Finally 5 starred "Creep" on Expert... you can too! (video)

[DrEvyl666]

It pretty much speaks for itself...

One thing I did was turn down the original lead vocal so all you hear is what I am singing... raw and unprocessed.

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[zack10house]

you apparently sing better than 95&#37; of the youtube population (until you let the whale sing for you I mean), well done lol. good video. it really sucks that you can do this and score better than those who can actually sing, but it's the way of the (rock band) world I suppose

[Zechman]

I'm pretty sure that technique would NOT work for Sabotage or Epic. :D

But I have to admit to having done something similar to get through One Week on Karaoke Revolution Party.

--Dwayne

[Darkfalz]

LOL! Thats exactly what I do when I play BWT by myself doing guitar/vocals, I had no idea it would work on expert though! :D

Is the whale song your making there more "hum" (made in the front of the mouth) or "throaty"? Because the hum I use does "OK", but you're nailing it there on expert.

[DesiredFX]

This demonstrates the primary reason I rarely sing in this game: it doesn't reward you for singing well, it rewards you for aping sounds.

Admittedly, it's not an easy thing for a computer program to do, figure out that you're singing well.

But I knew before the game came out--having played Karaoke Revolution--that this was the way the vocal section would work. I had hoped that the much-promoted "advanced phoneme detection" would actually require the singer to sing words, but, alas...

[eeenvyyy]

the ending made me lawl

[SSPWOLF]

What exactly are you pissed off about? That you can't articulate and use breath control to maintain a perfect pitch as well as you can just simply make tonal noises?

Blame god for that one, he gave you the ability to make noise with your vocal chords.. then he gave you the ability to convert that noise into clipped sounds using your mouth.

The phenome detector can't tell if you are speaking english or making tonal noises... how much processing power do you honestly want Harmonix to invest into this?

I have the most recent version of Pro Tool, arguably the most popular recording software in the world for professionals and it can't either.

Congratulations you've just figured out what every studio engineer in the world has known for the last 70 years or so:

1) Anyone can make a noise, and every noise is a note

2) Humans singing is usually more entertaining than humans "humming" or making guttural tonal noises.

The only thing you need to figure out now is

1) How to stop being an obnoxious jerk. The whole "f-you Harmonix thing" was just reprehensible taste and petty.

2) That you actually sing very well for someone who doesn't appear to be a professional vocalist and you should be proud of the score you got on expert, and that with a few tips from someone you could probably do much better without much more practice. AND if you took some tips, maybe some vocal coaching, and practiced even more you could probably FC that song on expert.. giving my personal (read: my opinion) assessment of your singing abilities.

I still don't understand why people think that they should be able to G5* songs in this game on vocals without any practice. You can't G5* anything on the guitar if you haven't practiced playing it.

Oh wait.. there's still that argument going around that singing and playing a fake guitar are two different things.

Well, singing and attempting to perfectly emulate a song in a game are two different things also.

Unless of course, you can think of a way for the game to obtain artificial intelligence and actually critique your personal singing style and assign a score to it based on your performance...


all you've done is made yourself look like a jerk.

[blue_dragonzero]

It pretty much speaks for itself...

One thing I did was turn down the original lead vocal so all you hear is what I am singing... raw and unprocessed.

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The reason why is because you put too ****ing much vibrato in when you sing. Try without vibrato and you'll do just as well. Also your experiment was flawed because you didn't hum falsetto and thus had more control.

[SSPWOLF]

The reason why is because you put too ****ing much vibrato in when you sing. Try without vibrato and you'll do just as well. Also your experiment was flawed because you didn't hum falsetto and thus had more control.


He's just another example of people who can't grasp the two fundamental (and simple) concepts of the singing part of this game.

1) It's a game. Have fun. Do whatever makes it the MOST fun for you.

2) It's a game not an advanced artificial intelligence or a music critic sitting in your living room going "You know what.. I like what you did there. It was risky, a bit edgy.. but with your style and flare... it really works. I'm gonna give you five stars on that. Good job!"


I honestly don't understand why people can't grasp the simple concept of "it doesn't matter what you are saying.. a note is a note is a note" and still not understand that it takes A LOT of talent to be able to hit all the notes perfectly and in the perfect rythym.

Either rock band rewards your for using vibrato and inflection and giving the song "feeling and emotion" by NOT scoring you for holding the perfect note...

or it rewards you for being able to sing the perfect notes.

It's not smart enough to realize that real singing isn't about hitting the perfect notes, it's about having raw energy and emotion. BECAUSE IT'S NOT A REAL PERSON. It's a machine.. it has to measure SOMETHING in order to give you a score.

Either sing it YOUR way and have fun (like I do when I play Roxanne) or sing it the computers way and get your uber score.


EDIT: By the way, to avoid confusion.. I was agreeing with the poster I quoted, and directing my post at the OP again. :)

[m1chelangelo]

Wow, that's funny because I just sing "creep", no humming or any other BS and I can still five star it. Sure, it took me a few tries but I finally got it down. Please stop finding stupid things to complain about and enjoy the game, goddamn.

[DesiredFX]

I suppose, when you think about it...

...the guitar parts are dumbed-down guitar and there's little or no resemblance between being able to hit a high score and being able to play guitar...

...the drum parts are dumbed-down drums and there's little or no resemblance between being able to hit a high score and being able to play the drums...

...why should the vocals be any different? The way to beat this game is to give it what it expects. The problem is that what it expects on vocals is not as clearly defined by the interface as what it expects from the other instruments.

I think the guy has a legitimate point (though I agree with SSPWOLF that there was no need for the profanity or flipping off the camera), and everyone saying they did better by singing, let's see your videos. I'd be really surprised if any of them sounds remotely close to Thom Yorke's performance.

[cuddie]

Now this is why whenever possible i let the other people im playing with hear me sing. That is, if they're cool with it.

[SSPWOLF]

My big problem with why he doesn't have "a legitimate point" is that he doesn't even to seem to know what he's *****ing about.

He's angry because he can get a higher score making tonal noises than he can singing.

That's like being angry that you can get a higher score on duck hunt with a light-gun than a real 12 guage shotgun.

The problem isn't with Harmonix. It's with god (or darwin, or science, or whatever you want). In the audio spectrum available to the human ear there are millions of subsets of pitch. Various ones are measured into what we call "notes". A note is a finite quality assigned to a specific save of audio-waves. To "hit a note" means that the specific note is played. To "hit the phrase" means a specific series of notes are hit in a specific order.

So OBVIOUSLY if you HUM the note and MAINTAIN it for the proper length (rythym) it's going to register better than the nuances in your voice.

There's no legitimate complaint here. He's mad because he's better at making noise than he is singing.

Harmonix can't change the phenome detector to pick up emotional nuances in your voice that you would use to interpret the "meaning" of the lyrics. It can only detect the proper pitch.

THAT is the reason why 100 pro singers can sing the same song in the same key in the same pitch with the same notes... and if you heard them you could pick out your favorite one.

[fourdegrees]

...the drum parts are dumbed-down drums and there's little or no resemblance between being able to hit a high score and being able to play the drums...Huh? So playing real drums is nothing like hitting on circular pads with sticks?

[Rook_x51]

Seriously? Really?

Of all the songs that you complain that you can't 5 star, you pick Creep? Have you tried 5-starring "I'm so sick" yet? What about Timmy?

I'm done most of Expert Vox Solo Tour and Creep was pretty easy compared to a lot of the others.

Drop your overuse of vibrato and you'll see your scores sky-rocket.

[SSPWOLF]

Huh? So playing real drums is nothing like hitting on circular pads with sticks?


Well, if you think "hitting" the drums is the same thing as being able play them.. sure.

However, playing the drums in real life doesn't equate to just hitting them.

If you get the chance, look up some great jazz drummers and watch them play. I've read entire books on just the ride cymbal that were written by amazing jazz drummers.

[the_spike]

Creep was always one of the few songs I could sing on Expert.

[DesiredFX]

Huh? So playing real drums is nothing like hitting on circular pads with sticks?

Given that the sound you make when you hit the pads--as opposed to drum heads--is THWAP THWAP THWAP while the game is taking you through snare rolls and cymbal crashes, then I'd say this game has about as much in common with playing real drums as hitting a home run off a plastic tee has in common with playing baseball.


There's no legitimate complaint here. He's mad because he's better at making noise than he is singing.

Not true: he's mad because the game gives him a better score for making noise than it does for singing a passable rendition of the song.

This is absolutely Harmonix' problem, and the problem is that what the algorithm actually does is much more rudimentary than what people believe it should do.

Is it going to be fun for me to try to score-jockey the game by making noise into the mic? No.

But as I've said in the other thread, my decision has been not to sing rather than put up with the vagaries of the game's scoring system. At least when I fail out on a complex guitar solo, I have a solid understanding of why and a path I can follow to correct it.

The path to "correcting" my singing so that I score better in this game seems to lead to unlistenable performances.

[dblduece]

True, most people can probably do exactly what you did on that song. But I'd love to see some videos of you trying that on some of the higher tier songs (i.e. Gimme Shelter, Suffragette City, Mississippi Queen...) Better yet, try it on Epic or Sabotage. I agree with some of the above posters. You're actual voice isn't THAT bad but you have some serious vibrato issues going on. Learn to control it and you'll actually be able to 5 star your way through expert in front of your friends without looking like a complete jacka$$. In other words, don't blame HMX for not having the greatest singing voice. I only had issues with a few songs on the Expert tour, but I actually practiced and made my way through them without sounding like a wounded rhino.

[SSPWOLF]

Not true: he's mad because the game gives him a better score for making noise than it does for singing a passable rendition of the song.

This is absolutely Harmonix' problem, and the problem is that what the algorithm actually does is much more rudimentary than what people believe it should do.

So it's HMX fault that people believe it should do more?

It CAN'T do more. It either scores the right note or it doesn't.


If my 700 dollar copy of pro tools can't tell me if I'm singing a song right, I don't expect Rock Band to do it.

Because.. I guarantee the RnD budget for Pro Tools is a few hundred times higher than the one for Rock Band.

[DesiredFX]

So it's HMX fault that people believe it should do more?I dunno...did they handle the marketing, or did someone else?

As I've said, I knew from the start what the vocals were going to be like from my experience with Karaoke Revolution. As such, I determined before getting the game that I wouldn't be taking the singing part of the game seriously. There's no option but to try to figure out how the game is going to score you best and tailor your performance to that.

It should tell you something that it's possible to get a better score by imitating an aquatic mammal than it is by singing a solid version of the song.


It CAN'T do more. It either scores the right note or it doesn't.

Actually, it can do more. It just doesn't.

In this game, like Karaoke Revolution, the difference between Easy and Hard is how long you stay on pitch: Easy fills the gauge up faster than Hard, so at higher difficulties you have to hit more pitches exactly and stay on pitch longer.

The game could just as easily include a factor that gives you credit for being subtly off-pitch, or that counts you as "close enough for jazz" if you employ a vibrato--it doesn't tax the processor any more to define the limits of a range range of acceptable values rather than expecting the singer to match a single value. From there you can simply set what the acceptable value range is for each level of difficulty. In this way, you could expect someone to sing close to the actual pitch for the duration of the phrase rather than scaling them up to Awesome within two syllables.

The real issue I see with what the OP demonstrated here is that there is honestly no encouragement to sing better when someone can slam dunk your score by croaking their way through on pitch. How meaningful is it for someone to hold the #1 slot on the Leaderboards when we know it's possible for someone to score well with this sort of performance?

I don't see where the Pro Tools comparison fits: one is an elaborate system for precision audio work, the other is a game. I think the only thing they really have in common is that both can be operated under the influence of many beers.

[tehfl1p]

PROPS for singing the unedited line, haha.

[SSPWOLF]

I dunno...did they handle the marketing, or did someone else?

As I've said, I knew from the start what the vocals were going to be like from my experience with Karaoke Revolution. As such, I determined before getting the game that I wouldn't be taking the singing part of the game seriously. There's no option but to try to figure out how the game is going to score you best and tailor your performance to that.

It should tell you something that it's possible to get a better score by imitating an aquatic mammal than it is by singing a solid version of the song.



Actually, it can do more. It just doesn't.

In this game, like Karaoke Revolution, the difference between Easy and Hard is how long you stay on pitch: Easy fills the gauge up faster than Hard, so at higher difficulties you have to hit more pitches exactly and stay on pitch longer.

The game could just as easily include a factor that gives you credit for being subtly off-pitch, or that counts you as "close enough for jazz" if you employ a vibrato--it doesn't tax the processor any more to define the limits of a range range of acceptable values rather than expecting the singer to match a single value. From there you can simply set what the acceptable value range is for each level of difficulty. In this way, you could expect someone to sing close to the actual pitch for the duration of the phrase rather than scaling them up to Awesome within two syllables.

The real issue I see with what the OP demonstrated here is that there is honestly no encouragement to sing better when someone can slam dunk your score by croaking their way through on pitch. How meaningful is it for someone to hold the #1 slot on the Leaderboards when we know it's possible for someone to score well with this sort of performance?

I don't see where the Pro Tools comparison fits: one is an elaborate system for precision audio work, the other is a game. I think the only thing they really have in common is that both can be operated under the influence of many beers.




So you want to be able to sing "subtly off pitch" add in your own vibrato and still get a good enough score to be number one on the leaderboards?


How precisely is the game supposed to detect if you are "improvising" and using "emotion" or if you "suck and can't hold a note"?

Because.. say for instance Whitney Houston holds a single perfect note for a long time before she changes pitch "and IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII - iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii will always love you" So if (hypothetically, I know it's not a rock song) that song was in the game.. if you decided to "throw in vibrato" you would be, in essence, "singing the song WRONG".

On Run To The Hills.. Bruce goes "RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN TOOOOOOO THHEEEEEEE HIIIIIIIIILLLLLL" so the game should allow me to sing it anyway I want? "RUUuuuUUUuuUUuUuuNNNnnnN" ? I should get the same points as someone singing it in a perfectly held sustain if I decided to throw some backstreet boys on it?


I think they should let me throw in extra notes and still get G5* too on the guitar. I mean "MY" interpretation of Wanted Dead Or Alive has a 27 Orange Note Intro all done in 32nd notes.


To do what you want.. it won't matter any more if you can't hold a note. As long as you get "most" of the phrase right you'd get a perfect score. That's called EASY mode.

[DrEvyl666]

Oh boy, we got a live one here!



What exactly are you pissed off about? That you can't articulate and use breath control to maintain a perfect pitch as well as you can just simply make tonal noises?

I'm not really pissed off at ANYTHING, I'm doing these videos to be funny in a very sarcastic and scathing manner. Perhaps you should lighten up and find the ability to poke fun at yourself for a change.

The purpose of the video was to point out that I can sing the song pretty damn good and do terribly... and sing it totally screwed up with little regard to holding pitch and get 5 stars.



The phenome detector can't tell if you are speaking english or making tonal noises... how much processing power do you honestly want Harmonix to invest into this?

All I'd like them to do is stop telling people to "practice" when they have trouble with vocal tracking. All they need to do is tell them to do this, and everyone will happy. They don't need to practice, it is quite obviously an extreme waste of time.

If you notice in my "Hoover" rendition of this song, I purposely hit off pitch, warbled, and sang things out of time.


I have the most recent version of Pro Tool, arguably the most popular recording software in the world for professionals and it can't either.

Congratulations you've just figured out what every studio engineer in the world has known for the last 70 years or so:

1) Anyone can make a noise, and every noise is a note

2) Humans singing is usually more entertaining than humans "humming" or making guttural tonal noises.

Well, I tell you what... Here's a hypothetical situation... I just invited you over to my house for a Rock Band party. You play guitar on Expert... I got a buddy that plays drums on Expert... and I'm gonna sing. We wanna get some kickass scores..

Which technique would you prefer to listen to for 4 or 5 hours while we go through the Endless Setlist?



The only thing you need to figure out now is

1) How to stop being an obnoxious jerk. The whole "f-you Harmonix thing" was just reprehensible taste and petty.

Well that just ain't gonna freakin happen. I like being an obnoxious jerk like that, it's funny as hell. This video made me laugh so hard I cried, and I'm sure some of the other 250+ people that watched it last night laughed at it too..

My job is done there.



2) That you actually sing very well for someone who doesn't appear to be a professional vocalist and you should be proud of the score you got on expert, and that with a few tips from someone you could probably do much better without much more practice. AND if you took some tips, maybe some vocal coaching, and practiced even more you could probably FC that song on expert.. giving my personal (read: my opinion) assessment of your singing abilities.

Because my video proves there is no point in practice. I'm not going to bust my ass trying to sing the songs well when I can immitate the vaccuum cleaner for 5 minutes and get a 5-star rating.

I'm not sure what a professional vocalist "appears" like... but I have sang professionally, and my current status as a lead vocalist is "retired". My point is that I'm not going to undo what works for my type of music just to score well in a game.

If I "FC" a song in this game, it will be using the Hoover technique. There is no point in trying to sing these songs better when that will acheive the same results by sucking really badly. In fact it's much funnier to 5-star a song through this awful sounding method.

And for those of you working through the game on Expert vocals... next time you look at the leader boards... or next time you look at videos of people getting 5 stars on songs where you can't here their voice... now you know how they did it.


I still don't understand why people think that they should be able to G5* songs in this game on vocals without any practice. You can't G5* anything on the guitar if you haven't practiced playing it.

You can do it without practice, this video proves it. If you don't agree, perhaps you should go watch it again. 5-staring the song doesn't take that much work, you just shouldn't waste your time trying to make it sound good.


Oh wait.. there's still that argument going around that singing and playing a fake guitar are two different things.

Well, singing and attempting to perfectly emulate a song in a game are two different things also.

Unless of course, you can think of a way for the game to obtain artificial intelligence and actually critique your personal singing style and assign a score to it based on your performance...

There's no real argument here from me other than the marketing claims of "state of the art pitch and diction recognition" are absolute BS (either that, or they need to admit the state-of-the-art is pretty much stone age at this point), and that telling people to "practice" if they can't score well is a invalid way of helping them. Tell them to immitate the Hoover Suck-O-Matic into the microphone. It obviously works better than trying to sing well.

Because let's face it... I'm not the greatest singer on the planet, but it would be really tough for anyone to deny that was a pretty damn good rendition of the song - much better than probably 90&#37; of more of the members here could do. If you listen to the original vocal, he sings with his teeth closed, and is way off pitch a lot of times... that's the way the song is. I don't think Thom Yorke (lead signer of Radiohead) could beat his own song in this game.

You can tell me all day about how I'm using too much vibrato... but perhaps you should try it sometime, and pay particular attention that the game DOES give you leeway on pitch, even on expert... and that the amount of vibrato I'm putting on my voice isn't enough to get the pitch arrow out of the green. It's when I'm holding a note steady, and that pitch arrow is bouncing all over the place for no reason whatsoever that I raise an eyebrow.

Not only that, but they should pretty much expect that a real vocalist is GOING to use vibrato on their voice to immitate another vocalist who is also using vibrato on their voice.


all you've done is made yourself look like a jerk.

Don Rickles made a 50 year career out of it.

So lighten up and take a joke, Spock.

[SSPWOLF]

Everything you just said can be summed up to "why practice to get good if you just put in up-up-down-down-B-A-B-A-start and beat the game"

I applaud you. You figured out how to "win" at Rock Band.

I applaud you. You figured out that what you did is funnier if you make a profane joke to end it.

To anyone who is more concerned with getting 5 stars than they are with enjoying the idea of singing along with a famous rock star and being (even at the most basic level) evaluated for thier efforts.. you make complete sense.


I suppose it's impossible to make a case against "I can win at Rock Band" it's sort of like saying "I Won At World Of Warcraft"

-----

Now, as I did levy personal attacks at you, insinuating you were a jerk, I take no offense at your insinuation that I have no sense of humor.

Admittedly I usually have to see something funny or order to find it humorous.. it's a character flaw I have.

[SSPWOLF]

Oh and Don Rickles was clever.

To quote Eddie Murphy:

"I can't just come out on stage and make *ick jokes. I manage to slip in some jokes in between the curse words."


Even Stone/Parker manage to slip in some jokes.

I suppose you can "win at being funny" by skipping the practice and effort and just going straight to "f*ck you Harmonix"

See.. that's a joke ;)

[DesiredFX]

So you want to be able to sing "subtly off pitch" add in your own vibrato and still get a good enough score to be number one on the leaderboards?

No, what I'm saying is that the game's software will allow me to do much worse than that--as shown in this video--and get a good enough score to be number one on the leaderboards.

God forbid I should actually make an effort to sing in an entertaining way when I'll be penalized for it.

[SSPWOLF]

No, what I'm saying is that the game's software will allow me to do much worse than that--as shown in this video--and get a good enough score to be number one on the leaderboards.

God forbid I should actually make an effort to sing in an entertaining way when I'll be penalized for it.



I'm going to cheerfully agree to disagree.

