Fender guitar not fast enough on downstrums??

[muskett32]

Okay, so my replacement guitar is great. Hits every note, no problem. However, tt seems on the rock band guitar when you're strumming downwards very fast in strings of the exact same chord or note, it either can't keep up or it's unresponsive. There's always one or two notes it hiccups on. Anyone else have this happen? At this point I am so paranoid it may be the guitar or the game or me. I don't know what to think.

[MrNazraq]

Okay, so my replacement guitar is great. Hits every note, no problem. However, tt seems on the rock band guitar when you're strumming downwards very fast in strings of the exact same chord or note, it either can't keep up or it's unresponsive. There's always one or two notes it hiccups on. Anyone else have this happen? At this point I am so paranoid it may be the guitar or the game or me. I don't know what to think.

I've had that happen quite a few times, myself. Although, I think it's more about my inability to keep the timing and rhythm with the music than the guitar's fault. On really fast note stretches, my right forearms cramps up and my whole body becomes tense, and then I start missing notes.

However, I've found if I use the "up-down" strumming technique, I don't get as tired and also tend to hit every note. This works really well with the 1/16th notes, but I still have a hard time with the 1/32 notes (like in the song "Creep").

I still think it's my own timing that's getting messed up, though...

[muskett32]

I think it's my timing as well. Can you clear something up for me? How can I tell what a
1/16th or 1/8th note or any other note is. I know the lines on the frets indicate this, but I'm a bit lost. Thanks.

[nate]

i thought it was me just being too slow. i use creep as my indicator as well..i got my new guitar yesterday and noticed a difference right away...i jumped up a good 10 percent on just creep (the end guitar is killer). i noticed the new guitar seem more responsive to smaller, quicker movements while gripping the strum bar between my index finger and thumb...also holding the guitar closer to my body helps me wail better.

[piggy171]

Okay, so my replacement guitar is great. Hits every note, no problem. However, tt seems on the rock band guitar when you're strumming downwards very fast in strings of the exact same chord or note, it either can't keep up or it's unresponsive. There's always one or two notes it hiccups on. Anyone else have this happen? At this point I am so paranoid it may be the guitar or the game or me. I don't know what to think.


I totally think it is the guitars. I have never had strumming problems playing GH2 with those guitars. I consistently have dropped notes on songs that aren't difficult while trying to strum. A good test song is to play the Vagiant track on Hard Bass. It has long strings of consistenty spaced notes. I can play it perfectly while only upstrumming or downstrumming, so my timing is on. If I try to alt-strum, notes seem to get dropped. Don't blame yourselves. I'm pretty sure it is still the guitars.

[J.D.S.]

Trust me, when you're guitar decides to go, you'll KNOW it. lol You'll either double strum or not strum at all. Work on your timing, you'll get it.

[Hectabo]

I have ZERO trouble down strumming fast on GH1-3 using 2 different controllers. I have tons of trouble with Rock Band doing the same thing. I think the strummer is too tight or something.

[Maggot_Brain]

Someday, when I have a Strat as least as good as an original SG, I'll have to try it.

[batsu336]

I totally think it is the guitars. I have never had strumming problems playing GH2 with those guitars. I consistently have dropped notes on songs that aren't difficult while trying to strum. A good test song is to play the Vagiant track on Hard Bass. It has long strings of consistenty spaced notes. I can play it perfectly while only upstrumming or downstrumming, so my timing is on. If I try to alt-strum, notes seem to get dropped. Don't blame yourselves. I'm pretty sure it is still the guitars.

Actually, that tells me it is not the guitar. If every single downstrum works, and every single upstrum works, than why wouldn't alt-strum work? It is using the same signals, and only taxing each one half as much. I think people need to work on alt-strum timing, since most did not seem to use it in GH.

[barbasol]

I totally think it is the guitars. I have never had strumming problems playing GH2 with those guitars. I consistently have dropped notes on songs that aren't difficult while trying to strum. A good test song is to play the Vagiant track on Hard Bass. It has long strings of consistenty spaced notes. I can play it perfectly while only upstrumming or downstrumming, so my timing is on. If I try to alt-strum, notes seem to get dropped. Don't blame yourselves. I'm pretty sure it is still the guitars.

I have this same problem... up strum only fine, down strum only fine, but up/down I miss every 8th note or so.

I'm 80% sure I've tried up/down on the GH2 guitar with Rock Band and have had no problems (using it for Bass in RB). I'll have to do another test to confirm.

[davidshek]

People need to remember that the timing window to hit notes in RB is much much smaller than it is in GH2 or GH3. It's more comparable to how it was in GH1.

