• 11Apr 08

  New Horror Flix songs

  It is now 1 AM. My best guess is that in 15 hours, tops, there will be new songs on my band's MySpace. http://www.myspace.com/horrorflix If there are not new songs by then, there is no justice in the world. But no, seriously, our buddy Freddie in the studio should have those tracks mixed by then, so that's when they'll be up.

  • Posted Apr 11, 2008 10:09 pm GMT
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• 8Apr 08

  Rock Band Drums- Not for Real

  There seems to be an increasing number psuedo drummers out there. You know, the ones who never sat behind a drum set, but gloat about picking up drums and mastering expert mode after a few months. Nobody can seem to stop talking about how real the drums are in the game. However, many people are having trouble differnciating what about the drums are real and what's just part of the game.

  Playing the drums on expert in Rock Band does not make you a drummer. There, I said it.

  The ability to play Flirtin' with Disaster on expert drums is no more relevant than someone being able to blow through Jordan in Guitar Hero 2 on expert. Sure, it means you're fantastic at the game... but does it make you a drummer? No. Sure, every single sound is mapped out on the note chart, and you're going to have to hit them note for note. But does that require you to push your drumming skills to the limit, or does it simply mean you're going to have to play copycat?

  I'll give it to you out there who have learned the basics thanks to Rock Band. Hard mode is the farthest you'll get in terms of increasing your skill for real. You'll learn real drum patterns and you'll get used to being more consistant with your playing. This, however, won't make you a great, or even a good drummer. Now that you know the basics, it's time to move up and practice on your own, just like the rest of us had to. While logically, the next step is to move onto expert mode, this is not the case all of the time. The main difference between hard and expert are the sparatic drum fills that are mapped in their entirety.

  For example, I Think I'm Paranoid is a song that I can get 100% on hard, and 99% on expert. The one tiny part that always screws me up on expert is towards the end chorus, and it's an odd sort of snare fill that my brain is never able to process into an action in enough time. Now, say I was playing the song live with a real band. I could play that tiny part ever so slightly different and no one would notice. The accumulation of increasing your drum skill ends on hard, while expert is only the added challenge of copying the song perfectly. That's not drumming skill, that's rhythm game skill. The newbie drummer who can play on hard has just learned the basics of the song. On his own, after some practice, he can get the general idea of the song down.

  So the point I'm trying to make? I'm just trying to clear up the common misconceptions about the Rock Band drums, because everyone thinks they're some sort of drum god these days. Here we go, in a few short points...

  -The ability to play the drums for real and a basic knowledge of rhythm games will let you play hard mode from the start. All of you real drummers out there who want to tackle expert, know that it's mostly copying fills, which is something you've never had to worry about in real life.

  -If you can play expert drums, you are not necisarialy a drummer. Granted, if we sat you down on a real kit, you'd be farther along than most beginners would, but that still does not give the the ability to improvise, play the hi-hat, play double bass, play without a note chart in front of you, or even cover the span of the entire kit. Seriously, compared to the real thing, you've been practically tapping on a counter.

  -If you're a real drummer who has no problem picking up song on expert right away, then congrats, that's something that I can't do a lot of the time. If it's a tough song, I have to mostly memorize it beforehand in able to get through. Don't worry, this blog is not against you.

  All in all, Rock Band will teach you the basics up to a certain point, but it will not teach you many of the things that make drummers so incredible to listen to. Coordination, consistancy, energy, and creativity are all required to be a great drummer, and you just can't pick them up completely from this game. I think I speak for all the drummers out there in the gaming world, you need to practice for years just like we had to. Then come back and we can talk.

  • Posted Apr 8, 2008 3:29 pm GMT
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