The only arguments I continue to see are

1) I SHOULD BE ABLE TO do whatever I want to do and be rewarded with an uber score.


I can't find the logic behind that, therefore I can't objectively debate it in any way.


I suppose my problem is that I don't see "high score" as being = or > than "have fun"


Cheers, and happy holidays!

[DesiredFX]

The only arguments I continue to see are

1) I SHOULD BE ABLE TO do whatever I want to do and be rewarded with an uber score.

Then you misread my post that talked about the way the different levels are scored. In the current scoring, I'm fine on Easy or Medium as long as I can hold pitch--according to the narrow definition the game allows--for perhaps a third or half of the phrase. I will not only pass, but I will pass with four or five stars if I can do that, even if I decide to stop singing after the gauge fills up.

What I'm suggesting, instead, is that scoring should be handled with a wider ranged definition of pitch that you have to hold for longer no matter what level you're on.

This allows for vibrato, which actually makes a performance of a song like Brass in Pocket more accurate relative to the original song.

But the allowance for accuracy of pitch would be tightened as you went up in difficulty.



Cheers, and happy holidays!

The same to you, and much happy rocking!

[DrEvyl666]

Everything you just said can be summed up to "why practice to get good if you just put in up-up-down-down-B-A-B-A-start and beat the game"

I applaud you. You figured out how to "win" at Rock Band.

I applaud you. You figured out that what you did is funnier if you make a profane joke to end it.

To anyone who is more concerned with getting 5 stars than they are with enjoying the idea of singing along with a famous rock star and being (even at the most basic level) evaluated for thier efforts.. you make complete sense.


I suppose it's impossible to make a case against "I can win at Rock Band" it's sort of like saying "I Won At World Of Warcraft"

-----

Now, as I did levy personal attacks at you, insinuating you were a jerk, I take no offense at your insinuation that I have no sense of humor.

Admittedly I usually have to see something funny or order to find it humorous.. it's a character flaw I have.

Again, lighten up Spock..

Here's one just for you. I even threw in a little bit of extreme vibrato for you and made absolutely sure I didn't practice the song before I did it.

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[SSPWOLF]

So... lol. I guess that's fun for you.

I gotta admit, the personal shout out was actually cool. I'd personally be in your debt if you ended all of your videos with that :)

On another note.. you just sort of proved my whole point.

ie: Have fun.

that looked like the opposite of fun.


Anyway.. Captain Kirk needs me back on the ship so, I'd like to say this has been amusing.. but emotions aren't really my thing and all.

Merry Christmas to you and yours ;)

[Dalamari]

Am I the only person that finds the two Radiohead songs really easy to sing on? I got 100&#37; on Hard the first time I sang Creep the day I got the game. Not trying to gloat or anything, I just think that as far as 5-starring a song with vocals goes, My Iron Lung and Creep are pretty easy

[SSPWOLF]

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I will admit, I was completely wrong. Please accept my apologies.

Happy Holidays!

[CowShark]

^ I can't pronounce "My Belisha Beacon" in My Iron Lung.

Also, this thread is extremely silly.

[Ishanji]

Am I the only person that finds the two Radiohead songs really easy to sing on? I got 100% on Hard the first time I sang Creep the day I got the game.

You're not alone, Creep is one of the easiest songs in the game for me. I routinely get five stars on it. Having the Pablo Honey CD since it came out and singing to it in my car probably helped, hehe.

To the OP: Thank you for demonstrating exactly what is wrong with the people complaining about the strictness of the vocals. You first perform a pretty darn good rendition of Creep but go off pitch during some sections of the song, and then subsequently perform a humming rendition that stays much closer to the pitch and is more consistent (allowing for higher combos). You've successfully demonstrated that the game is working as intended; that is, that the game is ONLY equipped to register pitch.

Why is this a problem? That is all an electronic microphone and software can do at this point in technology: register pitch. If you are dissatisfied with your score when you sing normally, perhaps you should watch your own video, figure out where you go off pitch, and work on improving those sections. You are, all things considered, a good singer, but your hubris is blinding you to the fact that you did not give a five star performance on that song. I'd be willing to wager that if you worked on fine-tuning your vocals that you could outscore your "hoover" performance with real singing. Regrettably I don't own a video camera, but perhaps when I'm not home for the holidays I'll be able to borrow one and demonstrate that 5* expert vocals are possible while singing normally; they just take practice.

Alternatively, you could try singing with the original artist's vocals on a very low volume; I've seen a lot of people who could barely squeak through an unfamiliar song suddenly get 5* when they have a voice to check their pitch against as opposed to the crappy little arrow (which I agree often seems to just bounce around rather than provide any useful tonal suggestions).

tl;dr - OP, you sing well, but you have room to improve, and I don't doubt that if you practice the song (possibly with original vocals turned on a little bit) that you could learn to easily 5* it singing normally, and probably even 100% it. I've seen it done (and done it) and all it takes is practice. Please don't fault the game for judging that a "pretty darn good" performance is not equal to an "almost perfect" performance.

[SSPWOLF]

^ well said, excellent points. I couldn't agree with you more.

[Shinobi51190]

Am I the only person that finds the two Radiohead songs really easy to sing on? I got 100% on Hard the first time I sang Creep the day I got the game. Not trying to gloat or anything, I just think that as far as 5-starring a song with vocals goes, My Iron Lung and Creep are pretty easy

Same here. I can't remember whether or not I actually tried it on hard, but I only heard it a few times before I actually got the game, and it's possibly the easiest song to 5-star for me on expert. I haven't downloaded My Iron Lung, but maybe I will someday and give it a try.

Oh, and have a merry christmas everyone!

[Rook_x51]

You're not alone, Creep is one of the easiest songs in the game for me. I routinely get five stars on it. Having the Pablo Honey CD since it came out and singing to it in my car probably helped, hehe.

To the OP: Thank you for demonstrating exactly what is wrong with the people complaining about the strictness of the vocals. You first perform a pretty darn good rendition of Creep but go off pitch during some sections of the song, and then subsequently perform a humming rendition that stays much closer to the pitch and is more consistent (allowing for higher combos). You've successfully demonstrated that the game is working as intended; that is, that the game is ONLY equipped to register pitch.

Why is this a problem? That is all an electronic microphone and software can do at this point in technology: register pitch. If you are dissatisfied with your score when you sing normally, perhaps you should watch your own video, figure out where you go off pitch, and work on improving those sections. You are, all things considered, a good singer, but your hubris is blinding you to the fact that you did not give a five star performance on that song. I'd be willing to wager that if you worked on fine-tuning your vocals that you could outscore your "hoover" performance with real singing. Regrettably I don't own a video camera, but perhaps when I'm not home for the holidays I'll be able to borrow one and demonstrate that 5* expert vocals are possible while singing normally; they just take practice.

Alternatively, you could try singing with the original artist's vocals on a very low volume; I've seen a lot of people who could barely squeak through an unfamiliar song suddenly get 5* when they have a voice to check their pitch against as opposed to the crappy little arrow (which I agree often seems to just bounce around rather than provide any useful tonal suggestions).

tl;dr - OP, you sing well, but you have room to improve, and I don't doubt that if you practice the song (possibly with original vocals turned on a little bit) that you could learn to easily 5* it singing normally, and probably even 100% it. I've seen it done (and done it) and all it takes is practice. Please don't fault the game for judging that a "pretty darn good" performance is not equal to an "almost perfect" performance.


I agree with this completely. Also, the OP second video shows that the humming technique (which has been used since the first KR games in my household for the little kiddies) only works if you understand how the song goes to begin with.

It works because when you hum it is easier and faster to change your pitch. Keep on trying bud, you'll be able to sing on Expert soon.

[DrEvyl666]

Here's a couple more for you...

How poorly you can do Sabotage and still finish it on expert...
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5-starring a song the old fashioned way....
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I guess there's some that still don't get it... but oh well. It's a game... I don't really see a point in putting that kind of work into getting a high score when I can do something ******ed that requires no practice and still get the same score. It's not a matter that it's a "near perfect" or "pretty good" or "fargin awful" rendition of the song... I'm just doing what I have to in order to get the score, and the gamer acheivements... I could not care less what technique it takes to get them. A video game should not require a lot more effort than that.

And so what if I look like a jackass... especially considering that was my intention. Maybe you just need to get over being cool, man... I dunno. Trust me, I had a great time doing that... and I laughed about it for quite a while afterwards as well. Sounds like fun to me.

:)

[SSPWOLF]

I'm just doing what I have to in order to get the score, and the gamer acheivements... I could not care less what technique it takes to get them. A video game should not require a lot more effort than that.



:)

Yep it's all about the achievements.

If you'd like, you can send me a memory card and I'll see if can unlock any achievements you don't already have for you.

I got a buddy who can beat Halo3 on legendary for you... I can get you the mass effect achievements..

Oh man! How all the achievements from the EA Sports games? I'm a beast at Madden and Live. I can get you all those achievements!


Yeah.. maybe I'm too worried about looking cool... stupid me, I play video games to have fun.


LMAO you ARE the ultimate "score monkey".

[DrEvyl666]

Yep it's all about the achievements.

If you'd like, you can send me a memory card and I'll see if can unlock any achievements you don't already have for you.

I got a buddy who can beat Halo3 on legendary for you... I can get you the mass effect achievements..

Oh man! How all the achievements from the EA Sports games? I'm a beast at Madden and Live. I can get you all those achievements!


Yeah.. maybe I'm too worried about looking cool... stupid me, I play video games to have fun.


LMAO you ARE the ultimate "score monkey".

Not really... and I play video games to have fun, also... and singing the same song over and over.. especially one you don't enjoy singing in the first place... isn't fun. Maybe it is for you... but I'd rather take the shortest distance between two points.

I mean come now... why don't you post of a video of how to do it the right way so we can all see how the pros do it.

[cuddie]

Here are my two cents that no one will read:

It feels like a slap to the face when someone that hums through a song gets a higher score than you singing it with all your heart, trying to imitate the original vocalist and getting the words right. Luckily for me I don't sing often and I can only do a couple of songs on expert, without the "hoover technique". I would bet I could do a lot more with the "hoover technique".

I don't like how the game rewards players for not singing the song right, as the OP demonstrated in his video. As the OP has already said, whats the point of practicing when you can do the "hoover technique"? Even if I did practice enough to get on high on the leaderboard most people who glance at my name up there will automatically think I hummed my way through it and lose respect for the achievement. It's also a lot easier for someone to practice the "hoover technique" enough to get the maximum score on a song, something that is much more difficult to achieve singing the song the way it was meant to be sung. So, as previously stated it's a slap to the face of anybody skilled enough to sing good renditions of songs.

As for me, I will never resort to the humming technique as I don't care that much for vocal scores...my place is with the drums. Vocals I do for fun, or when needed. So I try my best to sound like the original vocalist, as I'm sure the OP does as well. It's a much more satisfying experience, not to mention easier on the ears.

All in all I think you guys are forgetting the point of this thread:
OP is disappointed that such a technique rewards players who choose to use it, as am I. While you guys may be right that pitch detection is the best that's possible at this point in technology, the whole point was to point out the flaws that such technology introduces. As for sspwolf's response in video, it looks like you missed the point entirely.

[Flyerfye]

This discussion is silly. Everyone plays games for different reasons. Personally, all I can want out of Rock Band is to get 3 of my friends in the same room and rock out for a few hours. If I "sang" like that in front of my friends, they'd have no respect for me as a person, because I'd be more interested in scoring than in enjoying rocking out.

In a way, I feel like even having leaderboards works against the system here, as all anyone's going to want to do is cheat. I think DrEvyl here is proof of that. And although in games, there's not really anything wrong with cheating, (I know I've popped in the Konami code a few hundred times in my youth) there's still some kind of boundary reached when people are just doing anything to get to the top of the leaderboards. (Hey, it's like the actual music industry! Rock Band is more accurate than we thought!) I'll bet I could get a perfect score on any song if I used a pitch-generator in an audio program to play out the exact pitch of the sung notes into the microphone, but why the hell would I want to do that? Oh right, to get "achievements", and be on top of the leaderboards. If you want to play like that, DrEvyl, I have nothing against it. But just don't be an ass about it. Everyone else is going to play the songs however the hell we feel like it. And if that means I don't 5-star Epic on Expert yet, I'll keep working and replaying with my friends until we ALL 5-star it. And that's what I spent $170 on Rock Band to do.

Although, on the other hand, I have suggested this to one of my friends, because is normal singing is ATROCIOUS. This has at least made him tolerable as a vocalist. :D

[CowShark]

"The Hoover Technique" doesn't really seem valid to me, as it's just you humming with the mic right on your mouth. The same thing could be accomplished by not cramming the mic right in your face so that you get all that distortion, and if you can make the right pitch with the "Hoover," then you can make the right pitch singing or humming, you just choose not to. It's not like kissing the mic changes what you're doing with your pipes. You're doing that yourself.

Making spurious claims about invented techniquery isn't going to help tone deaf folks score higher- someone who doesn't know what pitch to go with can swallow the damn mic and not do any better than he'd do if he just hummed along.

As far as Sabotage goes, a person's probably better off in every scenario trying to read the lyrics. I don't think people have mentioned having problems passing it, it's just problematic to get a good combo going. If the game passes you for just making noise, then you're bound to do better if you make _any_ amount of noise that the phoneme detector's actually calling for.

[SSPWOLF]

Singing the same song over and over isn't fun?

Lol, kinda makes your 180 dollar investment stupid if you are just paying for the acheivements. The whole idea behind the game is that you'll want to do more than just play each song once.

What do I know though? I'm not trying to get more numbers next to my gamertag.

[DrEvyl666]

Singing the same song over and over isn't fun?

Lol, kinda makes your 180 dollar investment stupid if you are just paying for the acheivements. The whole idea behind the game is that you'll want to do more than just play each song once.

What do I know though? I'm not trying to get more numbers next to my gamertag.

If that's the case, why do you care what I do to run my score up? I mean, for someone who doesn't care about score, you sure seem to be opposed to enjoying the competitive aspect of gaming.

The way I look at it, fun and score can be different aspects of the game. There's not any real reason you can't do both separately. I didn't buy the game to be a singer, I bought it to play drums... and that I enjoy doing over and over. If I wanna get crazy, I do either vocals/drums or vocals/guitar... and just run vocals on medium... THAT is fun.

Having to do that song Reptilia or Fall Out Boy over and over... that isn't fun. Can't stand those two songs the first time, let alone the 10th. So I'll do what I have to in order to complete them, get the achievement, and then have fun...

You seem to miss the flipside of the coin, man... Why spend $180 and not try to accomplish the acheivements they programmed into the game?

At any rate... I have been working for several weeks on finishing vocals on any level.. Using the Hoover Technique, I just finished it on Expert after working on it for a few hours. Got my acheivement... now it's time for fun.

[Senkoy]

Singing a song is funner but it's not when you cant even get to the end of it because you're not on pitch. Even when i used to sing the song i would have to make weird sounds to get to the right pitch. I wish i could just get into it and sing it however damn well i want to. But then there's no way to score you so i'm not sure on what side of the argument i'm on here. I just know that i'm having less and less fun playing the vocals.

[DesiredFX]

Here are my two cents that no one will read:

I read it! Woo!



It feels like a slap to the face when someone that hums through a song gets a higher score than you singing it with all your heart, trying to imitate the original vocalist and getting the words right.

This is what I've been trying to get at in this and other threads. What's the point in making an effort to pass a song when you can simply spoof it with a BS technique that takes advantage of the algorithm's inability to detect pitch changes quickly unless the volume is overwhelming?

[Shinobi51190]

Speaking of songs that you wouldn't want to sing over and over again, is it just me or does anyone else find Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld virtually impossible to sing? Whenever I do vocals, I play on hard and this is the only song I can't even pass on medium. Only managed to 3-star it on easy.

[SSPWOLF]

If that's the case, why do you care what I do to run my score up? I mean, for someone who doesn't care about score, you sure seem to be opposed to enjoying the competitive aspect of gaming.

The way I look at it, fun and score can be different aspects of the game. There's not any real reason you can't do both separately. I didn't buy the game to be a singer, I bought it to play drums... and that I enjoy doing over and over. If I wanna get crazy, I do either vocals/drums or vocals/guitar... and just run vocals on medium... THAT is fun.

Having to do that song Reptilia or Fall Out Boy over and over... that isn't fun. Can't stand those two songs the first time, let alone the 10th. So I'll do what I have to in order to complete them, get the achievement, and then have fun...

You seem to miss the flipside of the coin, man... Why spend $180 and not try to accomplish the acheivements they programmed into the game?

At any rate... I have been working for several weeks on finishing vocals on any level.. Using the Hoover Technique, I just finished it on Expert after working on it for a few hours. Got my acheivement... now it's time for fun.


You make some fairly valid points here. I agree with most of what you've said here.

Of course you presented this as an argument for your personal taste and personal playing style, as opposed to inferring that your were empirically exposing the complete failure of the singing system to be viable in any way for people who want to sing.

What you are saying makes perfect sense, I'm certainly NOT taking some "moral highground" here. You simply made it appear (at least by my interpretation) that you were ONLY interested in the high score / achievement aspect and that the game wasn't capable of providing any type of enjoyment for anyone who played the vocal portion of it.

I stand corrected and understand more of where you were coming from.

I'll still continue to submit that anyone can pick up the game and sing with as much inflection/emotion/vibrato as they want to and pass any song, provided they have a modicum of talent and play at a difficulty level conducive to that, but I also see where your points are valid.

[DrEvyl666]

This is what I've been trying to get at in this and other threads. What's the point in making an effort to pass a song when you can simply spoof it with a BS technique that takes advantage of the algorithm's inability to detect pitch changes quickly unless the volume is overwhelming?

That was kinda my point, too...

I mean, I'm not a great singer... but I'm decent. I sang professionally as a lead vocalist for a few years, and I worked well as a backing vocalist for a really long time... so my thinking is that I should at LEAST be able to play this game on hard. I started on Expert, and after I couldn't get through the first 5 songs, I jumped to Hard. After hard started giving me trouble real early on, I really started to wonder... I mean, yeah.. I spent $180 on the game, but 6 months from now I don't still want to be trying to beat the game on hard as a singer... especially when it really comes down to that there's simply 2 songs I can't stand singing that prevent me from getting to the next level in the game... and I'm thinking to myself - "They can't seriously have made this game THAT difficult to beat".

I started asking about it, and everyone told me that I needed to practice more. Open your mouth, enunciate. Put some emotion into it... Try to imitate the singer in the song. Don't use vibrato (even though the singer in the song is). All of which are complete BS advice for someone trying to get through a song on this game. Maybe it's a great way to make friends at a Rock Band party, but it's not a great way to finish the game on Hard or Expert.

So I started going out on YouTube and looking for videos of people beating these songs on Expert, and was pretty appalled by what I found... most of the people who were beating the game were terrible singers... I'm seeing these Golden 5-star performances by someone who couldn't last 5 minutes on a real stage... People are telling me I need to practice more, and THESE GUYS can beat it? My guess was that I needed to practice sounding BAD.

Then I stumbled across one of someone using what I've dubbed "The Hoover Technique". And the first thing I said after that was "F____ me." There I was working my ass off to try and pass these songs, trying real hard to satisfy the game enough to move on to the next song... and I was getting mopped around the floor by those guys. So I started trying it... and lo and behold I was easily passing songs on Expert that kicked my ass on lower difficulty settings. I made these videos as a way of saying.. "Hey, quit telling people that trying to sound like Ian Gillan is the quickest way to beat "Highway Star"... because it isn't.

So now I finished it on Expert. Got my acheivement, got my score, and now I can go back through on lower levels and sing the songs I want to sing, and sing them the way I want to sing them.

[DesiredFX]

I spent $180 on the game, but 6 months from now I don't still want to be trying to beat the game on hard as a singer... especially when it really comes down to that there's simply 2 songs I can't stand singing that prevent me from getting to the next level in the game... and I'm thinking to myself - "They can't seriously have made this game THAT difficult to beat".

I have Karaoke Revolution 2, so I already knew what was coming in this game (with the exception of the highly-touted but never delivered "advanced phoneme detection"). The initial problem that frustrated me with KR was the inability to set your pitch--the most basic Karaoke machines out there have pitch control.

Not that it's hard to sing by dropping an octave when I have to but 1) the pitch detection when you're an octave off is less precise and 2) when you're singing a song like Creep that has a huge crescendo, it flat sucks to have to drop down an octave. Imagine working your way through Roy Orbison's Crying and have to drop down to hit the right pitch on the last word. Anti-climax.

The scoring for the various levels was also something I didn't care for: the difference between the easier and harder levels was as simple as how long you had to stay on pitch. What this meant was that you didn't even have to sing the whole song to pass it--you just had to sing until the gauge filled up. To me, the more logical approach to scoring would have been to expect you to sing every phrase completely, but be more forgiving about pitch and rhythm on lower levels. With that approach, there's more incentive to try to sing the song correctly even if you're playing on Easy.

