Question for real drummers out there...

[Jixzer]

I'm curious to get the opinion on exactly how close this is to real drumming. I know it's just a game and all, but I'm not a drummer and I skipped easy after a few song because they were too boring. I'm going through medium and getting 4 or 5 stars on all of them. I made it through GGHT on my second try with 4 stars. So, I guess my long winded question is, how am I doing?

Thanks in advance.

[MJDoja]

seperating limbs.. keeping time with your right hand and keeping the beat with the other two.. youll accomplish that i think by progressing in this game.

IMO it just sounds better on real drums, but its safe to say that you can keep a basic beat if you can play rock band drums..

now will it SOUND GOOD? thats all up to your feel and passion baby!

[Jixzer]

Cool, thanks. In all seriousness, I haven't picked up a real guitar in a while and this game is really making me consider picking it up again. Do I see myself up on stage looking at 25,000 fans...uh...no...but it would be fun to play it again with some proficiency. :) Or, to keep on topic...maybe buy a cheap drum set and really piss off the neighbors...and the wife. LOL

[Micker]

It would be better if they had a rubber high hat and cymbal. Hitting the tom as a high hat is kinda weird. It would be VERY cool if they came out with a high hat/cymbal add-on. The game will help you a lot with getting your foot and hands to work together. On real drums your left foot will also be used to open and close the high hat and/or play double bass. But basically you could probably learn to play drums much faster, esp. if you can do the songs on expert.

With the guitar, it would help you to play some power chords, and helps with your coordination.

[Tarzanman]

I disagree. There is nothing in Rock Band that will help you get any better at guitar or bass.

Just too different having multiple strings and have to move in 2 dimensions on a real guitar fretboard instead of just one on a rock band controller.

As for drumming... the main thing you will learn with Rock Band is how to work a kick pedal (and work it independently of your hands). That will go a LONG WAY with helping you pick up drumming on a real set.

[rockbandforever]

i'm still having a hard time getting the bass note without messing up my right hand timing... how long will it take before i can overcome this?????



p.s i'm playing on easy and going to move up to med soon

[Zanaflex]

I disagree. There is nothing in Rock Band that will help you get any better at guitar or bass.

Uh dude, you either have never played a real guitar, or if so only play powerchords or drop tuning stuff. Saying that the guitar in GH or RB would not help you play a real guitar is a very wrong statement.

Will it let you pick up a guitar and rock out? Heck no. You will still have to learn guitar just like everyone else, either take lessons or self taught. BUT If you are rocking GH or RB on expert your fretting hand will be in some amazing shape, and your right and left hands will already know how to "talk" to each other. I promise you will have a one up on someone that has never played one of these games.

So if you have thought about buying a real guitar after playing these games, dont let statements like the above discourage you. Yes it takes a ton of practice, but it is worth it. And you have already started some of the hardest parts.

Rock the **** ON!

[AdamBomb629]

The thing with the drums that this game won't teach is volume/style. With Rock Band there is a hit or not, there is no soft hit/hard hit. Teaching you the fundamentals/mechanics of what you are doing is also skipped entirely. However, it will help you keep a beat. I would bet that a drum teacher would disagree vehemently and say that this game teaches bad habits.

[Hanover]

The cool thing about doing the Drum Solo Tour is that you will suddenly find yourself "understanding" the patterns of the harder songs that seemed impossible the first time you booted up the game. I can't believe I just beat the first two tiers on hard! The solo mode really provides a nice progressive learning curve.

My big problems are the bass drum beats that appear on the half beat...especially if it's repeatedly alternating between the main drums and bass drum...Wave of Mutilation is a good example of that in Hard.

[Tarzanman]

Uh dude, you either have never played a real guitar, or if so only play powerchords or drop tuning stuff. Saying that the guitar in GH or RB would not help you play a real guitar is a very wrong statement.

Lol, this statement alone is enough to tell me that you don't know WTF you are talking about.
I own two 4-string bass guitars (fender, hondo), one 5-string (washburn), one electric (BC rich) and one acoustic (not branded).... and they aren't art pieces. I'm not Jimmy Page or anything, but I know how to play.


Will it let you pick up a guitar and rock out? Heck no. You will still have to learn guitar just like everyone else, either take lessons or self taught. BUT If you are rocking GH or RB on expert your fretting hand will be in some amazing shape, and your right and left hands will already know how to "talk" to each other. I promise you will have a one up on someone that has never played one of these games.