I find that even on songs I can 5* on Expert on GH3, the same songs in RB give me problems mostly cause I've gotten sloppy with my HO/POs. And why? Because GH3 allows me to be sloppy with my timing. RB doesn't, so now I have to 'fix' myself and do it right :)

Personally I don't see how anyone could play the 1/32 notes at the end of Creep using only down or upstrums. It's entirely too many notes, and if you're banging your strumbar doing only downstrums on that part, I can understand why it'll break :p

[show7feel10]

yea same problem here...i am a bass player in real life so i'll always be playing bass in RB...then have a simple bass line where there will be 20 consistent green notes and every 8th or 10th one it will cut me off...then tried it with my gh3 les paul and i seem to nail it...and this is my new un-faulty guitar i just got!

[tbradshaw]

Most of the time it seems that the problem is "when" the switch triggers. To be "vague" about it, the Rock Band guitars activate the switch very soon after it leaves the center and the rest of the "throw" of the switch is just for comfort. The Guitar Hero guitars trigger a bit farther to the outside of the switch travel.

As a result, on alt-strumming especially, most people play the Guitar Hero guitar as if the bottom of the full throw is the activation point. They will hit the extreme of the switch down on the note and then hit the extreme of the switch up on the next note.

With the narrower hit timing and the more "realistic" switch, you'll need to play the Rock Band guitar significantly different. You're going to want the "middle" of your stroke to correspond with the notes, not the maximums. After I got the hang of it (even Creep isn't too hard anymore), I find that I never hit the extremes of the switch at all. (Of note, I can now strum this pattern on a real guitar! Holy awesome side effects, Batman!)

So, with this in mind, I really want to say that it's not the guitar. If you have a new guitar that is of the induction loop style trigger, I'm certain it's not. However, with any of the tweezer-like microswitch models, it could be "bouncing" and breaking your streak.

If it is your guitar having issues, you should find out relatively soon, as it always gets progressively worse.

[Bakkster]

Most of the time it seems that the problem is "when" the switch triggers. To be "vague" about it, the Rock Band guitars activate the switch very soon after it leaves the center and the rest of the "throw" of the switch is just for comfort. The Guitar Hero guitars trigger a bit farther to the outside of the switch travel.

With the narrower hit timing and the more "realistic" switch, you'll need to play the Rock Band guitar significantly different. You're going to want the "middle" of your stroke to correspond with the notes, not the maximums. After I got the hang of it (even Creep isn't too hard anymore), I find that I never hit the extremes of the switch at all. (Of note, I can now strum this pattern on a real guitar! Holy awesome side effects, Batman!)

This may also be the reason for the only down-strumming problem as well. If the strum bar does not come all the way back to the center, the switch will likely only trigger once.

Edit: I alt-strum and have no problems with the guitar not registering 16th notes.

[sporkBrigade]

Most of the time it seems that the problem is "when" the switch triggers. To be "vague" about it, the Rock Band guitars activate the switch very soon after it leaves the center and the rest of the "throw" of the switch is just for comfort. The Guitar Hero guitars trigger a bit farther to the outside of the switch travel.

As a result, on alt-strumming especially, most people play the Guitar Hero guitar as if the bottom of the full throw is the activation point. They will hit the extreme of the switch down on the note and then hit the extreme of the switch up on the next note.

With the narrower hit timing and the more "realistic" switch, you'll need to play the Rock Band guitar significantly different. You're going to want the "middle" of your stroke to correspond with the notes, not the maximums. After I got the hang of it (even Creep isn't too hard anymore), I find that I never hit the extremes of the switch at all. (Of note, I can now strum this pattern on a real guitar! Holy awesome side effects, Batman!)

So, with this in mind, I really want to say that it's not the guitar. If you have a new guitar that is of the induction loop style trigger, I'm certain it's not. However, with any of the tweezer-like microswitch models, it could be "bouncing" and breaking your streak.

If it is your guitar having issues, you should find out relatively soon, as it always gets progressively worse.

Even on the tweezer models I found this to be very true. The smaller I made my movements the more accurate double strumming became. I actually think the GH guitars are pretty similiar, except that you have the click to keep your timing on the center of the stroke. As soon as you take that click away, I noticed myself and all my friends trying to mash it down to the extremes, as if without the click we needed the feeling of the bar maxing out to keep us honest.

New guitar comes in today. Will be fun to test it out with what you've said and see what difference it makes.

[Frederf]

Most of the time it seems that the problem is "when" the switch triggers. To be "vague" about it, the Rock Band guitars activate the switch very soon after it leaves the center and the rest of the "throw" of the switch is just for comfort. The Guitar Hero guitars trigger a bit farther to the outside of the switch travel.

As a result, on alt-strumming especially, most people play the Guitar Hero guitar as if the bottom of the full throw is the activation point. They will hit the extreme of the switch down on the note and then hit the extreme of the switch up on the next note.

With the narrower hit timing and the more "realistic" switch, you'll need to play the Rock Band guitar significantly different. You're going to want the "middle" of your stroke to correspond with the notes, not the maximums. After I got the hang of it (even Creep isn't too hard anymore), I find that I never hit the extremes of the switch at all. (Of note, I can now strum this pattern on a real guitar! Holy awesome side effects, Batman!)