Finally--and this my smallest gripe, but it's a gripe nonetheless--the charting of the pitch was based on the way a particular singer performed the song. If you tried to sing Killing Me Softly with Roberta Flack's inflection rather than Mary J. Blige's, you'd fail the song. You end up trying to clone the original performance as much as possible, which really isn't that interesting to me: I don't sing because I want to sound like someone else.

So before I even opened the Rock Band box, I knew there would be things about the singing portion I wasn't going to like, and sure enough, all the shortcomings I found in KR are still here, so I don't much sing in Rock Band.

I dunno...maybe I'm envisioning something more than a computer program is capable of delivering at present, and maybe I should take that as a cue to design an algorithm that does what I wish RB would do.

[blue_dragonzero]

He's just another example of people who can't grasp the two fundamental (and simple) concepts of the singing part of this game.

1) It's a game. Have fun. Do whatever makes it the MOST fun for you.

2) It's a game not an advanced artificial intelligence or a music critic sitting in your living room going "You know what.. I like what you did there. It was risky, a bit edgy.. but with your style and flare... it really works. I'm gonna give you five stars on that. Good job!"


I honestly don't understand why people can't grasp the simple concept of "it doesn't matter what you are saying.. a note is a note is a note" and still not understand that it takes A LOT of talent to be able to hit all the notes perfectly and in the perfect rythym.

Either rock band rewards your for using vibrato and inflection and giving the song "feeling and emotion" by NOT scoring you for holding the perfect note...

or it rewards you for being able to sing the perfect notes.

It's not smart enough to realize that real singing isn't about hitting the perfect notes, it's about having raw energy and emotion. BECAUSE IT'S NOT A REAL PERSON. It's a machine.. it has to measure SOMETHING in order to give you a score.

Either sing it YOUR way and have fun (like I do when I play Roxanne) or sing it the computers way and get your uber score.


EDIT: By the way, to avoid confusion.. I was agreeing with the poster I quoted, and directing my post at the OP again. :)


Yeah, I read that and thought, "WHAT!?" :D

[dblduece]

Well after reading all the OP's posts it's pretty obvious he just did it for the achievement. But then why did he do that through the whole tour instead of just the two songs he was having problems with? I dunno, I'm pretty proud of my spot on the leaderboards (#69 last time I checked) and I was extremely proud of finishing the expert tour actually singing. I enjoy continuing to work my way up the boards by actually singing the songs. But hey, to each his own. Enjoy that achievement bud!

[ItotheCtotheE]

I'm having a hard time understanding how people don't understand how this game works. You're so mad that at the end of the video you say, "**** you" and flip off the camera directed at harmonix. Well you might as well do that to every other game company that has made a singing game because this is how it is. I tested Kareoke revolution American Idol and at the beggining of testing no one could sing on pitch so we hummed our way through the game to test later parts. And if you ask Konami what they think you could do to get better they'd tell you to practice.

I mean right now you're more upset that you do better by cheating than you do by trying. And I don't understand how that upsets you to the point of telling someone to **** off. That's the name of the game. If you do actually practice you'd figure out what to do to score well and you'd score well. Instead you found out what the majority of the populace already knows and try to point it out as a flaw in the game.

I'm pretty pissed at harmonix myself right now for other stupidity on their and EA's part, but I'm more upset at your douchebagery. **** you buddy.

[DrEvyl666]

Well after reading all the OP's posts it's pretty obvious he just did it for the achievement. But then why did he do that through the whole tour instead of just the two songs he was having problems with? I dunno, I'm pretty proud of my spot on the leaderboards (#69 last time I checked) and I was extremely proud of finishing the expert tour actually singing. I enjoy continuing to work my way up the boards by actually singing the songs. But hey, to each his own. Enjoy that achievement bud!

Oh I will, believe me.

Why I did the whole tour was pretty simple... Expert gives you more points, and a bigger acheivement. I mentioned that I had to jump to "Hard" because I couldn't get very far on Expert... so I started over on Expert once I figured out how to get through songs on Expert.

#425 on the leaderboard is good enough for me. :D

[kolobus11]

I got 99% on creep on expert. I had some trouble holding the high notes

[DrEvyl666]

I'm having a hard time understanding how people don't understand how this game works. You're so mad that at the end of the video you say, "**** you" and flip off the camera directed at harmonix. Well you might as well do that to every other game company that has made a singing game because this is how it is. I tested Kareoke revolution American Idol and at the beggining of testing no one could sing on pitch so we hummed our way through the game to test later parts. And if you ask Konami what they think you could do to get better they'd tell you to practice.

Well, first of all... Saying "F___ you" and flipping off the camera does not equate to anger. I'm having fun. If you watch my videos, that's pretty much a signature staple in them. You can attribute it to "Rock-N-Roll Attitude".. LOL

And as for the other singing games, I would have the same sentiment, yes. It is really stupid that the best way to do the songs is the Hoover Technique... and I don't really care if that's what I have to do to beat the songs, but it just seems kinda silly. It tracks pitch better on "Hoover" than it does actual singing, and if you notice in my vids when I'm doing the Hoover, I use the same variations in pitch, and still put vibrato on my voice, just like I do when I'm singing it.... I'm not even as accurate with pitch doing it that way.. not to mention that it's still the same voice with the same ability singing the same notes, albiet much more poorly... but it scores me higher.

My theory on this is that when I'm doing "Hoover" the input tone the console is getting is much closer to a sine wave than it would be if I was singing it. Being that it's a much easier waveform to break down, it's also easier for it to track it.

I'm gonna do some videos playing kazoo instead of singing, I think those will be especially hilarious for 5-star Expert demonstrations.


I mean right now you're more upset that you do better by cheating than you do by trying. And I don't understand how that upsets you to the point of telling someone to **** off. That's the name of the game. If you do actually practice you'd figure out what to do to score well and you'd score well. Instead you found out what the majority of the populace already knows and try to point it out as a flaw in the game.

You probably don't understand that because you don't understand that I'll do whatever I have to do to get the score in the quickest way, and I tell someone to f___ off in almost every video I do.... it has nothing to do with being upset... in fact, it this case it's me just making a joke out of the whole thing. I think this is extremely funny, it doesn't upset me at all... and telling people that say "practice more" to f___ off and then doing exactly the opposite and getting a 5-star score without even trying is pretty damn funny. I'm sorry if your sarcasm detector is not fine tuned enough to detect that in my videos.

And also... I'm sorry, but I'm not going to practice singing just to beat a video game. If I want to put that dedication into improving my vocals, I'll just go get a job singing for a band and get paid for it. That would also require less work than adapting my voice to do what this game wants.


I'm pretty pissed at harmonix myself right now for other stupidity on their and EA's part, but I'm more upset at your douchebagery. **** you buddy.

LOL!! That's the spirit!!

I'd say you should be upset at yourself for being so butthurt over a freakin joke.

[eeenvyyy]

Well, first of all... Saying "F___ you" and flipping off the camera does not equate to anger.

you saying "F___ you" and then flipping off the camera was unexpected to me and that's what made me lol.

[monkiesbehind]

That really made me laugh! ha ha.. but hey.. if you can 5 star it like that.. YAY!
But ouch on the ears.. you do have a really nice voice though.... hmmm... if you play online? can your band mates hear you singing? or do they kist hear the reg. vocals?

[foolosophy]

Let me just say that this game is unforgiving on Expert. It's actually come to a point where Expert vocals aren't fun, right now I'm doing the Expert career for the achievement but after that I'll just go back to Hard. On hard you can rock out and it gives you just enough leeway to sound good and not have to worry much about being on perfect pitch.

Often times on expert I will merge words because after saying a word my pitch will drop (I realize this is my fault) but the time it takes for the next word to come up, my pitch can't catch up so instead I merge the words. I'm not faulting Harmonix here because I don't see how else they could've done Expert. I'm just saying it takes the fun out of singing for me. For those of you who can do well on Expert all the kudos, because it's not easy. I mean I've done singing for bands, talent shows etc. but for some reason as I get deeper into the tiers, even the songs I know are kicking my ass. Oh well. I don't enjoy ranting often but I felt I had to get this out.

[xxpigxx]

hmmm

funny

I am not a great singer, and I got 5 stars on creep on expert vocals . . . singing. 114,420 points.

[DrEvyl666]

That really made me laugh! ha ha.. but hey.. if you can 5 star it like that.. YAY!
But ouch on the ears.. you do have a really nice voice though.... hmmm... if you play online? can your band mates hear you singing? or do they kist hear the reg. vocals?

The vocal part isn't streamed over during online play... you just hear the original lead vocal. Just the lag of trying to sync that all up would make singing a real PITA.

[DrEvyl666]

Let me just say that this game is unforgiving on Expert. It's actually come to a point where Expert vocals aren't fun, right now I'm doing the Expert career for the achievement but after that I'll just go back to Hard. On hard you can rock out and it gives you just enough leeway to sound good and not have to worry much about being on perfect pitch.

Often times on expert I will merge words because after saying a word my pitch will drop (I realize this is my fault) but the time it takes for the next word to come up, my pitch can't catch up so instead I merge the words. I'm not faulting Harmonix here because I don't see how else they could've done Expert. I'm just saying it takes the fun out of singing for me. For those of you who can do well on Expert all the kudos, because it's not easy. I mean I've done singing for bands, talent shows etc. but for some reason as I get deeper into the tiers, even the songs I know are kicking my ass. Oh well. I don't enjoy ranting often but I felt I had to get this out.


Yeah, but that's the thing... the game is REALLY forgiving on Expert. Surprisingly forgiving, even. It allows major variations in pitch, and doesn't require you to hit every note on key. It doesn't even require you to hit every note. In doing the "Hoover" thing I've gotten a really impressive roadmap of exact what they are looking for in the songs... If you can sing these songs within those guidelines and make it sound good, well... more power to you. I can't, and am not going to practice singing the songs that way just to "do it right".

I've actually gotten gold-star ratings out of "Hoover" at this point (one song performance was #55 on the leaderboard). And if you really look at it... the only real difference between really singing it and "Hoover" is the enunciation of words... it's still my voice making the sound, and it still has to be on pitch.

It doesn't seem that the "talky" parts track very well no matter what you do... I've tried both "Hoover" and a lot of different variations of singing / talking the lyrics on "Epic", and it doesn't seem to matter how you do it. I'm hitting them perfectly, but it doesn't really seem to register them 100&#37; ever.

And unfortunately, doing the songs accurately doesn't score as well as "Hoover"... so I do a bit of both. I'm doing BWT as a one person band right now, and hit the point where I can't get any more fans on medium... if I have to bump the difficulty up, I'll probably have to "Hoover" some of it.

I am, however, working on some ways to make "Hoover" more entertaining and less annoying.. LOL

[JMcSquared]

I have both taken the time to read alot of this thread AND complete expert vocals (after completing Hard vocals) the way it was intended. It wasn't EASY, or MEDIUM or HARD it was E-X-P-E-R-T.Why are you suprised or upset it was more difficult? The way you are loop-holing the game just shows that you need to stick with medium if you can't stand not being perfect every time you sing any song. I have a bunch of songs that I squeeked through due to not being familiar enough with, there are songs I failed a bunch of times because I had been smoking through 90&#37; then had 2 bad phrases and couldn't recover.

Not that this game was built to appease my musical taste, there are songs that I do not appreciate (now more than ever) and don't understand why/how they made the cut vs. other songs that would be more of a challenge (got any Queen on the way?) and are solid tunes for a BAND to play. I still sing them (as they are intended) just to advance throught the game.

[DrEvyl666]

I have both taken the time to read alot of this thread AND complete expert vocals (after completing Hard vocals) the way it was intended. It wasn't EASY, or MEDIUM or HARD it was E-X-P-E-R-T.Why are you suprised or upset it was more difficult? The way you are loop-holing the game just shows that you need to stick with medium if you can't stand not being perfect every time you sing any song. I have a bunch of songs that I squeeked through due to not being familiar enough with, there are songs I failed a bunch of times because I had been smoking through 90&#37; then had 2 bad phrases and couldn't recover.

I think that the lot of you really need to stop talking and post some videos of your stellar performances... because in all honesty, I've seen a lot of people singing on this game but I haven't seen a lot of people that sound good singing in this game, let alone sound good on expert and score well - and I really don't think you or any of these other guys complaining about what I am doing are in that category.

I'm not "loopholing" the game, I'm giving it what it wants.. My voice is making the correct pitches that the game desires, which, are often different from the pitches that would be used to make the song sound good. I have to be able to hit those pitches for it to register a score... so I *am* playing the game correctly.

The fact of the matter is... and I'm sorry, but....some of these songs can't be sung in a way that sounds good and still passes muster on Expert. It's not a matter that I can't stand it "not being perfect", it's a matter that I want to beat the game and get a good score - I'd like to do it and make the songs sound good, but I haven't found that to be very plausibly accomplished. The effort required to do it takes the fun out of the game... and, as an example..if you have the Metallica DLC, try singing "And Justice For All" on expert and passing it without the song sounding totally lame. It's not singing the song right... it's hitting the pitches that someone programmed into the game as being "right", which often are not really how the song sounds.

I *DO* play on medium when I want to have fun... but we're not talking about having fun, we're talking about getting score.

I mean seriously... I think some of you that are down on what I'm doing really need to just start posting up videos of YOUR 5-star Expert performances so we can hear how to do it correctly and get the same scores.

See if you can get higher than one of these scores singing correctly on Expert... these are all at least 5-star performances, and some of them are gold starred.

In Bloom - 248,077 (currently #100)
Maps - 143,286 (currently #55)
I Think I'm Paranoid - 136,004 (currently #85)
Epic - 173,757 (currently #108)


Then post the video. It's pretty much that simple.

[JMcSquared]

I did pass Master of Puppets along with Blackened and even and justice for all. I may have even dipped into the red areas during them too.
I never said or meant to imply that I went through and 5 stared all of expert. But I DID SING THEM ALL not howl or moan or bark my way through them.
I am doing my best to sound like the proformer rather than get the higher number than the loop-holers. But, I can still rank pretty high without calling flipper. The name is Thr3e2wenty8 (on ps3) if you'd like to look me up.

Didn't you say you actually did some proforming on real stages professionally?
How many points did you get then?
Did you some nights grunt or howl unreconizibly to the song then?
Play it like as if you were on stage and people were paying for your proformance use your imagination, it is a game after all and not a nasa simulator.

[DrEvyl666]

I did pass Master of Puppets along with Blackened and even and justice for all. I may have even dipped into the red areas during them too.
I never said or meant to imply that I went through and 5 stared all of expert. But I DID SING THEM ALL not howl or moan or bark my way through them.
I am doing my best to sound like the proformer rather than get the higher number than the loop-holers. But, I can still rank pretty high without calling flipper. The name is Thr3e2wenty8 (on ps3) if you'd like to look me up.

I don't want to see that you did them... I want to HEAR how you did them.

I didn't see a link in your post there, maybe you forgot to include it?


Didn't you say you actually did some proforming on real stages professionally?

Yes, I was a professional musician for over a decade, and a lead vocalist for about half of it... working on going back into it on a new instrument right now, also.


How many points did you get then?

I didn't get points, I got this stuff called MONEY that I could use to buy things with.


Did you some nights grunt or howl unreconizibly to the song then?

No, because if I did that I wouldn't get money. People aren't paying to hear that crap. If they would pay me to sing like that, I would do it with reckless abandon. (Which, BTW... I guess you haven't heard much death metal, huh? LOL)


Play it like as if you were on stage and people were paying for your proformance use your imagination, it is a game after all and not a nasa simulator.

When the game starts PAYING ME REAL CASH for sounding good, I think I'll take that approach... But in terms of points (and "gig money") in the game, it "pays" me to sound like an injured wildebeast. Who am I to disappoint my "audience" if they reward me more for singing that way over attempting to do a good rendition. In that sense, I *AM* taking a "it's a real gig" approach.... I'm delivering what they reward me most for. I'm Lynyrd Skynyrd and I'm playing "Freebird" for them the way they wanna hear it.

Until it does pay me cash, I'll play it in the manner that scores me the most points on Expert and then play it on easy when I wanna do a good performance.

And no, it's not a NASA simulator, it's a game... and if immitating the vaccuum cleaner scores high... I'm all for it.

[SoCalCaz]

This has been an interesting read. I am getting ready to receive the game in the mail and learning about the vocal issues has been informative. I sing and play guitar, here is a link of me singing and playing Say It Ain't So - Weezer (http://www.u.arizona.edu/~caz/music/SayItAintSo.mp3) It sounds like it will be a challenge to sing the songs in the way the software "wants" you to sing them.

[JMcSquared]

Let me know when your album drops.
I'd like hear you sing like you are falling off a cliff some more.
I get what you are doing and why you are doing it, I'm just not sure why you expected it to truly judge your true singing when they can't even produce a game for PS3 that lets you play as a whole band out of the box as it is for you on the 360.

[Parodygm]

I think Hard is the sweet spot. Moving on to the Expert level makes for more robotic and less interesting performances. I'm not going to hum through songs because I won't enjoy myself.

The vocal tracking could work a lot better. There are sections of long, sustained notes that do curve up and down, but the vast majority of the charts contain sections of straight lines which don't accurately reflect the original delivery and make for mechanical singing on the higher levels (where accuracy is more important). The likely problem for Harmonix was that the time that would have been required to truly incorporate the pitch changes into the chart would have been prohibitively long and expensive.

[pasmith]

Why is this a problem? That is all an electronic microphone and software can do at this point in technology: register pitch.

This is what I don't get... I can get a piece of software and a cheap mic and dictate a 100,000 word novel into my PC. Now granted singing is a lot more complex than speaking, but still, I'd think they'd be able to do something a bit more robust than just following pitch...

[DrEvyl666]

Let me know when your album drops.

First one came out in 1994. Second was in 1996. I also played bass on another album with a different band in 1995.


I'd like hear you sing like you are falling off a cliff some more.

I'd like to hear you sing. Period. I'd especially like to hear how you sing and pass songs on Expert. Still not seeing a link to a video.


I get what you are doing and why you are doing it, I'm just not sure why you expected it to truly judge your true singing when they can't even produce a game for PS3 that lets you play as a whole band out of the box as it is for you on the 360.

I never expected it to truly judge my singing, I simply never expected it to be so truly BAD at juding singing, and so intent on having people sing the songs sounding awful in order to beat the game.

And if you're not satisfied with the way got my highest scores, my request here is pretty basic... I simply want you to post a video of someone getting a 5-star rating on expert and sounding good doing it - preferably yourself. I showed them how to do it wrong, now you can show the rest of the Rock Band community how to do it right.

And if you can't find a 5-star performance that makes you say "Wow, that guy is freakin GOOD!" (or even one better than mine, for that matter), then you really have no leg to stand on when criticizing me for doing what it takes to get the maximum score I can possibly get. Hell, now that I've figured out how it works, I can "Hoover" a 5-star performance almost every time on almost every song.

Cuz honestly... most if not nearly all of the people who had the balls to video tape themselves getting a 5-star performance on Expert sound like someone raping a cat. Many of you advocate singing "properly" and practicing, and have apparently beaten the game on Expert.. but for some reason deny the rest of us of the pleasure of your amazing performances.

So let's hear them. Post them up. Show me and everyone else here how to do it right. Shut me right up with your amazing ability.

Otherwise your suggestions are meaningless, and work only in fantasyland.

Put up or shut up, man.

Personally, I think the links aren't flying up there because you know deep down that you DON'T sound good singing them.... thereby proving my point. You have a hard time getting through the Metallica songs because the input it's looking for is different than what the SONG sounds like. If you gotta sound like crap to score high, who cares how crappy it sounds as long as it scores well - I can try to sound good when I don't care what the score is. That's my philosophy.

[JMcSquared]

Sure thing I'll pick up a video recording apparatus on the way home just so I can prove you're lazy. Riiiight. Truly, if I had the means to I would just to make you believe you don't NEED to tonsilize your mic to get 5 stars. But I'm sure since you publicly challenged everyone theres bound to be someone with an operating recorder.

I would like to suggest you do get a PS3 soon though. Just for the ability to play the newest Singstar online. While it still wont judge your proformance any better than RB YOU WILL have the ability to record your proformances and post them online through the PSN (meaning it will show you on the screen with your score and show people really singing with the game). Not anything on YouTube which can be edited prior to posting. Maybe its another add-on that RB might look into incorporating to enhance the gameplaying experience.

[DrEvyl666]

Sure thing I'll pick up a video recording apparatus on the way home just so I can prove you're lazy. Riiiight. Truly, if I had the means to I would just to make you believe you don't NEED to tonsilize your mic to get 5 stars. But I'm sure since you publicly challenged everyone theres bound to be someone with an operating recorder.

LOL... Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.