You're DREAMING. All that GH is going to do is create bad habits for anyone trying to play a real guitar. Besides the fact that it is a LOT harder to barre a chord than to hold a @#%$ plastic button down on a toy..... there is the issue of the button being the size of 3-4 entire strings on a guitar.

No... all GH is going to do is make a new player feel clumsy on a real instrument... even a bass guitar, which is considerably less difficult to start out with.



So if you have thought about buying a real guitar after playing these games, dont let statements like the above discourage you. Yes it takes a ton of practice, but it is worth it. And you have already started some of the hardest parts.
Rock the **** ON!

My advice: If you do get a real guitar, don't listen to (honestly) stupid, incorrect advice about a video game making things easier for you otherwise you will be in for a rude awakening. Get the guitar, but understand that your fingers will get raw/tender, your wrist will hurt, and it till take time for you to hunt & find the correct fret and string when you start learning guitar..... JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.

Playing GH won't help you at all.

[skagen]

As for drumming, Maps is very accurate to the real life maps if you play it on expert, cept for the bridge part obviously. Chorus and verse are pretty accurate. However, if you try to 'transplant' your RB technique onto a real drum, you'll never do ghost notes and your beats will sound really flat. It'll help as an introduction, but that's about it.

As for guitar, yeah, you can move your fingers sequentially really fast, but your accuracy of hitting buttons and understanding frets is WAY WAY off. I bet you a person who has never played actual guitar and pwns at RB, when they play an actual guitar and even try to switch from a G to Em chord is going to give them trouble. Heck, I think them trying to FORM a G chord will be troublesome. It's all different muscle memory.

[deathstick]

As for drumming, Maps is very accurate to the real life maps if you play it on expert, cept for the bridge part obviously. Chorus and verse are pretty accurate. However, if you try to 'transplant' your RB technique onto a real drum, you'll never do ghost notes and your beats will sound really flat. It'll help as an introduction, but that's about it.

As for guitar, yeah, you can move your fingers sequentially really fast, but your accuracy of hitting buttons and understanding frets is WAY WAY off. I bet you a person who has never played actual guitar and pwns at RB, when they play an actual guitar and even try to switch from a G to Em chord is going to give them trouble. Heck, I think them trying to FORM a G chord will be troublesome. It's all different muscle memory.

Exactly. You have to detach the part of your brain that knows what to play on a respective instrument and just follow the notes onscreen.

[luminary pants]

I can see it helping with drumming, becuase just keeping a beat, and working your hands and feet seperately is fairly challenging. That is why I alsways sucked at drums. I never knew what to do with my foot. I was hitting the kick either every note, or not at all. I think now I might have a little better understanding after RB, but I also have a lot of music experience, I just never put any effort towards actually playing drums.

As far as helping with guitar..not a chance. Maybe timing your hand movements and strumming, but I highly doubt even that.

[Cowbell Enthusiast]

If anything GH will make your solo playing sloppier.

I find that I'll play GH once in a while but I'll play on my guitar a substantial ammount of time everyday and I continually get better at GH. Of course when I get my hands on RB everything else is going to take a backseat for a while.

[deepbluevibes]

Yes, this game teaches limb independence and foot independence as well as "patterns" (i.e. the typical rock beat, the alternating bass in-between toms beats, other patterns that are repeated many times in songs with drums)... but there are a few critical reasons this game will screw you for real drums (or at least won't help you in these areas);

1: The hi-hat and snare are switched; This is the biggest one. While you're still hitting the hi-hat with your right hand and the snare with your left, on a real set, the hi-hat is to the LEFT of a snare, so you'll need to cross your arms, and I think this'll **** up a lot of people.

2: There is only one dedicated tom, and even that's not totally dedicated. A setup like Drummania (with a dedicated snare, hi-hat, two toms, and a cymbal) is much more accurate to a real set, and even that's not fully accurate.

3: Size/placement of drums; A real set would have two toms in the space that the entire Rock Band drumset takes up. Also, a set does not normally have the cymbal BELOW the toms, nor does it have the hi-hat ABOVE the snare (and switched); so if you try to use "muscle memory" (look it up if you don't know what this means) on a real set, you'll eat it pretty quick.

4: The timing window is ****ing HUGE on this game, I could drive a truck through it. Thus, since it's so huge, you can get away with being pretty off-time and still hit the notes; thus the game doesn't help you develop perfect rhythm/metronome-like timing like you'd be forced to do on a real drumset.

