some find tedious, boring, and frustrating) developing some basic skills with your fingers that have very little to do with creativity and musicianship.

I totally disagree. You can learn 3 basic chords in an hour and start bashing out a passable song. I could teach someone the basic two finger boogie and in an hour they'd be playing "Summertime Blues." I taught that to a ten year old kid and he picked it up in 15 minutes.

I used to see a guitar lessons advertisement on matchbook covers, I loved their slogan, "Learn the basics in 15 minutes. Spend a lifetime achieving mastery."
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:18 AM on August 20, 2010

seanmpuckett wrote: "It's dumb, but I can play RB2 drums well enough but when I sit in front of a real kit, I have no fucking clue what to do there. There's no notes streaming towards me, telling me what to play. "

There's a training mode that teaches you a lot of different drum rhythms. Give that a shot and see if you don't have an idea of what to play after doing the training.
posted by wierdo at 8:21 AM on August 20, 2010

They were storytellers, or singers, or bards, or troubadours, or shaman, or village elders, or ... etc.

For some reason this just conjures up the idea of some pre-literate society where the Don Delillo is trying to tell a story:

"Wait, why are they so interested in the pictures, the barn is right there."

DD: "Uh, well, you see the images of the barn ..."

"Yeah cares about the damn barn, was it haunted? Was this a haunted barn?"

DD: "No."

"Was there a battle that took place outside this barn? What color was the barn? Were people charge for taking photos of the barn?"

"Oh yeah, and if they took photos of the barn without paying anything did the just lob off their heads? And then there's people walking around trying to find their heads?"

DD: "..."
posted by geoff. at 8:23 AM on August 20, 2010

It's dumb, but I can play RB2 drums well enough but when I sit in front of a real kit, I have no fucking clue what to do there.

But I'd bet you if you really wanted to play drums you could learn faster than someone who has never played RB2. You're used to playing with what is essentially a metronome. I'll bet you've started some good habits related to keeping the beat going and getting back into it when you screw up instead of getting completely derailed. (Also maybe some bad habits related to technique and how to hold the sticks.)
posted by straight at 8:23 AM on August 20, 2010

I totally disagree. You can learn 3 basic chords in an hour and start bashing out a passable song. I could teach someone the basic two finger boogie and in an hour they'd be playing "Summertime Blues." I taught that to a ten year old kid and he picked it up in 15 minutes.

That's true if by creativity you basically mean songwriting and guitar is just giving you basic chords to accompany your songs.

But if you want to be creative in your guitar playing you're going to have to spend time learning technique before your fingers can execute what brain wants to do.
posted by straight at 8:30 AM on August 20, 2010

I'm looking forward to plugging in a MIDI keyboard with RB

Will that work? Will they have a pro mode for keyboards so I can plug my fully weighted 88 key stage piano? Ohpleasebetrueohpleasebetrueohpleaseohpleaseohplease

Also, I think Pro mode exists for those players who have enough musical training that they would get a lot of entertainment out of playing the actual notes with the band. It's just a mode, if you don't really want to learn guitar or whatever you can still play the basic rhythm game (which is still a superhappyton of fun btw).
posted by jnrussell at 8:31 AM on August 20, 2010

Will that work? Will they have a pro mode for keyboards so I can plug my fully weighted 88 key stage piano?

You can use any MIDI keyboard but you'll have to buy a little box that has a MIDI in and a USB out that turns it into the sort of game controller we expect to see.
posted by dfan at 8:35 AM on August 20, 2010

Pro-mode, here I come! I was never GREAT at guitar, barely GOOD, to be honest, but it will be fun as hell playing along on 6 strings instead of 5 buttons.

Also looking forward to support for a second pedal for hi-hat during fills or free-play, and differentiating between toms and cymbals for pro-mode in the actual game, not just in fills. I'm not a drummer, but I play one in Rock Band!
posted by owtytrof at 8:35 AM on August 20, 2010

dfan: Will it work with a keyboard that does USB MIDI natively, or do you need the dongle for the navigation buttons?
posted by wierdo at 8:39 AM on August 20, 2010

Plugged directly into the console, I mean.
posted by wierdo at 8:42 AM on August 20, 2010

Holy shit. This gives me hope that the keyboard will be awesome. I had previously wondered what kind of 5-key monster that was going to be. Now...
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 8:45 AM on August 20, 2010

dfan: Will it work with a keyboard that does USB MIDI natively, or do you need the dongle for the navigation buttons?

You need the box. For one thing, you need the navigation buttons, and for another, the game doesn't expect a MIDI controller to be plugged in, it expects a game controller with some extra information. It's a totally different format, and the box does the conversion.
posted by dfan at 8:55 AM on August 20, 2010

The keyboard that comes with RB3 is itself a MIDI part. I know people who are excited about this.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:24 AM on August 20, 2010

Why? Because it's a keytar? You can already get a nice usb-midi keyboard for like USD 60 (and with more keys too)...what's the appeal of RB3's dinky little keyboard?
posted by jnrussell at 9:36 AM on August 20, 2010

I love the idea of the new controllers, but am not wowed by the majority of RB3's setlist. Anyone know if Harmonix will be giving the pro-mode treatment to the songs from RB1 and RB2? Or the downloadable content?
posted by batou_ at 10:21 AM on August 20, 2010

I see your Satriani and raise you a Malmsteen.