Well, guess what? Mr. Lazy here hoovered his way from #420 to #91 on the leaderboards today.... and I still got A LOT of songs left to do.. like more than 25 of them. I should make top 50 if I play it right.

I even got a few gold-starred performances today playing a kazoo instead of singing.. LOL Like these ones...

We Don't Get Fooled Again - 233,863 points - 98&#37; - 5 stars.
Dani California - 221,561 points - 100% - 5 gold stars
Tom Sawyer - 168,325 points - 97% - 5 gold stars
Flirting With Disaster - 198,433 points - 98% - 5 gold stars
Black Hole Sun - 182,388 points - 97% - 5 stars
Ballroom Blitz - 257,780 points - 98% - 5 stars

So yeah, you don't have to tonsilize the mic... a kazoo works just as good! LOL (and yes, I'll make a video to prove it if you don't believe I can score that high with a kazoo).

And I publicly challenged everyone because I really don't think there is someone out there who (a) Can sing the songs and make them sound good, (b) Can 5-star them on expert while sounding good, and (c) can consistently hit scores like mine above while sounding good singing the songs. I'd really love to see someone prove me wrong, because I know there's gotta be vocalists way better than I am out there...

Personally, I don't believe it's possible, and from mapping out the pitches I know that you have to sing many of the songs in a really weird way to get a 5-star rating. I'd rather hoover it and easily get top 50 scores on the leader board. I know at least 1 of those is a top 20 score, even.


I would like to suggest you do get a PS3 soon though. Just for the ability to play the newest Singstar online. While it still wont judge your proformance any better than RB YOU WILL have the ability to record your proformances and post them online through the PSN (meaning it will show you on the screen with your score and show people really singing with the game). Not anything on YouTube which can be edited prior to posting. Maybe its another add-on that RB might look into incorporating to enhance the gameplaying experience.

Yeah, I edited all those videos, I was really failing out of the songs.

I'd say the odds of me buying a PS3 are about similar to the odds that Satan is going to go shopping for skiware...

[OfficerMeatbeef]

And if you're not satisfied with the way got my highest scores, my request here is pretty basic... I simply want you to post a video of someone getting a 5-star rating on expert and sounding good doing it - preferably yourself. I showed them how to do it wrong, now you can show the rest of the Rock Band community how to do it right.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=WB5ki0vJn20

I don't even know the person. She sounds ok to me though? Despite the somewhat poor recording quality. And she does it with the right words and everything, AND betters your score by a good 36,000+ points. And somehow, she even manages to sound like she's having FUN doing it!

[Cr1ckt]

Hey, DrEvy, I actually dug your vibrato in that video, and I don't think it was the main reason for your low score. The screen was small in the video, so I could only make out a few times where you broke your streak, but every single one I noticed was broken due to clipping the phrases.

You had very little trouble hitting the right pitches, but you ended a beat early sometimes. If the phrase only has a few beats, you're missing twenty to thirty percent of the phrase when you end early! Everyone claims it's the vibrato, but yours isn't crazy enough to mess with the game.

I agree that it's easier to simply hum pitches, but this is mostly because I can avoid the extra process of reading the words if I don't know them well. I ended up humming a lot of parts just to get through the vocal career. However, when I came home for break, I really let loose on the songs. It is infinitely more fun to actually sing the songs, and I feel that too many people are so preoccupied with scores that they don't care about having fun. This is a game; it's pointless if you're not having fun.

I can vouch that it's certainly possible to FC (and gold star) vocals while singing the lyrics properly (so far, I've only done Paranoid, Creep and Blitzkrieg Bop.) As I said before, your biggest problem was that you were clipping the ends of phrases, and the game was breaking your streak. I love singing Creep because it's actually in a decent baritone register, unlike 90 percent of the setlist. I use vibrato, and it only affects my score if I'm lazy and go flat or sharp on the note that I center it around.

My friend is a film student, so I might get him to record a video of me singing the song the way it should be done. I would like to confirm that it's possible to FC a song by singing it exactly in time, without anticipating notes, but that will have to wait for another time, since it's late here. Thanks for the video, and please don't give up on singing the songs properly. You have a decent voice, and it would be a shame if you never learned how to use it fully.

[RedTsunami]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WB5ki0vJn20

I don't even know the person. She sounds ok to me though? Despite the somewhat poor recording quality. And she does it with the right words and everything, AND betters your score by a good 36,000+ points. And somehow, she even manages to sound like she's having FUN doing it!

There's tons of videos like that, of people doing vocals, and ACTUALLY sounding authentic. Maybe not as authentic as you'd like, but authentic nonetheless.

Anyways, this thread is ridiculous. All this really equates to is:

1. If you enjoy singing, play vocals on Rock Band
2. If you enjoy singing and scoring big (or getting xbox acheivements), play Rock Band on expert.
3. If you don't enjoy singing, but you want achievements (badly), play through expert, no matter the situation.

And for the record, I really don't get why you guys (not quoted post) are attacking this guy who wants singing achievements. It's his personality. You shouldn't have any buisness trying to impose on this person. So he likes getting achievements, so what? Maybe he enjoys peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. But you hate peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches! So are you going to stop this guy from enjoying a sandwhich?

And just as a side note, I used to play games for the achievements. But read carefully, USED TO. I only did this with a couple of games, just to get me into the 4-digit gamerscore catagory. It was unenjoyable, and it made me slightly depressed, like my games had lost meaning. So I stopped that nonsence. Still love getting achievements as they come, though.

Frankly, it really doesn't matter why he plays how he plays. It's not like he's getting rich off of rock band. It's not like you need to be jelous of him.

I mean, seriously! I'm actually pretty good at RB vocals (probably good in real life too, never tired, though), and I can easily 5-star creep. Pretty close to 100%ing it on expert, in fact.

I don't think there should be any reason for you guys to be upset until this humming method can completely overtake regular "profesional" RB'ers. THEN, and only then, will I help you in the revolt.

[JMcSquared]

There's tons of videos like that, of people doing vocals, and ACTUALLY sounding authentic. Maybe not as authentic as you'd like, but authentic nonetheless.

Anyways, this thread is ridiculous. All this really equates to is:

1. If you enjoy singing, play vocals on Rock Band
2. If you enjoy singing and scoring big (or getting xbox acheivements), play Rock Band on expert.
3. If you don't enjoy singing, but you want achievements (badly), play through expert, no matter the situation.

And for the record, I really don't get why you guys (not quoted post) are attacking this guy who wants singing achievements. It's his personality. You shouldn't have any buisness trying to impose on this person. So he likes getting achievements, so what? Maybe he enjoys peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. But you hate peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches! So are you going to stop this guy from enjoying a sandwhich?

And just as a side note, I used to play games for the achievements. But read carefully, USED TO. I only did this with a couple of games, just to get me into the 4-digit gamerscore catagory. It was unenjoyable, and it made me slightly depressed, like my games had lost meaning. So I stopped that nonsence. Still love getting achievements as they come, though.

Frankly, it really doesn't matter why he plays how he plays. It's not like he's getting rich off of rock band. It's not like you need to be jelous of him.

I mean, seriously! I'm actually pretty good at RB vocals (probably good in real life too, never tired, though), and I can easily 5-star creep. Pretty close to 100%ing it on expert, in fact.

I don't think there should be any reason for you guys to be upset until this humming method can completely overtake regular "profesional" RB'ers. THEN, and only then, will I help you in the revolt.

Red I do agree that I was out of line "attacking" this guy. He is one of those who believe that his opinion is fact. He believes that it's impossible for anyone to 5 star while singing the words. Not true. Thats all I was trying to point out but some people are like talking to a brick wall..If I can do it ANYONE can.

[DrEvyl666]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WB5ki0vJn20

I don't even know the person. She sounds ok to me though? Despite the somewhat poor recording quality. And she does it with the right words and everything, AND betters your score by a good 36,000+ points. And somehow, she even manages to sound like she's having FUN doing it!

Ya know, if I took my performance, this performance, and the actual recording of the song "Creep" and played the old Sesame Street "One of these things is not like the others" game, it would be a pretty easy process of elimination. Last time I checked, the song "Creep" did not sound like this girl's singing. She got 5 gold stars, but IMHO, sounds just as bad doing it as I do hoovering it. She's on pitch mostly, but not even in the right octave. Energy is a few notches above comatose. I would not pay to see someone who sang songs in this manner. I can very objectively say that my performance is considerably better than hers if you take "Rock Band" out of the picture and just look at it as a vocal performance.

Cuz that's my point... if I'm going to "have fun" singing the songs "correctly", I'm going to try to be as close to the recording as possible. Same octave, similar emotion... You can't do that in Rock Band and succeed.

And no, she did not beat my high score by 36,000 points... more like 20K. I've bested that score in the video twice now, and I'm pretty sure I could go back and do it again better than that. I beat my 5-star on Flirtin' With Disaster by 50,000 points and gold starred it last night with my perfected hoover technique.

Try beating my score on "Won't Get Fooled Again" (233,863 points - currently #16 on the leaderboard)... or "Green Grass & High Tides" (136,037 - currently #13) using ANY method... INCLUDING Hoover. If you look at my scores, you'll see that probably 75&#37; of them are top 100 on the leaderboards, and a good chunk of them are top 50. No matter how you look at it, I had to come pretty freakin close to what they wanted to get those kinds of scores, and no matter how "wrong" or "not fun" you think Hoover is, seeing yourself in the top 20 scores for a song is pretty freakin cool... and it is definitely hard to get those numbers, even using Hoover.

And as for fun... if I'm 5-starring songs playing a kazoo (The Who song was on kazoo, even)... wouldn't it be safe to say I'm having fun?

Because really... it all comes down to a matter of pride.... People like you are too proud to sing the song wrong to get a score in a game. It's like there's some code of ethics that says you MUST SING PROPERLY... and as far as I'm concerned, if I have to start shifting octaves, dropping vibrato, singing shouted words or sing-song talking parts as if they were actual notes.... it's really not any different to me than Hoover.

[DrEvyl666]

Red I do agree that I was out of line "attacking" this guy. He is one of those who believe that his opinion is fact. He believes that it's impossible for anyone to 5 star while singing the words. Not true. Thats all I was trying to point out but some people are like talking to a brick wall..If I can do it ANYONE can.

I do not believe it is impossible to 5-star a song while singing the words, I did it myself in one of my videos, Einstein.

What I do believe it is extremely difficult to sing the song as it was recorded (i.e. same octave, similar emotion), and sound good doing it while getting a really impressive 5-star score - like more difficult than what pretty much 99.999999&#37; of the population are capable of accomplishing. I believe it's possible to do it, but really really unlikely. The odds are highly stacked against it in how the pitches are programmed into the songs. The whole reason the videos aren't flying into the thread here is because they don't exist, and if you believe they do how about showing me some?

I especially wanna hear the person who can scream like Ian Gillan.

Until you supply something that proves my opinion isn't fact (because I believe two top 20 scores is sufficient proof that it IS fact), I can't see why I wouldn't believe that it is.

So again, this is a case of "put up or shut up" man. If you spent half the time looking for a video that you did shooting off your mouth, you might have proven me wrong already.

[DrEvyl666]

Hey, DrEvy, I actually dug your vibrato in that video, and I don't think it was the main reason for your low score. The screen was small in the video, so I could only make out a few times where you broke your streak, but every single one I noticed was broken due to clipping the phrases.

You had very little trouble hitting the right pitches, but you ended a beat early sometimes. If the phrase only has a few beats, you're missing twenty to thirty percent of the phrase when you end early! Everyone claims it's the vibrato, but yours isn't crazy enough to mess with the game.

I agree that it's easier to simply hum pitches, but this is mostly because I can avoid the extra process of reading the words if I don't know them well. I ended up humming a lot of parts just to get through the vocal career. However, when I came home for break, I really let loose on the songs. It is infinitely more fun to actually sing the songs, and I feel that too many people are so preoccupied with scores that they don't care about having fun. This is a game; it's pointless if you're not having fun.

I can vouch that it's certainly possible to FC (and gold star) vocals while singing the lyrics properly (so far, I've only done Paranoid, Creep and Blitzkrieg Bop.) As I said before, your biggest problem was that you were clipping the ends of phrases, and the game was breaking your streak. I love singing Creep because it's actually in a decent baritone register, unlike 90 percent of the setlist. I use vibrato, and it only affects my score if I'm lazy and go flat or sharp on the note that I center it around.

My friend is a film student, so I might get him to record a video of me singing the song the way it should be done. I would like to confirm that it's possible to FC a song by singing it exactly in time, without anticipating notes, but that will have to wait for another time, since it's late here. Thanks for the video, and please don't give up on singing the songs properly. You have a decent voice, and it would be a shame if you never learned how to use it fully.

Actually, the game is not as sensitive to the breaks and length of notes as you would think it would be, but yeah... through Hoovering this song, I've pretty much figured out where the flaws in my recorded performance are, and could probably go back and 5-star it now singing it right.

As for my singing, I appreciate the compliments, but you're seeing about how far developed my voice is ever gonna get. I stopped singing professionally because sinus problems and allergies caused too much havoc on my voice. Not to mention, I really don't want to work on singing these songs in the manner the game considers "correct". I'd rather sing them on easy and do the song how *I* believe it is correct.

Actually, I'm a drummer & guitarist, and that's where I put my energy.

[JMcSquared]

Ya know, if I took my performance, this performance, and the actual recording of the song "Creep" and played the old Sesame Street "One of these things is not like the others" game, it would be a pretty easy process of elimination. Last time I checked, the song "Creep" did not sound like this girl's singing. She got 5 gold stars, but IMHO, sounds just as bad doing it as I do hoovering it. She's on pitch mostly, but not even in the right octave. Energy is a few notches above comatose. I would not pay to see someone who sang songs in this manner.

Cuz that's my point... if I'm going to "have fun" singing the songs "correctly", I'm going to try to be as close to the recording as possible. Same octave, similar emotion... You can't do that in Rock Band and succeed.

And no, she did not beat my high score by 36,000 points... more like 20K. I've bested that score in the video twice now, and I'm pretty sure I could go back and do it again better than that. I beat my 5-star on Flirtin' With Disaster by 50,000 points and gold starred it last night with my perfected hoover technique.

Try beating my score on "Won't Get Fooled Again" (233,863 points - currently #16 on the leaderboard)... or "Green Grass & High Tides" (136,037 - currently #13) using ANY method... INCLUDING Hoover. If you look at my scores, you'll see that probably 75% of them are top 100 on the leaderboards, and a good chunk of them are top 50. No matter how you look at it, I had to come pretty freakin close to what they wanted to get those kinds of scores, and no matter how "wrong" or "not fun" you think Hoover is, seeing yourself in the top 20 scores for a song is pretty freakin cool... and it is definitely hard to get those numbers, even using Hoover.

And as for fun... if I'm 5-starring songs playing a kazoo (the one above was on kazoo, even)... wouldn't it be safe to say I'm having fun?

Because really... it all comes down to a matter of pride.... People like you are too proud to sing the song wrong to get a score in a game. It's like there's some code of ethics that says you MUST SING PROPERLY... and as far as I'm concerned, if I have to start shifting octaves, dropping vibrato, singing shouted words or sing-song talking parts as if they were actual notes.... it's really not any different to me than Hoover.

Your point is actually you (and you aren't the first or the last) found a way around having to sing the song and learn the lyrics. It would be like going to a poker game and rather than outdoing the others there you just shoot them and take off with the money. Then saying "I kicked thier ass in poker".

[DrEvyl666]

Your point is actually you (and you aren't the first or the last) found a way around having to sing the song and learn the lyrics. It would be like going to a poker game and rather than outdoing the others there you just shoot them and take off with the money. Then saying "I kicked thier ass in poker".

LOL!!! You act like I hacked the game to get the scores, when I sang the freakin songs just like the rest of the people. The correct pitches the game desired came from my voicebox.

Fact of the matter is... I DID KICK THEIR ASS. No matter how you look at it. I played the game by singing into a microphone. I sang the pitches and phrasing the game requires with no trickery, just the sound of my voice. I broke no "rules" imposed by the game, modified nothing, and using ONLY my voice to acheive it.... Just like everyone else did.

A more appropriate analogy would be that I went to a poker game and bluffed every hand, and ended up winning... not only could I say I kicked their ass, but I could laugh my ass off with the knowledge that I kicked their ass with CRAP!

The reality here is that you're just too proud to sing the songs "wrong" or break away from the herd. Some imaginary force makes you feel uncool if you aren't doing your spot-on Kurt Cobain impression (which you so greedily keep to yourself instead of sharing) You are concerned you might "look like a jackass" - and hey, if I could fart a song into the top 20, I would certainly do it.

You really just need to get over this whole pretentious ego/pride thing, dude, I mean seriously... reading your posts, you can't be all of that fun of a person to be around if you're this uptight about a freakin VIDEO GAME.

It should be pretty clear in my videos that I DO play the game "correctly"... but hey, I like high scores. Sue me for getting them through whatever means necessary.

[JMcSquared]

You really just need to get over this whole pretentious ego/pride thing, dude, I mean seriously... reading your posts, you can't be all of that fun of a person to be around if you're this uptight about a freakin VIDEO GAME.

Thats right, I was the guy in the video showing how I needed to up my score and then flipping off the company that you payed $170 to proform microphone felaccio. Yeah, MY ego is uncontrolable. HA.

[Hanover]

Of course you're going to do better if you cheat.

[Dvlos]

Again, lighten up Spock..

Here's one just for you. I even threw in a little bit of extreme vibrato for you and made absolutely sure I didn't practice the song before I did it.
>

I came to the RB forum SPECIFICALLY to find out how the heck people are passing songs on hard/expert with vocals (but I made a pit stop to contribute ideas for DLC :) ). I thought perhaps that we were all hopelessly tone def. I watch people on youtube and they don't sound to shabby and others that sound horrible (my opinion of course) and they're acing, even some that just hum giant sections of song for an "awesome" rating.

Sorry but humming, or howling into the mic is annoying as hell, and not my idea of fun for a group.

First of all my friends, tell me that I sound damn close to the vocals on Creep.. yet I will only get 3-4 stars, other songs I just flat out FLUNK.. and thats the the magic PITCH O METER in some cases is dead on the line... and it will still say "WEAK". I was getting so frustrated with this, I was going to suggest to our fake band we give up on vocals all together.. BUT

I have learned today I am not the only one... I have also learned that setting the game to 5.1 could be causing some of the goofy problems we're experiencing... second, we turn the home theater up pretty loud to hear ourselves and not the clackity clack clack of the drums. Yeah I think Harmonix needs to adjust this game via a patch and everything will be alright...

I also don't think its right that there's a group of people essentially saying "Shut up and play" when the group that's complaining wants nothing more but to "shut up and play" (and have fun) but are being prevented from doing so because of glitches/bugs.


EDIT: You're wasting your time with some of these people it's not a "You found a way to cheat" thread, but more of a "Something needs adjustment" in this game thread. But whatever let me join in on the hate against Dr. Evil

Hey man you suck how dare you rape and defame Thom Yorke's still living corpse in the eyesocket with your horrible rendition of Creep. I am appalled that you defecated on the holy spirit of Rock Band with your badly shaven face, you horrible man, may your kids grow up and change their name to further distance themselves from evil incarnate. I mean seriously you didn't even take off your baseball cap and place your right hand over your exposed nipples while singing Creep you've disrespected everything music stands for... (that was sarcasm in case everyone's sarcasm meter is as busted as this game is with 5.1 turned on)

[AMartin56]

To a certain extent this whole debate is ridiculous. Based upon a few early comments PROFESSIONAL equipment doesn't even do a better job of pitch detection, so I'm not sure why we would expect different from a GAME. While it's clear that the original poster is angry at HMX's advice to practice more, how would YOU have the game judge your singing? Have it send a tape to Simon, Paula and whatshisface? Get back to you in a few weeks? It's a COMPUTER...how is is supposed to judge you? Honestly while I agree that most people on Expert lack emotion another put up or shut up moment would be: 'Tell me how you would design the AI to do a better job?'.

Having said that I don't completely disgree with the original post (other than the **** HMX stuff which is a bit much) since I don't sing on Expert because to me it's no fun. Hard allows me to have fun without trying to mimic the original vocalist like a robot, but it does suck a bit if I feel that staying away from Expert limits the ability of my band to advance through the World Tour.

You can get away with a lot on Hard as long as you aren't completely tone deaf. Which is good enough for me...

[DrEvyl666]

Thats right, I was the guy in the video showing how I needed to up my score and then flipping off the company that you payed $170 to proform microphone felaccio. Yeah, MY ego is uncontrolable. HA.

Yes, shudder the thought that you might look like a jackass. That would be so uncool, I don't know what you'd do with yourself.

[DrEvyl666]

Of course you're going to do better if you cheat.

Please explain how I'm "cheating". I'm singing the correct pitches, that's all it's looking for. Again.. I'd like to see you beat my scores on "Won't Get Fooled Again" or "Flirtin With Disaster" using ANY method.