So, with this in mind, I really want to say that it's not the guitar. If you have a new guitar that is of the induction loop style trigger, I'm certain it's not. However, with any of the tweezer-like microswitch models, it could be "bouncing" and breaking your streak.

If it is your guitar having issues, you should find out relatively soon, as it always gets progressively worse.

Totally agree, btw at least my GH1/2 controllers actually didn't require much movement at all to register like the Strat but that doesn't stop most people from playing like it required a large motion (or a huge force in the case of my ham fisted friends).

Personally I've never had the Strat (spring metal contact version) "fling back" for an accidental strum even though flicking the strum instead of pressing it has become commonplace in my technique. This is both before and after my rubber banding the strum rather tightly.

Of course going from the Les Paul to the Strat was the hardest when it came to double strum technique as the lack of click made me unable to play it in the previous "metronome" style.

One successful technique has been to split my thumb and forefinger in a inch-wide "fork" and alternately tap down with my thumb or up with my forefinger.

[mforge]

As more or less said above, the Strat (when it's working) just requires a much lighter touch than the GH guitars. Combined with a click-less strum and the smaller timing windows, a lot of adjustment is necessary for rapid strumming. GH timing is more forgiving and the clicking strum helps you keep your rhythm, even if it's annoying.

[XeroTalent]

Make sure you calibrate your TV. You could just be mentally delayed ;)

[jozbaldwin]

I had the exact same problem, and since I live in south america paying the shipment to send back the guitar was just not an option. What I did was the following... I opened the guitar and strum it up and down like I do when playing it, I noticed that if I didn't press the strum bar almost all the way down the bar didn't push the contact far enought for it to close the circuit.

I just placed a very small piece of paper behind the metal contact for it to get really close to the other one, now everything works great, I barely need to touch the strum bar and it plays every note.

If you don't want to void your warranty get a replacement for the guitar, but if you believe this is the problem with your strat you can just fix it yourself, its a very easy fix.

[piggy171]

Most of the time it seems that the problem is "when" the switch triggers. To be "vague" about it, the Rock Band guitars activate the switch very soon after it leaves the center and the rest of the "throw" of the switch is just for comfort. The Guitar Hero guitars trigger a bit farther to the outside of the switch travel.

As a result, on alt-strumming especially, most people play the Guitar Hero guitar as if the bottom of the full throw is the activation point. They will hit the extreme of the switch down on the note and then hit the extreme of the switch up on the next note.

With the narrower hit timing and the more "realistic" switch, you'll need to play the Rock Band guitar significantly different. You're going to want the "middle" of your stroke to correspond with the notes, not the maximums. After I got the hang of it (even Creep isn't too hard anymore), I find that I never hit the extremes of the switch at all. (Of note, I can now strum this pattern on a real guitar! Holy awesome side effects, Batman!)

So, with this in mind, I really want to say that it's not the guitar. If you have a new guitar that is of the induction loop style trigger, I'm certain it's not. However, with any of the tweezer-like microswitch models, it could be "bouncing" and breaking your streak.

If it is your guitar having issues, you should find out relatively soon, as it always gets progressively worse.

Some good points. It does seem to work better if you try to limit the range of your struming, so maybe it isn't the guitars and it is just the way we are playing them. I guess by trying to improve the guitars by making them more quiet and more realistic something else had to be changed. Not necessarily a good thing. I still prefer the old GH2 controllers, and this shows another good reason to make them all compatible. I'm sure I will get better at alt-strumming by changing the way that i play, but if i ever go back to play some GH2 then i will have to relearn what i am doing all over again. And then relearn it again when i come back to rockband.

Bottom line, I really don't want or need a more realistic guitar. I am not a real guitar player and i have no musical skills. I prefer a more tactile feel in the controller, because i don't have any special 6th sense that tells me when i have pushed the strummer far enough. So if that is the way this guitar was intended to function, then maybe there is absolutely nothing wrong with the guitars, and my new replacement is working fine. At the least it is a really strong argument to get that patch done and start making more guitars compatible, so people can play on controllers that they prefer.

[barbasol]

Cool info all, I'll definitely give the "light touch" a try! I really prefer the quiet operation of the Strat so hopefully I can get the hang of it.

[KingNuclear]

I just received my replacement guitar today & I'll play the hell out of it.

I don't strum like most people to begin with, no finger, no thumb use.

More of a finesse with the wrist & lower palm of my hand strumming seems to work flawlessly.



-Nuke-

[Loozinit]

I've had that happen quite a few times, myself. Although, I think it's more about my inability to keep the timing and rhythm with the music than the guitar's fault.

yea, it happens to me too, but there are other songs i'm familiar with and it keeps up just fine. (easier than the GH series models anyways)