I see your Malmsteen and raise you a Buckethead.

Oooh, it's going to have Spacehog's "In the Meantime". Nice.
posted by MikeMc at 11:24 AM on August 20, 2010

Regarding the keyboard, Game Informer had a article about Rock Band 3 peripherals this month. I think you need the adapter for any MIDI keyboard:

Rock Band 3 Preview

The new wireless keyboard controller is a 25-key, two-octave MIDI-enabled keyboard. It can be played standing up like a keytar, or laid down in the lap, on a table, or on the sold-separately keyboard stand. Alternately, a MIDI Pro Adapter Box allows players to use real MIDI keyboards and drums of their own to play the game. Keyboards can be used to play any keyboard parts in the game, but can also play guitar and bass parts in non-pro mode.

The adapter is probably necessary because they are only expecting two octaves worth of notes as input...
posted by Roger Dodger at 11:53 AM on August 20, 2010

I love the idea of the new controllers, but am not wowed by the majority of RB3's setlist. Anyone know if Harmonix will be giving the pro-mode treatment to the songs from RB1 and RB2? Or the downloadable content?

It would be insane of them not to release DLC.
posted by edbles at 12:29 PM on August 20, 2010

I'm sorry I didn't read that right, here's a small discussion of the backwards forwards compatibility thing. It looks like at the start just drums will have pro mode. DLC.
posted by edbles at 12:32 PM on August 20, 2010

I'm in the 'this is good' camp. My only beef: what's with the tablature streaming downward? Right to left, anyone?
posted by randomyahoo at 12:50 PM on August 20, 2010

Yeah the tab streaming downward is a bit jarring, I wonder if they'll have left-right as an option...they really should.
posted by jnrussell at 12:55 PM on August 20, 2010

First-time commenter, but long-time guitar teacher. Count me among those really impressed with the pedagogical implications of this. It was easy to dismiss those plastic game controllers with the colored buttons, but this version just about closes that gap. Wait til RB4, when they add the vintage gear settings and optional wah pedal.

I agree that it's tougher to see how this might help someone develop the more elusive aspects of musicianship (expression, feeling, groove, and so forth), particularly if you subscribe to the idea that these qualities can't be measured or written into an algorithm. On the other hand, in order to perceive those characteristics in the music to begin with, they have to originate in parameters of timing, movement, force, etc., which can be measured and evaluated, at least in theory. I think ultimately the challenge is coming up with more sensitive algorithms.

For me one of the coolest aspects of this is how the animated "notation" of the music corresponds with the movements of the players in a way that traditional written notation, even guitar tablature, can't touch. Learning to follow those moving bars seems much more natural and intuitive compared with the process of internalizing some highly symbolic language that doesn't conform at all with what your body has to do when you play.

I'm less sold on the idea this game will spawn vast legions of Satrianis and Malmsteens (shudder). As others have suggested, it still takes a single-minded focus - sustained over years - to acquire what we could consider expert skill at something like playing guitar. That's a level of commitment that few possess for anything, which is why experts are special cases.

From a teacher's perspective I'm totally rooting for this technology to evolve and continue to incorporate the best ideas of musicians and designers. This is just the start of it.
posted by jamjames at 1:06 PM on August 20, 2010

Wait til RB4, when they add the vintage gear settings and optional wah pedal.

Oh man. Capture the source audio for the guitar tracks in the studio as an unprocessed direct-out clean signal, and then build a whole collection of virtual stomp boxes into the game with a nice approximation of the actual historical effects chain for each song represented as a pedal board that the guitarist can fiddle with at their leisure with a simple chain editor and then activate during gameplay using a simple like three-switch stomp peripheral with an attached pedal.

Oh man oh man oh man.
posted by cortex at 1:12 PM on August 20, 2010

Accordion Hero LIVES!
posted by Lemurrhea at 1:19 PM on August 20, 2010

Friend Dan, who by virtue of being a coder at Harmonix, wondered a couple weeks ago if he might be the first person in the world to have gotten "3+ stars on Expert Pro Keys" in RB3, although he admits a QA person might have done it first.

We'll never tell.

- HMX QA
posted by danb at 5:07 PM on August 20, 2010

Harmonix dispels leaked setlist rumors (by leaking the setlist themselves).
posted by kmz at 8:23 PM on August 20, 2010

Holy shit! They have Centerfold! We played Centerfold in my middle school band. (The school's band not a band I formed in middle school, I have never been in a non-school or non-imaginary/plastic instruments type band.) Although now that I think about it, it was super weird that we played Centerfold.
posted by edbles at 12:03 PM on August 24, 2010

Oof. I remember seeing announcement trailers for a new game called Power Gig, which was just like Rock Band, except that it was going to shake up the music game genre by having real instruments! Then immediately afterwards seeing trailers for Rock Band 3. That's gotta be annoying.
posted by lucidium at 4:32 AM on August 25, 2010