[DrEvyl666]

Hey man you suck how dare you rape and defame Thom Yorke's still living corpse in the eyesocket with your horrible rendition of Creep. I am appalled that you defecated on the holy spirit of Rock Band with your badly shaven face, you horrible man, may your kids grow up and change their name to further distance themselves from evil incarnate. I mean seriously you didn't even take off your baseball cap and place your right hand over your exposed nipples while singing Creep you've disrespected everything music stands for... (that was sarcasm in case everyone's sarcasm meter is as busted as this game is with 5.1 turned on)

LOL, nice one! Maybe I'll have to flip you off in my next video. SSPWolf is getting a little stale at this point. ;)

Okay, but seriously... you pretty much hit the nail on the head. This technique is pretty awful for a group setting, but you'll also notice that I'm just doing this by myself for high scores. In a group environment, I set it on medium, and sing the way I want to... I'm accurate enough to score pretty well on the songs that way. If it's a song I know well, I'll jump it up to hard, or even expert if I think I can get through it.

I introduced the kazoo into the picture just to be ridiculous... I know it really burns some people's bacon at the idea of me getting top 20 scores playing a kazoo instead of singing... and I think that's just scratching the surface of how ridiculous I'd like to get... I'd just say... be glad I am not willing to crash the bucks to buy a trombone.. LOL But I'd definitely expect some more extremely silly RB videos from this dude.

But the reality of the game is that some of what it's looking for isn't really natural, or reflective of what is being sung. I've played through every song on Expert hoovering it, and got some really high scores doing it... and have a good idea of what it takes to beat the songs.. And honestly... I just don't want to sing them like that... it sounds terrible, in my opinion. Many people who are not that good at singing can beat the songs because it is actually very lenient for someone who doesn't put emotion into the song or try to sound like the original. If you were to imagine that each note the vocalist sang were transcribed into piano music and then replayed, and it were looking for those specific pitches and durations... that's kinda the best way to describe it.

It's like the chorus in "And Justice For All"... it's transcribed so that when James Hetfield is basically barking out words, they put pitches to those words.. and they are all the same pitch. If you sing it that way, it sounds totally lame and ******ed... but that's what the game is looking for.

[CowShark]

Please explain how I'm "cheating". I'm singing the correct pitches, that's all it's looking for. Again.. I'd like to see you beat my scores on "Won't Get Fooled Again" or "Flirtin With Disaster" using ANY method.

If it helps, I don't think you're cheating, since your "technique" doesn't really do anything that humming doesn't do, apart from that your videos have you making mega distortion while doing it (which isn't really necessary, and which the game doesn't really care about).

All you really need to do to make your singing just like humming though, is to stop pronouncing unvoiced consonant sounds. D's, B's, V's, G's, Z's are all cool, and you score points regularly when using them. T's, P's, F's, K's, and S's all interrupt the tonal noise you're making, and you potentially lose points whenever you use them (now that I've written it out, it sounds more complicated; I like to think of it as "last call at the karaoke bar" singing). That, and making noise to check pitch between phrases, are my main "cheats" if I'm trying to GO FOR THE POINTS MAKE MAD SCORE MAX OUT TO THE LIMIT!!1! But the vocal grading on RB is way easier than on KR, and you don't have to do any of that crap to Full Combo plenty of songs (I usually resort to it after a couple bad runs if I'm trying to ratchet up a score by another 4000 points, like if I'm playing through a song repetitively, trying to find a better overdrive path).


And I've noticed a couple times that you keep mentioning singing in the original octave as part of the fun for you. Man, how much fun would "Won't Get Fooled Again" be if I couldn't sing it an octave down?

No fun at all.

[DrEvyl666]

To a certain extent this whole debate is ridiculous. Based upon a few early comments PROFESSIONAL equipment doesn't even do a better job of pitch detection, so I'm not sure why we would expect different from a GAME. While it's clear that the original poster is angry at HMX's advice to practice more, how would YOU have the game judge your singing? Have it send a tape to Simon, Paula and whatshisface? Get back to you in a few weeks? It's a COMPUTER...how is is supposed to judge you? Honestly while I agree that most people on Expert lack emotion another put up or shut up moment would be: 'Tell me how you would design the AI to do a better job?'.

Here's a novel idea.... get some professional vocalists to sing the songs, and analyze the pitch of their singing... and maybe have people with more of a musical ear involved in the game development. I think that's one thing that Activision figured out with GH3 and Harmonix is still in the dark on... they actually adapted the game play so that things that are natural for musicians are also natural for the game.

I mean, in all seriousness... in every promotional video Harmonix put out on this game, it seemed pretty clear that there was an extreme lack of people with musical ability involved in showing off the product, and I think that one element alone would change the game play for people who CAN sing quite a bit, as well as improving it for people who play guitar or drums in real life.

It doesn't need better pitch detection, the pitch detection just needs more detailed parameters... and they need people who are better at analyzing pitches in songs to define the notes.


Having said that I don't completely disgree with the original post (other than the **** HMX stuff which is a bit much) since I don't sing on Expert because to me it's no fun. Hard allows me to have fun without trying to mimic the original vocalist like a robot, but it does suck a bit if I feel that staying away from Expert limits the ability of my band to advance through the World Tour.

You can get away with a lot on Hard as long as you aren't completely tone deaf. Which is good enough for me...

That's not good enough for me.

(And seriously, all you people who are freaking out because I flipped off the camera and said something about Harmonix really need to get over it... it's a JOKE).

Anyone who has watched a good portion of the videos I've done can clearly see that I do play the game "normally".... but I'm not content with just finishing the game on medium and calling it a day... I also want some nice scores... I found a way to get them... and it's not "cheating", as I still have to sing the pitches correctly at the correct time. All I'd really have to do is move my mouth away from the mic and move my lips, and I would be "singing it correctly"...

I simply do not like how the songs sound that way, and so I play them on medium to sing them my way, and play them on expert using hoover for getting super high scores. Win-win.

I fail to see where the problem is there.

I find that it tracks the pitch much more accurately when I eat the mic... although, I've also found that using the kazoo it's even more accurate, not to mention totally hilarious sounding. I played BWT by myself playing two instruments at once on medium, and now that I've found it limits you to 240,000 fans on medium, I have to jump to hard or expert...

Guess how I'm gonna be singing for that?

That's right, I'm gonna be one kazoo playing mofo. :D

[DrEvyl666]

If it helps, I don't think you're cheating, since your "technique" doesn't really do anything that humming doesn't do, apart from that your videos have you making mega distortion while doing it (which isn't really necessary, and which the game doesn't really care about).

Yeah, but it sounds really hilarious, and I'm all about comedic effect... but in all honest it DOES seem to track more solidly that way. I've experimented with it a lot of ways, and I think I've perfected the technique at this point.

Still haven't figured out the best way to do the talky parts, though... right now the best way seems to just talk them in a really monotone voice with ridiculous enunciation.


All you really need to do to make your singing just like humming though, is to stop pronouncing unvoiced consonant sounds. D's, B's, V's, G's, Z's are all cool, and you score points regularly when using them. T's, P's, F's, K's, and S's all interrupt the tonal noise you're making, and you potentially lose points whenever you use them (now that I've written it out, it sounds more complicated; I like to think of it as "last call at the karaoke bar" singing). That, and making noise to check pitch between phrases, are my main "cheats" if I'm trying to GO FOR THE POINTS MAKE MAD SCORE MAX OUT TO THE LIMIT!!1! But the vocal grading on RB is way easier than on KR, and you don't have to do any of that crap to Full Combo plenty of songs (I usually resort to it after a couple bad runs if I'm trying to ratchet up a score by another 4000 points, like if I'm playing through a song repetitively, trying to find a better overdrive path).

But see, that goes back to what I was saying earlier... if I have to sing the song badly to score well.. what's the difference whether I do it that way or "hoover"?


And I've noticed a couple times that you keep mentioning singing in the original octave as part of the fun for you. Man, how much fun would "Won't Get Fooled Again" be if I couldn't sing it an octave down?

No fun at all.

Personally, I think that if I'm gonna sing a song right.. I'm gonna sing it RIGHT. It doesn't sound right an octave down. The only parts of WGFA that I can't sing in Daltrey's octave are the screaming parts, and RB doesn't even care what pitch they're at.

I don't think transposing octaves just to limp through the song is fun, personally. I much more enjoy trying to do as reasonably accurate of a rendition as my amateur vocal chords will allow me to do... and if I'm just trying to enjoy singing in the game, I push myself to sing the song the way it was recorded. I do have a vocal range of just under 3 octaves, so I like to use it, and I'd rather sing them that way.

Its a chocolate / vanilla thing.

I mean, I'd be perfectly happy with it NOT letting you transpose octaves... but 90% of the people out there couldn't even get through the game on easy if they didn't allow that.

[Ninjalotus]

ok well just my quick two cents. you got a great score, and being a top score whore like myself, i say good job.

what i disagree with is your comment on harmonix not having a musical ear. If you look at the track record, Harmonix pwns Acti. Lets not forget that it was pretty much Frequency and Amplitude that kicked off the whole music game biz, (harmonix). Then GH1 came out. revolutionary, all harmonix. GH2.... same thing as 1. Great game, a blast to play, all harmonix... it wasnt until GH2:Rt80's that that gh started its downhill trend. GH3 pretty much sealed the deal with me. I mean to be fair, i still love the GH series, but looking at 3 well i just dont know. i mean it seemed easier (not counting dragonforce), i didnt like the setlist as much (again except the fact it was the first one to get metallica) and no megadeth was a real sad thing for me. Lets not forget that the boss battle with Lou was 'basically' dependent on luck....

all iam saying is that gh and rb are both fun, iam not trying to fuel the war, but to say that harmonix doesnt have a musical ear, well, thats just a lie. if it were'nt for harmonix these series of games wouldnt even exist.....

[Rastak]

This is my favorite thread on this forum. Dr, a quick request. I'm dying to see a kazoo video. Your public craves this. LOL.....

[noudamass]

i think the only way to defeat the machines is by beating them to death with clubs. anyhoo ...

why not sing and remember the phrases that the machine deems "awesome" and the phrases that it punishes you on? then phrase-by-phrase figure out how to sing those parts so that it still sounds good and the machine also likes it (not sure why vocal practice doesn't doesn't break up the song).

meh, too tedious, ridiculous timesink. where's my fookin club???

[CowShark]

I don't think transposing octaves just to limp through the song is fun, personally.

I don't limp through songs when I transpose them...

I crush them into the ground with baritone power!

[AMartin56]

Here's a novel idea.... get some professional vocalists to sing the songs, and analyze the pitch of their singing... and maybe have people with more of a musical ear involved in the game development. I think that's one thing that Activision figured out with GH3 and Harmonix is still in the dark on... they actually adapted the game play so that things that are natural for musicians are also natural for the game.

It doesn't need better pitch detection, the pitch detection just needs more detailed parameters... and they need people who are better at analyzing pitches in songs to define the notes.


I suppose it's time to agree to disagree, because I don't think what you describe above would get you what you want.

You mention needing 'more detailed parameters' for pitch detection and in my mind that leads to the need to be even MORE of robotic mimic rather than finding your own style and going with what sounds good.

Within the limits of the technology I suppose they could record multiple vocalists and allow you to select which one you sound like (a form of calibration if you will) but not sure how well that would work out.

But then again you lost me when you claimed that GH3 does things better musically than HMX with RB since most people (myself included) seem to think the exact opposite.

I think it's obvious that the guitar portion of the game is the most developed due to the evolution we have seen over the GH series, but I don't think they totally destroyed the vocals either under the circumstances.

[Pwnisher]

I am amazed that no one has said this but, to the original OP... Have you tried messing with the mic sensitivity? I have found that people tend to "sing" better when the sensitivity is low. Maybe the mic is to sensitivity high and is picking up the vibrato in your voice as bigger changes in pitch than what they really are.

[DrEvyl666]

This is my favorite thread on this forum. Dr, a quick request. I'm dying to see a kazoo video. Your public craves this. LOL.....

I am probably gonna post one up tonight... I'm having some issues with my main computer, so I'm having some trouble getting them converted.

I'm probably gonna do two songs... "Dead Or Alive" and "Dani California"... the first because it's a really cheezy rock cliche and sounds totally stupid on kazoo... and the second because I found last night that I can consistently gold star it within a few hundred points.

[DrEvyl666]

I am amazed that no one has said this but, to the original OP... Have you tried messing with the mic sensitivity? I have found that people tend to "sing" better when the sensitivity is low. Maybe the mic is to sensitivity high and is picking up the vibrato in your voice as bigger changes in pitch than what they really are.

Yeah, I have. It doesn't make a ton of difference for me.

[DrEvyl666]

I suppose it's time to agree to disagree, because I don't think what you describe above would get you what you want.

You mention needing 'more detailed parameters' for pitch detection and in my mind that leads to the need to be even MORE of robotic mimic rather than finding your own style and going with what sounds good.

Within the limits of the technology I suppose they could record multiple vocalists and allow you to select which one you sound like (a form of calibration if you will) but not sure how well that would work out.

I don't think there is way to make it so it's not extremely difficult one way or the other, I just think it would be more accurate if it was harder for someone who COULDN'T sing to beat it on expert than it was for someone who can.


But then again you lost me when you claimed that GH3 does things better musically than HMX with RB since most people (myself included) seem to think the exact opposite.

I think it's obvious that the guitar portion of the game is the most developed due to the evolution we have seen over the GH series, but I don't think they totally destroyed the vocals either under the circumstances.

Yeah, I lose most people with that simply because most people aren't musicians, and therefore don't think like musicians when breaking down a song.

The huge thing that Activision changed in the songs (and I think I already covered this once) is that HO/POs are relative to what the guitarist in the song is playing.. in other words, if the guitarist is doing a HO/PO, the game will allow you to do a HO/PO. If you're someone like me... a drummer/guitarist who plays the games more by ear than by sight, this changes the picture pretty radically.

Just like... if the vocalist is not singing perfectly on pitch, or if they are putting vibrato on a held note, the game should allow that as valid input. It drives me absolutely batty trying to sing a song where the vocalist is singing a note slightly flat or sharp and the game wants you to sing it on pitch, or if they are putting vibrato on the note and the game punishes you for mimic it.

And when they program the drum parts, they should put some thought into how it's actually played on a drum kit. The thing that is glaringly obvious between RB and GH3 is that Activision seems to have done a great job of making the game more musician friendly - cuz let's face it, no musician is going to learn to do things wrong just to do well in a game.

The reality is that there really isn't an easy solution that wouldn't punish people at some skill level.

[CowShark]

Just like... if the vocalist is not singing perfectly on pitch, or if they are putting vibrato on a held note, the game should allow that as valid input. It drives me absolutely batty trying to sing a song where the vocalist is singing a note slightly flat or sharp and the game wants you to sing it on pitch, or if they are putting vibrato on the note and the game punishes you for mimic it.

Maybe it's just me, but I think the note charts are damn well keyed in for the vocals in this game. Whenever the original vocalist is singing flat or sharp relative to the note chart (which are written to match the singers, it would seem to me- I don't think they're abstract constructs of what HMX thinks is 'right'), it's close enough that you can still get an 'awesome' singing that slight difference in pitch (although there are notes I can't really hear so well on the original track, like in Gimme Shelter, so feel free to tell me if those are horribly mis-charted). Whenever I have a problem with the note chart, it's more often that they want you to keep holding a notes longer than you can hear the recorded artist holding theirs.

As far as vibrato is concerned, this is Rock Band, not Operatic Karaoke Band or 4A High School Choir Competition Band or "I Sang Professionally Before" Band.

The only vocalists I can hear who have a wide enough vibrato that it'd bork their scores are Ian Gillan and the singer for Boston (Brad Delp?). Go listen to Creep again- really listen to it, and take note of how damn tight Thom Yorke's vibrato is (it barely wavers from the note he's singing). Go listen to Black Hole Sun and notice how infrequently Chris Cornell uses vibrato. Oh look, not often at all! He doesn't waggle around every held note, there are lots of clear tones in there. And the vocalists for most songs on Rock Band are like this, if you listen to 'em.

Loads of these Rock Band songs have minimal vibrato and it shouldn't even be an issue but people keep harping on it forever. If you want to (and can) sing all the songs "right" then you should only be having vibrato problems with 2 songs (maybe a couple more, if I missed any), and you shouldn't really have pitch charting problems with any of them (unless you want to see much more scribbly note tubes in Boston/Deep Purple).

[FR1DAY]

heres 5 star creep on expert sang dont dissagree with the humming to score whore i just dont care as much about my score as i do about it sounding like a song. Not saying my singing is perfect and i deffinatly have to remove any feeling from the song to do well on expert my personal gripe is the lag where you have to sing in advance of the song slightly i have a 5 star gold on creep but not on video. Im with the others that say hard gives a good balance of having to sing right and alowing personal interpritation

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[AMartin56]

I don't think there is way to make it so it's not extremely difficult one way or the other, I just think it would be more accurate if it was harder for someone who COULDN'T sing to beat it on expert than it was for someone who can.

So once again...with the limitations of current technology as a guide (meaning pitch is really the only thing a computer can accurately detect) how would YOU design the game to work with vocals?

Now granted YOU may not be able to answer that question as a trained musician rather than a programmer, but if not I wouldn't be so quick to decide that HMX didn't do it as well as they could under the circumstances. I believe HMX deserves the benefit of the doubt to a certain extent since they are regarded as one of the better rhythm game development houses out there.

And we'll just have to agree to disagree x2 on the whole RB vs GH3 thing. HO/PO's may be more accurate in GH3 (not for me to judge...I'm not a musician) but since people have compared note charts and found that GH3 mixes rhythm and lead guitar into what the player plays on some tracks to make the game more 'gamey'/up the difficulty I doubt that's how real musicians approach things...

[DrEvyl666]

Maybe it's just me, but I think the note charts are damn well keyed in for the vocals in this game. Whenever the original vocalist is singing flat or sharp relative to the note chart (which are written to match the singers, it would seem to me- I don't think they're abstract constructs of what HMX thinks is 'right'), it's close enough that you can still get an 'awesome' singing that slight difference in pitch (although there are notes I can't really hear so well on the original track, like in Gimme Shelter, so feel free to tell me if those are horribly mis-charted). Whenever I have a problem with the note chart, it's more often that they want you to keep holding a notes longer than you can hear the recorded artist holding theirs.

All I'm going by is what pitch I have to sing to get the needle dead center on the line in relation to the actual pitch... maybe I can hear the subtle differences in pitch more than the average person, I dunno.

They are MOST DEFINITELY abstract constructs of what Harmonix thinks is the 'right' note, that can be quite easily proven with a number of songs. "And Justice For All" is probably the best example.

In layman's terms, what they've basicly done is create a map of the vocal part as if it would be played on a piano, and allowed some minor variation in pitch. A piano does not have the ability to create fractions of half-tones, it is always on pitch in half-tone intervals. If you played the vocal part from "And Justice For All" on a piano, it would sound really ******ed... and that's exactly how it's programmed into the game.



As far as vibrato is concerned, this is Rock Band, not Operatic Karaoke Band or 4A High School Choir Competition Band or "I Sang Professionally Before" Band.

As far as I'm concerned it's a VIDEO GAME and if I'm giving the input it requires to score highly, I'm playing the game "correctly". It's not hacked or modified, I'm using gear right out of the box and no processing equipment. There are 5 or 6 songs that I can consistently get gold star ratings on, so I would have to say I'm doing it right.


The only vocalists I can hear who have a wide enough vibrato that it'd bork their scores are Ian Gillan and the singer for Boston (Brad Delp?). Go listen to Creep again- really listen to it, and take note of how damn tight Thom Yorke's vibrato is (it barely wavers from the note he's singing). Go listen to Black Hole Sun and notice how infrequently Chris Cornell uses vibrato. Oh look, not often at all! He doesn't waggle around every held note, there are lots of clear tones in there. And the vocalists for most songs on Rock Band are like this, if you listen to 'em.

Loads of these Rock Band songs have minimal vibrato and it shouldn't even be an issue but people keep harping on it forever. If you want to (and can) sing all the songs "right" then you should only be having vibrato problems with 2 songs (maybe a couple more, if I missed any), and you shouldn't really have pitch charting problems with any of them (unless you want to see much more scribbly note tubes in Boston/Deep Purple).

If you notice in my videos, I don't sing vibrato on the songs where there really isn't vibrato.. and if I do it's very minimal. "In Bloom" is a great example.. I try to hold the pitch as solidly as possible, and that's a song I can easily 5-star on expert singing it "properly". When I sing "Black Hole Sun" I do not use vibrato, either.