Regardless of all this, the game IS still a help towards drums, as it teaches basic (and a few complex) patterns, bass pedal useage, limb independence, gets your muscles built for drums, and helps your reflexes/speed with drumsticks as well.

[HMXJohnD]

As someone who has been drumming for 13 years and who has taught drums on and off to n00bs, I can honestly say that learning in this game and playing through to expert is a great way of getting drum fundamentals down. It teaches limb independance, rhythm and timing and a sense of how patterns can lock together to form music. Playing on expert can easily translate to playing a drum kit. Though some people have pointed out that a lot of the music is open handed (right on yellow, left on red) rather than cross handed where a normal hi-hat would be, I think it's a negligible difference. (IE rotating your arm a bit to play cross handed won't be a huge leap for anyone playing run to the hills on expert :).) Add in a little practice for what your left foot does (NB, not too much unless you're playing crazy funk tunes or relying on a double-bass pedal) and you're pretty much rocking full out.

Answer to your q? I think you're well on your way to training for a move to the real physical instrument. Though make sure to show your RB kit some love. You could also get a book or two on drumming (there are some cool ones with stickings/fundamentals) and incorporate that into your gameplay/fills. then you're really be rocking solid.

As for the guitar, i don't think anyone has presumed that playing GH/RB will TEACH you how to play guitar in the way that the drums might teach you how to play drums, but as a musician, I honestly don't think it could have a detrimental effect. The rhythm and left hand/right hand "discussion" is an early hurdle that the game can help overcome. You'll have more to learn RB Guitar to Real guitar compared to RB drums to real drums, but it can still be a rewarding experience...

Regardless, virtually or otherwise, don't forget to ROCK OUT!

HMXJD

[boah78]

A tip that I find makes the drums MUCH more realistic...do not sit in the middle of the drums. If you are right handed, put the red trigger between your legs. I find it also helps to rotate the whole set slightly to the right (again, if you're right handed) once you get the snare set where it's most comfortable. I'm not a drummer, but get behind the set occasionally just for fun with my band, so I do know how a drum set should feel. I bought this game mainly for the drums and was quite disappointed in it until I did this. The difference is night and day.

[Silent88]

If you eventually get to expert, you'll be able to play a real set...in a way. RB will improve your hand and foot independence and some beats to the songs in the game. Although, you won't learn about the technical things like dynamics and accented notes. RB is a simple "hit the note" style, but it's important to know how hard or soft to hit the drum or where to hit the cymbal to get the desired sound you want when playing on an actual set.

[MJDoja]

As someone who has been drumming for 13 years and who has taught drums on and off to n00bs, I can honestly say that learning in this game and playing through to expert is a great way of getting drum fundamentals down. It teaches limb independance, rhythm and timing and a sense of how patterns can lock together to form music. Playing on expert can easily translate to playing a drum kit. Though some people have pointed out that a lot of the music is open handed (right on yellow, left on red) rather than cross handed where a normal hi-hat would be, I think it's a negligible difference. (IE rotating your arm a bit to play cross handed won't be a huge leap for anyone playing run to the hills on expert :).) Add in a little practice for what your left foot does (NB, not too much unless you're playing crazy funk tunes or relying on a double-bass pedal) and you're pretty much rocking full out.

Answer to your q? I think you're well on your way to training for a move to the real physical instrument. Though make sure to show your RB kit some love. You could also get a book or two on drumming (there are some cool ones with stickings/fundamentals) and incorporate that into your gameplay/fills. then you're really be rocking solid.

As for the guitar, i don't think anyone has presumed that playing GH/RB will TEACH you how to play guitar in the way that the drums might teach you how to play drums, but as a musician, I honestly don't think it could have a detrimental effect. The rhythm and left hand/right hand "discussion" is an early hurdle that the game can help overcome. You'll have more to learn RB Guitar to Real guitar compared to RB drums to real drums, but it can still be a rewarding experience...

Regardless, virtually or otherwise, don't forget to ROCK OUT!

HMXJD

nice reply baby yeaaaaahh! getting in tune and connected with the music is the big thing.. if you love rockin out to a song because of rock band, chances are you might wanna play it on a real kit.

still havent gotten to RttH expert yet.. but the later tier are just all epic rockers. my dad (whos an awesome session guitarist) loves comin in and hearing deep purple, rush, or foreigner.. or any of these great rock songs in the game. great music is always inspiring.