Here's "In Bloom", but also bear in mind this was the first time I'd ever tried playing guitar and singing in the game, so it's not my best performance of the song, and I wasn't exactly focusing on singing accurately.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFJ_e1uxoHw

Since you're talking about "Creep", though... I'd suggest you also go back and listen to it again, and pay particular attention to how many notes Thom Yorke hits exactly on pitch. Very few, that's not the style of the song. But every single note that is programmed in there is exactly on pitch... so in the interest of making it singable, they should widen the window of what it considers to be "acceptable". I know now exactly where I went wrong in the way I sung it in that video, and could probably go back and 5-star it singing properly now.

There are also a lot of notes that are sung purposely flat in "Dead Or Alive"... but again, the notes are programmed on pitch in the game. "And Justice For All" has the most glaring examples where notes that are more barked than sung are assigned a pitch, and to sing them on that pitch makes the song sound really stupid.

However... vibrato won't kill an "awesome" scoring if you don't go too crazy with it. I've tested this many times while hoovering songs to find the exact pitches it's looking for. There'd be no need to transcribe "scribbly" notes, simply because it would be humanly impossible to sing the note with the same exact vibrato every time.

I think a lot of people just don't get that these videos are intended as satire and are for entertainment purposes only. I'm having fun manipulating the game and making fun of it as I go. I should be clear that I do have the ability to play the game "correctly"... I simply choose not to do it that way for score.

And a lot of people really need to get over that.

[DrEvyl666]

[B]So once again...with the limitations of current technology as a guide (meaning pitch is really the only thing a computer can accurately detect) how would YOU design the game to work with vocals?

I have no idea what the limitations of current technology, so I wouldn't even fathom a guess.

And personally.. if I was making a game like this.. I wouldn't have even bothered with vocals. I woulda done lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass and drums, and left the singing to the professionals. I also woulda made it so you could have two people playing the same part, and so that you could have one character that played all instruments. Although, I have to say it looks really funny when you have a bunch of characters that look exactly the same all in the same band.. LOL

Most people sing like shyte, so I would think it would be more fun to not subject your friends to that. Every time I have a RB GTG with my friends, no one wants to sing... I usually end up getting stuck with it, and I would rather play drums in the game... but since I'm the only real "singer" I get expected to do it all the time... and even I don't want to subject my friends to that.


Now granted YOU may not be able to answer that question as a trained musician rather than a programmer, but if not I wouldn't be so quick to decide that HMX didn't do it as well as they could under the circumstances. I believe HMX deserves the benefit of the doubt to a certain extent since they are regarded as one of the better rhythm game development houses out there.

There is always room for improvement... and like I said, the big thing they need to do to make this game better is get real musicians more involved in the development.

If you watch their promo videos for RB, nobody they have demoing the game seems to have any real musical ability. Almost everyone is playing on easy or medium. Watching their "drummers" play is truly excrutiating, at least get someone who knows SOMETHING about drums to get up there and play. I mean, you're trying to show off the game, let's see something IMPRESSIVE! And if they don't have the ability to play it on higher levels... how well does that promote it.

There is nothing in the game that could be harmed by the input of pro musicians, it would only make it better... Might make it harder for some of the non musicians, but that's a plus not a minus.


And we'll just have to agree to disagree x2 on the whole RB vs GH3 thing. HO/PO's may be more accurate in GH3 (not for me to judge...I'm not a musician) but since people have compared note charts and found that GH3 mixes rhythm and lead guitar into what the player plays on some tracks to make the game more 'gamey'/up the difficulty I doubt that's how real musicians approach things...

Rock Band does that too... they also have keyboard tracks programmed as guitar parts, also. See "The Hand That Feeds" if you need a reference for that. So that's not really any different in one game versus the other. Not to mention that in some situations, it would make playing "lead" guitar kinda boring. That really has nothing to do with a musician's approach, really. I'll hit whatever notes they put on the screen there, but if the guitar part I'm playing is doing a HO/PO on the audio track.. I'd expect to be able to HO/PO the note.

[DrEvyl666]

heres 5 star creep on expert sang dont dissagree with the humming to score whore i just dont care as much about my score as i do about it sounding like a song. Not saying my singing is perfect and i deffinatly have to remove any feeling from the song to do well on expert my personal gripe is the lag where you have to sing in advance of the song slightly i have a 5 star gold on creep but not on video. Im with the others that say hard gives a good balance of having to sing right and alowing personal interpritation

I think you have some lag issues on your setup that you need to work out, because your vocals are not in sync with the song. It makes it sound like you're drunk. If you fixed that, you'd sound waaaaaaaaaaay better. That's not RB, that's your system.

Not bad, though...

[CowShark]

I'd suggest you also go back and listen to it again, and pay particular attention to how many notes Thom Yorke hits exactly on pitch.

Exactly on what pitch? He hits the same notes he's hit forever on that same recording of his own band's song that people have had on CD for years and years. The game's charting is close enough to that recording so that even without looking at the screen, I could 5 star this song every time and almost always. I don't see what your beef is with Creep, unless you just hear it differently than me.

I wouldn't know about ...and Justice for All, since I didn't listen to it much before Rock Band (and not much after, since there's barely any singing), same with Wanted Dead or Alive, so feel free to rave about the bad charting Harmonix has done; but it's rare for me to notice much chart freakoutery, and I've got a lot of points in the singing part of this game.

[FR1DAY]

lag problemos and is still 5 stared it singing on expert how is that possible ;) j/k

yeah i do have massive lagg issues its like i sing then it sitcks it in the song behind where i sang then i hear it and speed up but get off beat so i back up repeat.. its really friggin annoying and ive played around and cant get it to sync up thats actually a lot closer than it used to be

[DrEvyl666]

Exactly on what pitch? He hits the same notes he's hit forever on that same recording of his own band's song that people have had on CD for years and years. The game's charting is close enough to that recording so that even without looking at the screen, I could 5 star this song every time and almost always. I don't see what your beef is with Creep, unless you just hear it differently than me.

I wouldn't know about ...and Justice for All, since I didn't listen to it much before Rock Band (and not much after, since there's barely any singing), same with Wanted Dead or Alive, so feel free to rave about the bad charting Harmonix has done; but it's rare for me to notice much chart freakoutery, and I've got a lot of points in the singing part of this game.

Well, a good analogy for this situation would be like this: If I were an audiophile, and you weren't, and we were both in a electronics store listening to audio systems, and I heard some weird frequency anomoly that was there and said "God, that sounds awful"... chances are you would probably look at me like I was from Mars.. because you ear isn't trained to recognize these things.

Just as... your ear probably does not recognize subtle differences in pitch below a half-tone level (most people can't)... so for you, it sounds right. I can clearly hear that they are not the same pitch because my ear is trained... you can't hear it because yours isn't. You're probably don't even have any knowledge of what beat frequencies are without throwing it into google.

It's not a matter that the charting is "close enough", it should be accurate. The pitches programmed into the game as being "correct" are not the same pitches he sings.. and it doesn't allow "close enough" as an option when you sing it. If the song is sung so that it's pretty sloppy on hitting pitch, you should be able to sing it that way and do well.

[xxpigxx]

ha ha

you are so full of yourself now

[DrEvyl666]

ha ha

you are so full of yourself now

So, other than not having any input to speak of, what prompted that?

[xxpigxx]

reading you cry this whole thread

I have no clue why you can't 5 star Creep. I can, without even looking at the screen. I know that song like the back of my hand.

Sure . . . you are not cheating per se. What you are doing is exploiting the game mechanics, which is frowned upon in the gamng world as a form of cheating. That is why you are receiving so much flack.

And your crappy attitude does not help matters

[King_Nuthin]

I must be honest, I agree with the OP in so much as that his 4 star singing version of Creep while far from perfect sounds much better than the 5 star videos I've seen of the song. What I don't know is if those people that are doing the 5 star videos have adapted their performance to fit the games scoring criteria and if they were doing a free form vocal performance how they'd sound. Harmonix has been clear all along from pre-release media to the tutorials that you are being measured on the ability to hit a note and not the ability to mimic a vocal.

And let's be honest, how could Harmonix make a game that judges you on a bunch of completely subjective performance qualities that completely vary between human ears? People frequently complain about the cover tracks in these games and 99&#37; of the time that is because they hate the vocalist. But other people will say the same vocal is awesome. There's just no way to measure taste in a video game.

But you can measure pitch. And its not like learning to sing these songs in such a sterile way won't improve your technical ability. While vibrato when used judiciously can add emotion and texture to a vocal performance its also a crutch that bad singers use to cover their inability to hit and hold notes properly. So if you can sing the song sustaining the notes you should be able to translate that into whatever performance you want outside of that when/if you are ever singing for real people instead of a game.

[FR1DAY]

Actually i agree with the OP creep is most deffinatly sang flat here listen to me singing this on hard forget the high section i mess up but listen how much closer it is to origional when im singing flat.
for expert i have to sing it way sharper and it doesnt sound like the origional at all so basically you get rewared for singing it how harmonix want not for singing it like the origional recording.

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want to see this in action joker and the thief the section can you see the joker flying over the end pitch wise should match as shes laying in the field of clover since he accents the AR sound in both words but they raise it up a note
So they taged it as can you see the joker flying ov"ER" As shes laying in the field of clov"AR" but then set the er as the ar sound and moved up the ar to erm well ive yet to actually hit that note most deffinatly wrong

[DrEvyl666]

reading you cry this whole thread

The only reasons I've ever "cried" in this thread is because I was laughing so freakin hard that I could barely breathe.


I have no clue why you can't 5 star Creep. I can, without even looking at the screen. I know that song like the back of my hand.

Who said I can't 5-star Creep? I've already done it 5 or 6 times. My video makes it real obvious that 5-starring it singing correctly is something I'm capable of... I 4-starred it even though I made several mistakes, and it would only take a couple of tweaks in the video performance to hit 5-star range.

You'd have to be mental to think that I couldn't 5-star it based on the video... the point is that I can score higher through Hoover while singing it REALLY badly.


Sure . . . you are not cheating per se. What you are doing is exploiting the game mechanics, which is frowned upon in the gamng world as a form of cheating. That is why you are receiving so much flack.

I could not possibly care less what the "gaming world" thinks, and I think it's been pretty clear in my posts and videos that the more flack people give me, the more I'll just turn it up another notch and do something even worse than the last time to piss them off.


And your crappy attitude does not help matters

I guess I won't be on your Xmas card list next year... boo hoo.

I would suggest you try not to take everything on the internet so seriously.

[xxpigxx]

Not taking anything seriously, actually.

It is just unfair to the people on the leaderboards who try theur hardest, and you exploit the game to make yourself look better.

Anyways.

I am done with this thread. ;)

[DrEvyl666]

Not taking anything seriously, actually.

It is just unfair to the people on the leaderboards who try theur hardest, and you exploit the game to make yourself look better.

I hate to tell you but a lot of them did this, too.

And I'm not doing it to make myself "look better", because it should also be clear in my videos that I could not really give a crap about that, I'm perfectly content to make myself look totally ******ed. I did it because I can, and because it gives me great scores. Pure and simple.

I still have to sing it correctly, and if it will make you happy, I will move my lips in sync with the words - because that's the only difference between what I'm doing and the "correct" way.


Anyways.

I am done with this thread. ;)

There is a god.

[KillAutumn]

Though I do love getting gamerpoints...


....I make it a point to earn them the way they were intended to be earned.

When I 100% a song on expert, I will most definately make sure it's because I got over my tone deaf-ness and can sing just a little more on key. But being deaf in one ear for the most...and hearing only very very low tones in it, well, it might take a long time.

But I'm not a ****ing cheater with time on my hands to make videos to piss people off.

I'd rather just work for it.

[CowShark]

No I've never had ear training.

Yes I can tell the 'subtle' differences between half tones (according to this test (http://tonometric.com/adaptivepitch/), I can hear it reliably when when there's a ~.45 Hz difference between two tones at 500 Hz, which is way up on their percentile scale).


But I think you may just misperceive your own pitch (most people do) when you're actually singing. I'd guess that the 'hoover' helps you score better because you're not worried about hearing yourself at that point- you're just humming and watching the pitch bars. I'd like to hear how your solo BWT goes, and whether hoover is better than humming for you when you're not looking at the note bars, because I don't think it will be.

[Ventura]

Hehe, am I the only one who's watched the doc hoover his way through Epic more than once?

I love that video, seriously. And it does look like he's having so much fun. Who says you can't vacuum and have a ball at the same time?

[Rastak]

Hehe, am I the only one who's watched the doc hoover his way through Epic more than once?

I love that video, seriously. And it does look like he's having so much fun. Who says you can't vacuum and have a ball at the same time?



The dude is pretty funny...I bet he'd be a blast to go have a few beers with.

[AdamBomb629]

The "hoover" method appears to work because the sound is constant all the way through. There doesn't appear to be as large a break in the sound as when there are sung vocals.

Is this the way things should be? No, ideally singing would yield you the best scores, but hell, I think sometimes people forget that ROCK BAND is a game. If you are pulling top 20 songs on the leaderboards using a non-singing method, you know what that gets you? ... [crickets] ... The same thing as singing the right way... [crickets]...

And as for doing this for achievement points, there are a ton of ways to exploit games to earn achievments easier. No big deal. You can earn almost 1000 points in Madden '07 just by simming a season.

[DrEvyl666]

No I've never had ear training.

Yes I can tell the 'subtle' differences between half tones (according to this test (http://tonometric.com/adaptivepitch/), I can hear it reliably when when there's a ~.45 Hz difference between two tones at 500 Hz, which is way up on their percentile scale).


But I think you may just misperceive your own pitch (most people do) when you're actually singing. I'd guess that the 'hoover' helps you score better because you're not worried about hearing yourself at that point- you're just humming and watching the pitch bars. I'd like to hear how your solo BWT goes, and whether hoover is better than humming for you when you're not looking at the note bars, because I don't think it will be.

Not really... My ear is very well tuned and I have perfect pitch, it's just that my vocal chords don't... LOL. I know that I'll never be an amazing vocalist (as I said before... sinus and throat issues are what stopped me before, and are why practice isn't gonna make me much more accurate), and I am pretty aware that I am not singing it perfectly.. The video you're seeing is the second time I'd ever sung the song, and I'm very familiar with the areas I did wrong the first time I sang it. Since I was advocating that the "practice more" suggestion was pure BS, I purposely went into the song without warmup, and picked a song I wasn't realy comfortable with. I'm pretty confident that I could 5-star it now.

Dani California was another good example of the benefits of Hoover... I did some experiments last night where I sang it, and then Hoovered it... and I can gold star that one doing Hoover almost every time... singing it, I can 5-star it, but I'm usually about 20-30K points lower on score.

Another great example that I ran into was in the DLC... the Black Sabbath song N.I.B. I can sing this song pretty good... but when I do the "Oh yeah" at the beginning of the verse, I get a "weak" rating every time, and the pitch meter acts like it can't figure out what I just sang... it literally fluctuates all over the board... I hoover it, singing the same notes, and get "awesome" every time.

I've already gotten to the point on BWT medium where I can't get any more fans, I have to jump up. I'll probably jump to hard and do mostly hoover for score.... because really, that's the only reason I even do BTW or solo career for that matter... to unlock stuff, get acheivements and rack up my score. If I didn't care about any of that, I'd just play through solo on easy and then just do quickplay after that.

[Ninjalotus]

o and btw evyll, a TON of hmx's team ARE musicians. q&a staff etc (i remember seeing the tips in gh1 about Honest Bob, Bang Camaro(?) and so on) so to re-iterate, i still REALLY DONT GET why you think acti have better musical ears.they imprve hammer ons a bit and you grovel on your feet. HMX brings TONS more songs, most of their teams ARE musicians, and bring drums and vocals to the table, totally reinventing what we know as rhythm gaming.... and you say they need more musicians helping out.... iam sorry man but you need to look at the facts.

[DrEvyl666]

o and btw evyll, a TON of hmx's team ARE musicians. q&a staff etc (i remember seeing the tips in gh1 about Honest Bob, Bang Camaro(?) and so on) so to re-iterate, i still REALLY DONT GET why you think acti have better musical ears.they imprve hammer ons a bit and you grovel on your feet. HMX brings TONS more songs, most of their teams ARE musicians, and bring drums and vocals to the table, totally reinventing what we know as rhythm gaming.... and you say they need more musicians helping out.... iam sorry man but you need to look at the facts.

I think GH3's gameplay is a little more "natural" in terms of playing guitar, and Rock Band's HO/PO make about zero sense, and that one aspect alone changes the game play pretty radically. One can only assume that the more musician-friendly game is the one with more musicians involved... and damn, get some of those musicians involved in demoing the game if they're around.

It doesn't really make a difference to me if RB has more songs, personally I like the song selection in GH3 better. Half the songs in RB are stuff I can't stand. Cult of Personality freaking ROCKS, and there's a lot of songs in that vein in GH3... RB = nothing.

I see a lot of potential in RB, but I think we're gonna have to wait for RB2 for them to get the kinks out.

[fourdegrees]

I think GH3's gameplay is a little more "natural" in terms of playing guitar, and Rock Band's HO/PO make about zero sense, and that one aspect alone changes the game play pretty radically. One can only assume that the more musician-friendly game is the one with more musicians involved... and damn, get some of those musicians involved in demoing the game if they're around.There is actually no real difference between the hopos in gh3 and rb. The only difference is that gh3 has a faster track speed. Try playing gh2 after playing gh3, you nptice that all the hopos are screwed up. The try turning on hyperspeed and you'll see that you'll hit all the hopos as normal.

[theMasterJuice]

You let me down. Thats all I have to say.

[rphtx]

The thread title scared me about singing. I like to sing by myself, but get embarrassed singing around people. I figured it must be REALLY hard to sing on expert mode if people are making how to videos.

I admit, I finally got interested and wanted to see how fast it would take me to fail 'Creep' on expert. To my surprise, I scored 98% on expert mode the first attempt....singing it the right way of course.

So...if you are avoiding singing...try it you might do better than you think : )

[SSPWOLF]

Still tossin' my name around eh?

I did get some pro singers to sing on it. They pretty much had the same thing to say as everyone else: "It seems like I have to sing exactly like the vocal track or it doesn't score me well."

So, my opinion is that with all four instruments they want you to play/sing exactly what's on the screen with little room for personal interpretation.

Take that for ill or good, but it's pretty much the way it is.

I did have another question, OP says he released albums in the mid 90's, I'd be curious to know what the band name and album titles were. I mean, if he's going to bring it up as fact and all.... might explain his self-proclaimed "rock n' roll attitude"

[DrEvyl666]

Still tossin' my name around eh?

Yeah, when I tried to think of someone that had gotten a bit stale in their disdain, you just flew right off the tip of my fingers, there.

:D


I did get some pro singers to sing on it. They pretty much had the same thing to say as everyone else: "It seems like I have to sing exactly like the vocal track or it doesn't score me well."

So, my opinion is that with all four instruments they want you to play/sing exactly what's on the screen with little room for personal interpretation.

Take that for ill or good, but it's pretty much the way it is.

Yeah, and to cover that once again... I don't find that fun. I'd rather sing it my way on easy, and find ******ed ways to beat it on expert. That's fun.


I did have another question, OP says he released albums in the mid 90's, I'd be curious to know what the band name and album titles were. I mean, if he's going to bring it up as fact and all.... might explain his self-proclaimed "rock n' roll attitude"

Yeah, it's all BS, I just made it up to be cool, and I was really sitting at home with a broomstick tied around my neck and a cape made out of a pillow case, playing air guitar in my underwear to Rush albums.... LOL

I have to say, your distrust of pretty much everything is really entertaining.

I got my first gig in a cover band in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1986... Band didn't really have a name, we were just the "house band" for a couple of different clubs and played there every night for a month at a time. I did that for about a year and a half, then moved to Seattle. I jammed with a few friends for a while, and then started a punkish rock band called "Holier Than Thou"... that band eventually evolved into my main band as we improved and changed members a few times.

During that time I also played bass for the Seattle band "Spear", and recorded with another band called "The Royal Firs" that was made up of most of Spear with a couple more members - I wasn't really into that music, I was just hired to play bass on the album. The rest of Spear went on to become The Royal Firs full time, and I went back to playing guitar.

The name of my main band was Plastic Joe, and only album still in print is "Insidious Mind Candy", which was released in 1997. The track "Davenport" was probably the favorite on the album, and is pretty reflective of where the material went after this album... the band broke up before we recorded a follow album with that lineup, though.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/plasticjoe

http://www.plasticjoe.com/gallery/pjoe1.jpg

That's me on the far left with the green Ibanez 7-string. The location is a Seattle club (which is now gone) called The Colourbox, and the date of the gig was Saturday, October 11, 1997. We did okay around the local Seattle area, and could fill small clubs consistently... we were a little hampered by our bassist's ability to travel and access all of the clubs in town, though..

You can find out more about that particular band at:
http://www.plasticjoe.com/

I left Plastic Joe in 1999, and retired from music at that point... this year I decided to get back into it and have changed instruments.. I'm not a guitarist any more, now I'm a drummer. I've been dabbling with it for 20 years, and finally decided to take it seriously and learn how to do it right.

What's next... two pieces of photo ID? DNA samples?

[skeltonath]

Haha, this thread is pretty silly. Anyway, this "Hoover" method... I don't consider it to be cheating, but it seems to suck a lot of the fun out of the game. When I do expert vocals, I sing the words without humming or "hoovering," and I am ranked 11th overall. I would be higher but unfortunately I got the RRoD recently :(. Plus, I'm pretty sure CowShark doesn't use humming/hoovering on a regular basis either.


Please explain how I'm "cheating". I'm singing the correct pitches, that's all it's looking for. Again.. I'd like to see you beat my scores on "Won't Get Fooled Again" or "Flirtin With Disaster" using ANY method.
When reading and laughing through this thread, I came across this post. Now, I know you were just confronting him because he said you were "cheating," but I'd like to point out that I have 1st on Flirtin', and I did it all with normal words and no humming. :D

All in all, I don't care what anyone else does to play the game. it's up to them how they have fun with it, as long as they aren't cheating (i.e. using other thing to modify your voice that isn't already included on/in your body.)

[DrEvyl666]

Haha, this thread is pretty silly. Anyway, this "Hoover" method... I don't consider it to be cheating, but it seems to suck a lot of the fun out of the game. When I do expert vocals, I sing the words without humming or "hoovering," and I am ranked 11th overall. I would be higher but unfortunately I got the RRoD recently :(. Plus, I'm pretty sure CowShark doesn't use humming/hoovering on a regular basis either.

You're a lot more dedicated to it than I am, what can I say?

I had about 6 days to finish the vocal part on any level, and can't spend all that much time at it in one sitting.. so I figured out the quickest way possible. I'm sure that if I really wanted to I could get to the same level singing it "properly".. I mean, it IS my voice making the sound. I can obviously generate the tones, I would just have to work out the diction.

I don't have that kind of time to spend playing the game, though... and the time I do have to spend is mostly doing drums.. I just wanted to get vocals knocked out. Once I figured out I could do the whole thing that easily, I took the whole thing out in 6 hours... then I went back to playing drums.


When reading and laughing through this thread, I came across this post. Now, I know you were just confronting him because he said you were "cheating," but I'd like to point out that I have 1st on Flirtin', and I did it all with normal words and no humming. :D

There's video of me 5-starring FWD on expert vocals in my YouTube profile, same user name there as here and XboxLive. Just click on one of my videos and then click on my user name, there's about 25-or-so videos up there. A few of me drag racing, but mostly me doing stupid things with Rock Band and Guitar Hero.


All in all, I don't care what anyone else does to play the game. it's up to them how they have fun with it, as long as they aren't cheating (i.e. using other thing to modify your voice that isn't already included on/in your body.)

Ah.. So I guess the kazoo is cheating then, huh? LOL

[skeltonath]

I don't have that kind of time to spend playing the game, though... and the time I do have to spend is mostly doing drums.. I just wanted to get vocals knocked out. Once I figured out I could do the whole thing that easily, I took the whole thing out in 6 hours... then I went back to playing drums.


I was going to concentrate on drums/guitar after i broke 10 mil on vocals, like you have done ('cept you didn't break 10 mil), but i got the RRoD on my 360 :(, and my drumset was crap, so I had to send it in. My friend just got the PS2 version though. He said his drumset was "perfect," so I guess I'll be spending a lot of time over there while my 360 is gone :D.

[DrEvyl666]

I was going to concentrate on drums/guitar after i broke 10 mil on vocals, like you have done ('cept you didn't break 10 mil), but i got the RRoD on my 360 :(, and my drumset was crap, so I had to send it in. My friend just got the PS2 version though. He said his drumset was "perfect," so I guess I'll be spending a lot of time over there while my 360 is gone :D.

Ouch. I have a buddy that bought a second Xbox specifically for that reason, but I would just go without until I got mine back. I live out in the boonies, and I've been stuck at home babysitting a remodeling project for two weeks... so I've had a lot of time to play. I don't really know anyone locally that could play the game above medium difficulty... and most of my friends decided not to buy RB and got GH3 instead, and they're only mildly into this kinda game.

So I do the BWT stuff doing either guitar/vocals or drums/vocals (whichever is easier to get me through the song).. Like I can't beat GGAHT on Expert guitar, but I can beat it on Expert drums and vocals... so for that one I'm a drummer.

[skeltonath]

Ouch. I have a buddy that bought a second Xbox specifically for that reason, but I would just go without until I got mine back. I live out in the boonies, and I've been stuck at home babysitting a remodeling project for two weeks... so I've had a lot of time to play. I don't really know anyone locally that could play the game above medium difficulty... and most of my friends decided not to buy RB and got GH3 instead, and they're only mildly into this kinda game.

So I do the BWT stuff doing either guitar/vocals or drums/vocals (whichever is easier to get me through the song).. Like I can't beat GGAHT on Expert guitar, but I can beat it on Expert drums and vocals... so for that one I'm a drummer.

I know what you're talking about. My friends around here aren't as dedicated as me either. I have one friend who is just amazing at guitar (the same one that just got RB for the ps2), but otherwise, my friends are casual players. That's why I got with some people over live, so we could make a band that can get some awesome scores. We have some videos if you want to check them out. Look here (http://rockband.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2576)

[IamAwesome]

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This guy is god!!!!!!

[skeltonath]

This guy is god!!!!!!

Deepbluevibes/schitzzo? Yeah, he's one of the top drummers. It's really too bad he can't get a hold of a decent set of drums.

[DrEvyl666]

Deepbluevibes/schitzzo? Yeah, he's one of the top drummers. It's really too bad he can't get a hold of a decent set of drums.

One thing I'd like to try if I get the chance (would actually like to see someone else try it) is to figure out a way to do something similar to a video I saw recently... there was a guy that adapted a DrumKat MIDI controller so that it would work as a GH3 controller, and he played it with sticks.

I'm planning on buying an electronic kit here in the next few months, I'd like to see if there was any way to interface it with the Xbox & RB in a similar fashion. Would be nice to have a double pedal with good action that you didn't have to work about breaking, or the ability to do "Long Time" on expert without doing a LLRLLRLLRLLR sticking pattern. ouch.

[SSPWOLF]

wow, calm down killer.... relax.

I was asking the name of your band out of curiosity. You're the one that brought it up.

Valium may work.

Should watch your Bon Jovi video and take your own advice.


Sheesh.. talk about biting someone's head off.

[Goliath9592]

This was a little awkward to read. i finally just finished reading all of this. and i am so confused.Any ways I though your real sing sounded great, and im not just joking around. Your pretty dang good.:)

[DrEvyl666]

wow, calm down killer.... relax.

I was asking the name of your band out of curiosity. You're the one that brought it up.

Valium may work.

Should watch your Bon Jovi video and take your own advice.


Sheesh.. talk about biting someone's head off.

I'm not sure what advice I'd be taking in there... but hey, if you're going to go doubting everything is true and challenging the factuality of what people are telling you, you should expect to be really wrong and get your head bit off for it every once in a while.

It's kinda like a situation I saw a long time ago on the Rush mailing list... Neil Peart (Rush's drummer... freakin amazing player) decided to log on and start replying to questions people had about his playing... and well, the first thing that happened was people much like yourself started questioning whether this guy presenting his identity as "Neil Peart" was really Neil Peart... and well, they pissed Neil off enough that he just said "screw you guys, I'm not replying to you any more"... And man, you wanna talk about people getting their heads ripped off for something... holy crap!

If you start believing that everything people are telling you on the internet is false, and start questioning it that often, it's really a sure fire sign that you spend too much time on the internet.

And I'd say that you should expect to get blasted if you are so insistent on "calling people out" on whether they're lying or not.

Sorry, man.

[SSPWOLF]

I'm not sure what advice I'd be taking in there... but hey, if you're going to go doubting everything is true and challenging the factuality of what people are telling you, you should expect to be really wrong and get your head bit off for it every once in a while.

It's kinda like a situation I saw a long time ago on the Rush mailing list... Neil Peart (Rush's drummer... freakin amazing player) decided to log on and start replying to questions people had about his playing... and well, the first thing that happened was people much like yourself started questioning whether this guy presenting his identity as "Neil Peart" was really Neil Peart... and well, they pissed Neil off enough that he just said "screw you guys, I'm not replying to you any more"... And man, you wanna talk about people getting their heads ripped off for something... holy crap!

If you start believing that everything people are telling you on the internet is false, and start questioning it that often, it's really a sure fire sign that you spend too much time on the internet.

And I'd say that you should expect to get blasted if you are so insistent on "calling people out" on whether they're lying or not.

Sorry, man.


Leaving the long diatribes to you, I'll just say.. I never once claimed that you were lying. I said that if you were presenting something as fact, I'd be interested in seeing it.

You are awful defensive, perhaps a group hug is in order.

Hug me man..

Hug me like a rockstar..

C'mon Doc, hug a brother!

I'll be the guy with the warm smile and outstretched arms.

[Dvlos]

It's like the chorus in "And Justice For All"... it's transcribed so that when James Hetfield is basically barking out words, they put pitches to those words.. and they are all the same pitch. If you sing it that way, it sounds totally lame and ******ed... but that's what the game is looking for.

Now that I "know" what the game "wants" I can do hard on certain songs, and pass with good scores (and expert some with 3-4 stars), the problem lies with the 5.1 issue.. once I got that out of the way, the 2nd problem is with pitch. The game really dislikes people with low tenor or baritone voices, ie guys in general.

My version of Enter Sandman sounds like cover songs from the Smashing Pumpkins, but we pass it on hard, it's just not "fun" without the low growling and snarling. I also have no idea what this game's idea of "talky parts" is supposed to be. "Pitch" doesn't matter but I seem to score a string of "OK" or "Messy" On talky parts like The Hand That Feeds or Sabotage on Hard/Expert during talky parts for no damn reason. THen give you "awesome" for other phrases and it's a complete mystery to me. Unless it has to be on time with the vocal sound not the words, which is going to be impossible to time, since I've already manually configured the game for the instruments and it's spot on.

I love this thread and the youtube videos you put up, hopefully Harmonix comes to realize that their vocal system needs some adjustment here. I almost wanted to take note of anyone who worked on the vocal end of things with that company. I also noticed that in any presentation of RB in any show, E3, or G4TV the lead singer is always that blonde chick (who incredibly uses the word "like" as a verb, adverb, and noun an impressive amount of times in any interview), who's also in that indie group Vagiant. Which has led me to believe that Harmonix was only able to tune the game for:

- Girls
- Barry Gibb (BeeGees singer, for those that we born post 1980)
- Anyone who has literally coughed up their lung as Dr. Evil has so cleverly demonstrated.
- Eunuchs
- People who willing slam their testicles with books, hammers, shins, brass knuckles before singing.

Very few songs with the entire band gold starring a song on Expert actually "sounds" good that I've watched on YouTube, IMO, most of the expert vocalists sound like they are really bored- like Ben Stein on an self-induced estrogen medication overload.

The reason is the game dislikes variation, creativity or truly "rocking out" to a song, yes I understand it's a computer and the end result is a mechanical vocal production not necessarily a "good" vocal effort. I think part of that has to do with lower octave adjustments for those people that suffer from testosterone balance issues, at least for those songs that would require that. Second the game could allow sections of a word especially long trailing words to allow for a greater degree of variation in expression.

We really need more concrete discussion in this matter, and more sarcasm from Dr. Evil instead of piles of limp-wristed whining and shrill low-iq posts that sound as if they are being pushed out of a spazzed out, yet 'oh-so' tightly contracted dainty fanny. Please excuse me if I hit my adjective and/or metaphor limit... but the point is adjustments in the game would probably lead to greater variety of enjoyment for a bigger audience not the few nipple clamping malcontents or female players out there. Oh no, I'm being sarcastic I must be a cheater.

[fourdegrees]

I love this thread and the youtube videos you put up, hopefully Harmonix comes to realize that their vocal system needs some adjustment here. I almost wanted to take note of anyone who worked on the vocal end of things with that company. I also noticed that in any presentation of RB in any show, E3, or G4TV the lead singer is always that blonde chick (who incredibly uses the word "like" as a verb, adverb, and noun an impressive amount of times in any interview), who's also in that indie group Vagiant. Which has led me to believe that Harmonix was only able to tune the game for:

- Girls
- Barry Gibb (BeeGees singer, for those that we born post 1980)
- Anyone who has literally coughed up their lung as Dr. Evil has so cleverly demonstrated.
- Eunuchs
- People who willing slam their testicles with books, hammers, shins, brass knuckles before singing.

Very few songs with the entire band gold starring a song on Expert actually "sounds" good that I've watched on YouTube, IMO, most of the expert vocalists sound like they are really bored- like Ben Stein on an self-induced estrogen medication overload.From what I've read the only thing that's important when you sing is the pitch. It doesn't matter which octave you sing in just as long as you hit the right note. So it doesn't matter if you have a really dark voice just as long as you get the pitch right. I'm not 100% sure of this so anyone is welcome to add info.

[SoCalCaz]

So I was finally able to play around with the vocal portion of this game. I now totally agree that this game has a lot of difficulty detecting pitch from enunciated words. I consider myself a singer (Here is a recording of me singing and playing Say It Ain't So -Weezer (http://www.u.arizona.edu/%7Ecaz/music/SayItAintSo.mp3)) and when I sing the songs with enunciated words the game has trouble picking up my pitch. When I "sing" the song using sound instead of words I easily ace the songs. I don't use a horrendous hoover like sound but rather a singing voice, just no words. This doesn't bother me, because we don't have the proper technology to artificially judge the human voice. This is what makes singing a beautiful art form, it can't be reduced to a digital definition. The vocal aspect of this game is better suited to the party atmosphere and less so as a comment on ones singing ability. I think this is where the OP got bent out of shape...he took the OK, Messy, etc. ratings as personal attacks on his singing ability.

[NattyLight]

What exactly are you pissed off about? That you can't articulate and use breath control to maintain a perfect pitch as well as you can just simply make tonal noises?

Blame god for that one, he gave you the ability to make noise with your vocal chords.. then he gave you the ability to convert that noise into clipped sounds using your mouth.

The phenome detector can't tell if you are speaking english or making tonal noises... how much processing power do you honestly want Harmonix to invest into this?

I have the most recent version of Pro Tool, arguably the most popular recording software in the world for professionals and it can't either.

Congratulations you've just figured out what every studio engineer in the world has known for the last 70 years or so:

1) Anyone can make a noise, and every noise is a note

2) Humans singing is usually more entertaining than humans "humming" or making guttural tonal noises.

The only thing you need to figure out now is

1) How to stop being an obnoxious jerk. The whole "f-you Harmonix thing" was just reprehensible taste and petty.

2) That you actually sing very well for someone who doesn't appear to be a professional vocalist and you should be proud of the score you got on expert, and that with a few tips from someone you could probably do much better without much more practice. AND if you took some tips, maybe some vocal coaching, and practiced even more you could probably FC that song on expert.. giving my personal (read: my opinion) assessment of your singing abilities.

I still don't understand why people think that they should be able to G5* songs in this game on vocals without any practice. You can't G5* anything on the guitar if you haven't practiced playing it.

Oh wait.. there's still that argument going around that singing and playing a fake guitar are two different things.

Well, singing and attempting to perfectly emulate a song in a game are two different things also.

Unless of course, you can think of a way for the game to obtain artificial intelligence and actually critique your personal singing style and assign a score to it based on your performance...


all you've done is made yourself look like a jerk.

QFT

I really don't see how hard it is to understand that singing words and making them sound nice in the right pitch is a lot easier than just making guttural tones. Don't people learn this in pre school?

[DirrtyBird]

What exactly are you pissed off about? That you can't articulate and use breath control to maintain a perfect pitch as well as you can just simply make tonal noises?

Blame god for that one, he gave you the ability to make noise with your vocal chords.. then he gave you the ability to convert that noise into clipped sounds using your mouth.

The phenome detector can't tell if you are speaking english or making tonal noises... how much processing power do you honestly want Harmonix to invest into this?

I have the most recent version of Pro Tool, arguably the most popular recording software in the world for professionals and it can't either.

Congratulations you've just figured out what every studio engineer in the world has known for the last 70 years or so:

1) Anyone can make a noise, and every noise is a note

2) Humans singing is usually more entertaining than humans "humming" or making guttural tonal noises.

The only thing you need to figure out now is

1) How to stop being an obnoxious jerk. The whole "f-you Harmonix thing" was just reprehensible taste and petty.

2) That you actually sing very well for someone who doesn't appear to be a professional vocalist and you should be proud of the score you got on expert, and that with a few tips from someone you could probably do much better without much more practice. AND if you took some tips, maybe some vocal coaching, and practiced even more you could probably FC that song on expert.. giving my personal (read: my opinion) assessment of your singing abilities.

I still don't understand why people think that they should be able to G5* songs in this game on vocals without any practice. You can't G5* anything on the guitar if you haven't practiced playing it.

Oh wait.. there's still that argument going around that singing and playing a fake guitar are two different things.

Well, singing and attempting to perfectly emulate a song in a game are two different things also.

Unless of course, you can think of a way for the game to obtain artificial intelligence and actually critique your personal singing style and assign a score to it based on your performance...


all you've done is made yourself look like a jerk.

I am gonna have to agree with this as well. I read through most of this 15 page thread but i didnt read all of it.

I think you do have some vocal ability and like the person said that i have quoted all you need is a little help and some pointers from someone. I like the vocal section on Rock Band. It isnt perfect but it isnt horrible.

Anyways just my 2 cents. Practice a bit more and you will get it.

[TheBends]

you point is ****ing you sing the right note louder and without the words messing up your rhythm and you hit more notes. You are complete dumbass for not realizing it to begin with. You can just uhg the syllables on sabotage. doesn't make it fun. Ballroom Blitz is increible stupid unless you over sing it.

In short. Game = Fun, You = Stupid Ass Hole who doesn't Understand it's a video game and to have a real life your 40.

[Xerosnake90]

I 5 starred the song first try, one of the only 2 so far =P You actually didn't sound bad when singing, and humming is something I gotta admit to doing. I'm using it most on Reptilia, which I can't beat right now, I can't think of any other songs I need it. I sometimes just hum if I can't read the words fast enough =P

[DrEvyl666]

you point is ****ing you sing the right note louder and without the words messing up your rhythm and you hit more notes. You are complete dumbass for not realizing it to begin with. You can just uhg the syllables on sabotage. doesn't make it fun. Ballroom Blitz is increible stupid unless you over sing it.

In short. Game = Fun, You = Stupid Ass Hole who doesn't Understand it's a video game and to have a real life your 40.

Actually, you're a complete dumbass for getting so worked up over obviously sarcastic videos that you've taken to flaming me over it, and I have to say that getting chumps like yourself all up in a tizzy is more fun than singing correctly. LOL

I don't really need other people to tell me what's supposed to be fun.. maybe you should try not taking everything you see on the internet so seriously.

[DrEvyl666]

Here's some more creamy video goodness for you. Today I thought I would sing "normally".. LOL

Dani California - Expert - 100% - 221,577 points - 5 gold stars
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N.I.B. - Expert - 115,079 points - 4 stars
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And the last song I thought I'd do without any practice... so I downloaded this song right before I made the video and recorded it, and here it is trainwrecks and all.. LOL
Limelight - Expert - 42,979 points - 3 stars
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[Tdk_Samurai]

so are these videos serious and you are mad that you don't have to sing right words to get good scores, because thats what it feels like, and I hear it alot.

But you just said something about them being sarcastic I believe (might have misread that)

but if its serious, I will say that you are more on pitch when you hum, as is everyone for some reason. when you open your mouth, your pitch goes flat.
And like mentioned before, you sing very vibrato, and you rely alot on your falseto.

[DrEvyl666]

so are these videos serious and you are mad that you don't have to sing right words to get good scores, because thats what it feels like, and I hear it alot.

But you just said something about them being sarcastic I believe (might have misread that)

I don't think I've ever done a serious video in my life, and I really don't intend to start. You can take the content in them however you wish.


but if its serious, I will say that you are more on pitch when you hum, as is everyone for some reason. when you open your mouth, your pitch goes flat.
And like mentioned before, you sing very vibrato, and you rely alot on your falseto.

I'm just watching the arrow and singing the pitch that keeps it in the green. I think it will sound a little different once I can start singing with headphones on again, and I can patch the actual audio into the camera.

Singing with vibrato will obviously not prevent you from hitting 100&#37; on a song. And, no... I'm not more on pitch when I hum. I even purposely sang badly and off pitch while hoovering it to show that it wasn't that sensitive.

As for "relying a lot on my falsetto".... um... that is most definitely untrue because I'm not singing falsetto. In "Creep" I sing falsetto for about a second and a half in the bridge before the last verse (the "she's running out the door" part).. I have to do it for one note in in "Say It Ain't So" also... but the rest of it is all in my normal range.

So I can't really see how that would be relying on it too much. It would be like saying I rely on singing the word "Lucifer".... I sang it two times, just as many times as I used falsetto.

[Lacerare]

Worse is that you can't even hit the screaming parts. Evil, take a copy of the voice track and feed it to the microphone and I bet you it won't give itself 100&#37;. Just for laughs, do that. I rely on my friends for Rock Band, so I can't do it for a while.

[sa_nick]

DeEvy, good sir, you are the exact type of person who makes all us people living outside the US hate Americans and the way (some of) you think.

Ur ex boyfriend might've enjoyed your "Hoover" method, but we don't, so stop posting your shìtty videos here.

[DrEvyl666]

DeEvy, good sir, you are the exact type of person who makes all us people living outside the US hate Americans and the way (some of) you think.

Cool :) Just doing my part, glad I could be of service. We hate you, too.


Ur ex boyfriend might've enjoyed your "Hoover" method, but we don't, so stop posting your sh&#236;tty videos here.

7,055 people have watched a video they hated in the past week & a half... since Dec 15th, I've recieved 16,619 views to my Rock Band vids... that means about 791 times a day, someone watched me play Rock Band, which would be 32 times per hour, or roughly every 30 seconds.

So I'd say it's safe to say that you are wrong there... people do enjoy my videos. I'm gonna keep posting them, too. Sorry Charlie.

And leave me out of your man-on-man fantasy, please.

Thanks!

[sa_nick]

Cool :) Just doing my part, glad I could be of service. We hate you, too.



7,055 people have watched a video they hated in the past week & a half... since Dec 15th, I've recieved 16,619 views to my Rock Band vids... that means about 791 times a day, someone watched me play Rock Band, which would be 32 times per hour, or roughly every 30 seconds.

So I'd say it's safe to say that you are wrong there... people do enjoy my videos. I'm gonna keep posting them, too. Sorry Charlie.

And leave me out of your man-on-man fantasy, please.

Thanks!

Wtf? I wasnt being serious, its called sarcasm, and I thought I was funny. Sorry if you cant a joke.

[Xerosnake90]

Wtf? I wasnt being serious, its called sarcasm, and I thought I was funny. Sorry if you cant a joke.

The way you said it, it's not taken as a joke in America. So why don't YOU people who aren't in the US stay the hell out if you hate us so much?

Everyone needs to stop hating on this guy for using hum technuiqes for high scores. He can still beat many songs without it and get high scores, so why does it matter if he hums sometimes? Stop being jealous **** and get over it.

[Zane]

You know..., this is the last place i expected to find someone giving some Creep a humjob.

[sa_nick]

The way you said it, it's not taken as a joke in America. So why don't YOU people who aren't in the US stay the hell out if you hate us so much?

Please note how i said "the way (some of) you think."

Also, that first post wasnt sarcastic and funny, it was the truth, me saying it was sarcastic was the sarcastic post. Because thats what DrEvy does, gives ppl **** then talks about how funny he thinks he is because of it when really he's just some washed up old dude who has a camera and knows how to use "the youtube".



Everyone needs to stop hating on this guy for using hum technuiqes for high scores. He can still beat many songs without it and get high scores, so why does it matter if he hums sometimes? Stop being jealous **** and get over it.

Although part of the hate is from him cheating (yes, cheating) it's mostly the principal of the thing. The game is supposed to be able rocking out, not about humming to get a high score. And he's saying "**** you HMX" because he chooses to play the game like a ****** rather than just sing, which he can do well anyway... wtf?

[griffinmills]

I am wondering what the consensus on Cheating is defined as? Going off the "violating accepted standards or rules" definition, what do people call cheating in Rock Band and other games like it? Would the use of a rubberband on the guitar frets be cheating? Would the use of two kick pedals be cheating? Humming on vocals? Natural physical or psychological advantages? (IE: Some folks have better natural dexterity or better singing voice or don't get "stage fright" that sort of thing.)

Maybe too deep a topic for this thread though.

[Zane]

I don't see humming as cheating. If you choose to be a hummer, be a hummer. But, when I have friends over and we are "rocking out", I don't want to hear them hum. Or play kazoo. I want to make fun of them for trying to sing.

[sa_nick]

I am wondering what the consensus on Cheating is defined as? Going off the "violating accepted standards or rules" definition, what do people call cheating in Rock Band and other games like it?

Would the use of a rubberband on the guitar frets be cheating?
Yes


Would the use of two kick pedals be cheating?
Yes


Humming on vocals?
Yes


Natural physical or psychological advantages? (IE: Some folks have better natural dexterity or better singing voice or don't get "stage fright" that sort of thing.)
No

I spose it basicly comes down to the question "are you playing it the way it was intended". GH doesnt come with a rubberband or mention it anywhere and most people dont do it. RB doesnt come with 2 kick pedals and when your singing ur supposed to sing, simple as that.

[fourdegrees]

How would a rubberband on frets give an advantage? Do you mean like having it around the bottom fret so that it's pressed down all the time? But that would f'up the chords.

[DrEvyl666]

Wtf? I wasnt being serious, its called sarcasm, and I thought I was funny. Sorry if you cant a joke.

My response was most definitely intended to be humorous... Bottom line is, if you wanna bust someone's balls, you should pretty much expect a heat reversal to happen there.

And how is not singing the words cheating? I still have to make the same pitches with my voice. If I didn't speak English very well and sang with a thick accent would that be cheating also? What if I'm dyslexic and can't read the lyrics that fast so I screw them up, is that cheating? The only difference between humming and singing "correctly" is that you're moving your lips.

If I wanna "rock out" I'll pick up a real guitar, or a real microphone, or a real drum set and go play with a real band in a real club... not this pretend BS.

[DrEvyl666]

Please note how i said "the way (some of) you think."

Also, that first post wasnt sarcastic and funny, it was the truth, me saying it was sarcastic was the sarcastic post. Because thats what DrEvy does, gives ppl **** then talks about how funny he thinks he is because of it when really he's just some washed up old dude who has a camera and knows how to use "the youtube".

Well, if you watched the last one... you should have heard me say "If you don't like the way I do my videos, let's see your video" if I'm so "washed up". You're probably upset by my videos because you're not capable of playing at the same level... and if you are, let's see it. Post it up, or shut it up.

Busting people's balls is most definitely humorous.


Although part of the hate is from him cheating (yes, cheating) it's mostly the principal of the thing. The game is supposed to be able rocking out, not about humming to get a high score. And he's saying "**** you HMX" because he chooses to play the game like a ****** rather than just sing, which he can do well anyway... wtf?

I just proved I can get the same score singing it right. I guess you just proved you're another moron who is probably upset simply because he can't get the same score "rocking out" (yeah... "rocking out".. LOL).

This is a game where people like you pretend to do what I've already done for real, so if I wanna play it in silly ways, I think that's my perogative.

You're really gonna love it when the rest of my noisemakers arrive and I start playing songs on kazoo, slide whistle and bicycle horn.

[Lacerare]

GH doesnt come with a rubberband or mention it anywhere and most people dont do it. RB doesnt come with 2 kick pedals and when your singing ur supposed to sing, simple as that.

You're an idiot. In comparison to real-life guitars, guitarists can put a device to hold the note to shorten the strings without the use of their fingers. See: rubber band for this game. However, since rubber band doesn't help you for **** unless you're playing Easy mode and you're just f-ugly-ing ******ed or too damn lazy to hold the green button, I don't think that's cheating.

As for the double-bass, the artists in those very songs, like "Ride The Lightning", USE DOUBLE-BASS IN THE DAMN SONG! Harmonix just didn't provide the means for a double-bass because they're idiots. Even the best drummers in this game break combos on the sickly fast ultra-pound where even double-bass users would get tired.

And as for the vocals, he can "hoover" all he wants. If the game isn't smart enough to pick up on a whale screaming desperate for sex, compared to actually singing the song, then the game is at fault for sucking balls.

Every sane person who has reviewed this game gave its hardware ****ty ratings... because the hardware sucks cock! Harmonix still made a profit without the DLC's rediculous prices because these sets were all EXTREMELY cheap in putting together, HARDLY worth the purchasing price. EVEN with all the returns because of how ****TILY MADE they were.

The best made aspect is probably the guitar, which they didn't do the tilt-sensor right or the strum bar... and it wasn't even wireless.

It's like they field-tested everything on Easy for one song before they gave it the "a-okay"!

This **** BLOWS. It's about time some company takes control of this market where Harmonix has so utterly failed.

The only reason why Rock Band rocks is about three reasons:

It's a bunch of old games put in one, to which your friends can play too!

The songs don't completely suck.

And... the character customization is actually well-made.

The actual game component, beyond the CHOICE of songs, kinda sucks.

If you look at this game as what it really is, it's a wonderful idea **** on in execution. It's Drum Mania with Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution. There's NOTHING DIFFERENT! The HARDWARE is different, but in a bad way!

Character customization is great, but since the whole center of Rock Band should be the gameplay, and not the ****ing sprites, I'd say this game is full of epic FAIL.

[DrEvyl666]

Yeah, I do have to say that some of the drum transcriptions are a bit odd.. and they make them pretty inhuman from the standpoint of a real drummer, especially considering that the insanely springy nature of the kick drum pedal makes most standard ways of hitting beats that rapidly quite difficult.

The one that always gets me is "Foreplay / Long Time" on Expert. The beginning section is based entirely on triplets... and if you've ever seen how Sib Hashian plays it, he is basically just hitting L-R-L-R-L-R and then alternating the crash on each hand. You can't do this in Rock Band... well, you could, but you'd have to be able to do some really insane tight cross sticking. The game forces you to play L-L-R-L-L-R all the way through it... and with no bounce, that's pretty nasty.

I always wondered if the people that make these games have some sort of deal with the medical industry for all of the potential cases of carpal tunnel and repetative motion injuries this game probable creates.

Hell, remember that baseball player who got in a whole mess of trouble because he screwed his hand up playing Guitar Hero? LOL

[Lacerare]

I swear my pinky has almost died a couple of times from constant playing of Guitar Hero II and III on Expert. "Before I Forget", "Raining Blood", "Mauvais Garcon", and "Through the Fire and Flames" will rape a *****es' pinky.

[DrEvyl666]

I swear my pinky has almost died a couple of times from constant playing of Guitar Hero II and III on Expert. "Before I Forget", "Raining Blood", "Mauvais Garcon", and "Through the Fire and Flames" will rape a *****es' pinky.

I had to stop using the GH2 guitar because that tiny little neck on it was killing the middle finger on my left hand (and god only knows what I would do without my middle finger.. LOL)... it was having my fingers all scrunched up on that skinny neck and having to using that finger for notes over and over... it was so sore I couldn't even move it after a few days... I had to take an entire week off playing the game because of it.

The GH3 controller was a lot better for that... I'd probably use the RB guitar more if it weren't for the strum issues on the dang thing. My downward strum just stops working sometimes.

My pinky is pretty strong from 28 years of playing guitar... so I never really had an issue there.

[Ninjalo]

"I am so awesome, My name is Dr Rockso, I do cu-cu-cuh-COCAINE yah!" We've all heard how you're a washed up has been for singing. Post more in your own thread. You say you don't toot your own horn man, but you do. Every post is about how you're better than all of us and we suck cause we don't post videos to prove how awesome we are. My gosh. I'm done.

[DrEvyl666]

"I am so awesome, My name is Dr Rockso, I do cu-cu-cuh-COCAINE yah!" We've all heard how you're a washed up has been for singing. Post more in your own thread. You say you don't toot your own horn man, but you do. Every post is about how you're better than all of us and we suck cause we don't post videos to prove how awesome we are. My gosh. I'm done.

Cool. Thanks for the bump. :D

And I'm not better than everyone here at Rock Band, not by a long shot.... but I do know I'm probably better than the ones that complain about my videos and stuff... and since they're so in the know about what makes a good video, what is fun, and how to sing the game "correctly", I'd think they'd most certainly have videos of themselves online doing just that. I mean.... how can a person who has never done something be an expert on it? Explain that to me. That's like getting advice on f__ing from a virgin.

I really don't care if you like me or my videos, man. You're just gonna have to get over it... and I'm gonna keep on making them the same way.

[sa_nick]

I guess I just fail to understand why a (relatively) mature adult like yourself would find it so fascinating that you can hum into the mic. When my 10 year old sister did it in Sing Star I could understand, but you doing it? I dunno... you, your attitude towards the game and probably all gaming in general just pisses me off. I spose that's my problem though.

Have fun acting like the tool you are.

[DrEvyl666]

I guess I just fail to understand why a (relatively) mature adult like yourself would find it so fascinating that you can hum into the mic. When my 10 year old sister did it in Sing Star I could understand, but you doing it?

It makes for an entertaining video... maybe you're just not one of the people I made the video for, I can't expect to please everyone. It also got me through all of the songs I couldn't stand doing over and over... and I thought it was hilarious doing songs on kazoo. I wasn't aware that there were some sort of ground rules for what constitute the "adult" way to play a video game.


I dunno... you, your attitude towards the game and probably all gaming in general just pisses me off. I spose that's my problem though.

What should my attitude be?

Should I approach it as an exalted event that should be treated with the upmost of reverence and sanctity?

Sorry, man... it's a game... and if my attitude about playing a video game really bothers you that much, it's pretty much a sign you're a little bit too into it. If I wanna hum into the mic, or play drums with my butt, or tape drumsticks to my shoes and play drums and guitar at the same time.. that's pretty much my choice. As far as I'm concerned... it's a toy, not something to be taken seriously.

And yeah, it is your problem.


Have fun acting like the tool you are.

Will do. LOL

Now repeat after me:

It's only a video game.
It's only a video game.
It's only a video game.

:D

P.S. - Thanks for the bump.

[DrEvyl666]

Here ya go, I'm gonna rock out and not say a single word just for you...

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Oh my goodness, look at him go.

[Ninjalo]

These are my favorite videos by you so far, you're not talking smack, and seem to be enjoying the game. Keep this up, and you won't offend so many people who aren't even offended that you play the songs with Kazoo.

[DrEvyl666]

These are my favorite videos by you so far, you're not talking smack, and seem to be enjoying the game. Keep this up, and you won't offend so many people who aren't even offended that you play the songs with Kazoo.

Yeah, but see that's the thing... I don't care if they're offended... and hell, if someone is offended that I played the game with a kazoo, they've got some real serious issues... so I enjoy offending them.

So basically... I enjoy talking smack, I enjoy offending people who are uptight about stuff like that, and I enjoy getting them riled up... so I enjoy making my videos that way. So these kind of videos are actually less fun for me.

And well, I'm the one making them... so... go figure.

[Lacerare]

Love your funny vids man, but by playing guitar, now I have to make fun of you for your "I own" attitude. Synchronicity II from Rock the 80's, beating your 4-star on the weaker version on Rock Band.

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Lrn2StarPower, nub.

[DrEvyl666]

Love your funny vids man, but by playing guitar, now I have to make fun of you for your "I own" attitude. Synchronicity II from Rock the 80's, beating your 4-star on the weaker version on Rock Band.

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Lrn2StarPower, nub.

Nice job... However.. I'm not real sure how a score from another game applies... I mean, I got an awesome score on "Mississippi Queen" in GH3, but it doesn't mean a whole lot in relation to the same song in Rock Band.

I don't really have an "I own" attitiude... lots of people out there are better than me at this game. On guitar, about 37,000 of them are. My point is that they aren't the ones in this thread complaining about how I did my videos, or how I'm "cheating" by playing kazoo or hoovering instead of singing (in fact, I've gotten emails from tons of people who say they do it too).

Besides, the recording you're seeing there was just me screwing around with audio routing, and was the first time I'd ever tried the song on Expert... I just wanted to do a different song, and picked one that I was really into... so yeah, I'm sure you did better. If you want a challenge, try beating my score on Dani California.. 225,926 points - 100&#37; - 5 gold stars

Anyway...

The reason I am doing these newer videos is that I'm redoing my whole audio/video setup with new equipment, and am working on a setup that allows me to patch live audio directly into the camera instead of using the mic.. so it sounds better, gets rid of most of the noise of the drum/gutiar controllers, and I can eliminate the sync issues on these videos (not to mention the stupid REC indicator and counter).

If I wanted to get crazy, I could even use two mics and process my voice through my recording gear... so you heard a more "professional" sounding voice track instead of Rock Band's... but I figured I'd get more claims of "cheating" if I was singing into 2 mics instead of 1... I just think it would be a better video if you could hear my actual voice, and not what's reflected off of the walls into a cheezy mic on a $120 digital camera.

[Lacerare]

Nice job... However.. I'm not real sure how a score from another game applies... I mean, I got an awesome score on "Mississippi Queen" in GH3, but it doesn't mean a whole lot in relation to the same song in Rock Band.

I 100%'ed it on GH III, and yes it does, because the GH III version is much more advanced. Just like the 3's and 7's version on Rock Band is a joke in comparison to the GH III one.


If you want a challenge, try beating my score on Dani California.. 225,926 points - 100% - 5 gold stars

I've almost gotten 100% a couple of times on that song, but I keep getting bored and screwing up. I've gotten the gold stars though... Since I don't own the game and rely on friends to play, I don't exactly get the chance to choose what I get to play. I got to play that song solo when my friends got bored or went to the bathroom.

However, if I get Rock Band, will do.

[DrEvyl666]

Well, if you have GH3, here's a trick for you to try...

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I'm not cheating on this, there is no trick, and I am playing it entirely from memory... I've done this as a sort of "bar bet" thing at parties many times, and can actually 5-star it now (I have the slow section down).. I could do it on Expert if I just relearned a few chord differences, I was just lazy. It's not really any more difficult on expert, it just uses 3-button chords instead of 2-button chords.

[sa_nick]

Yeah, but see that's the thing... I don't care if they're offended... and hell, if someone is offended that I played the game with a kazoo, they've got some real serious issues... so I enjoy offending them.

It's not so much the way you play the game, but the fact u find it so damn fascinating that you have to continue to post videos about it and say "fu*k you" to HMX for making it possible to play the game like that.

[DrEvyl666]

It's not so much the way you play the game, but the fact u find it so damn fascinating that you have to continue to post videos about it and say "fu*k you" to HMX for making it possible to play the game like that.

It's pretty obvious you don't know what I'm saying "f**k you" to in my video, so I guess I'm gonna have to explain it to you.

The issue at hand was that to do "better" at the songs, the overwelming thing you hear repeated over and over is that "you need to practice", and people (especially people at Harmonix) are suggesting that using emotion and being more expressive in your singing, and trying to mimic the singer on the song are the sure fire keys to success in this game...

And there could not possible be a bigger load of pure unadulterated horse apples being fed to people... and this video was intent on proving just how much that pile of garbage advice stinks. It would be like telling people that watching an Outlaws concert video is the best way to learn how to beat GG&HT.

And on that venture I think it's mission accomplished for me here, also.

So I'm saying "F__ you" to all of the people in and outside of Harmonix that feed this advice to people, when the advice I'm giving here (in a very dryly sarcastic and scathing manner) is certainly much better for someone trying to do well in the game. Practice humming the song and controlling the pitch meter, and watch how it affects your score. Once you have the humming down, then start moving your lips.

And to be perfectly honest, since I created these videos I've gotten scores of emails of people thanking me for that advice... in fact, one guy said he was sick of getting BS advice and that my videos on "hoover" helped him get his technique down. Not everyone spend their every waking hour on message sites about these games, so not everyone knows that these techniques work... and if they're telling people that imitating the singer is the key, that's the worst advice they could give these people... and they deserve to be told to f**k off for it. Harmonix didn't give them the key they needed to do well in the game... I did.

And so what if Harmonix made this game possible? Does that mean I need to blow them all, or worship them as my new god or something?

Cuz I ain't gonna.

Sorry, I support software for a living... and they can take their lumps just like the rest of the software world.

If it was just about this game.. well.. as I've said before.. you'd have to be mental to think I don't enjoy playing this game. Why would someone do something they dislike as often as I play this game?

[sa_nick]

I'm pretty sure practicing the song on vocals more until u can nail it properly, ie, without using the humming cheat is quite possible, it just takes longer. Personally, I'd be feelin much more like I accomplished something if i finished the vocal career singing rather than humming.

[Lacerare]

It's not really any more difficult on expert, it just uses 3-button chords instead of 2-button chords.

I got to 83% on my 4th try after I practiced each piece for 40 minutes. I'm uploading a video as we speak, though you can barely see anything.

(And that's Expert I was playing)

[Lacerare]

I apologize for the crappy quality, but here's the vid of me doing Miss Murder on Expert without looking up to 83&#37;.

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I'll make a better vid tomorrow.

[DrEvyl666]

I'm pretty sure practicing the song on vocals more until u can nail it properly, ie, without using the humming cheat is quite possible, it just takes longer. Personally, I'd be feelin much more like I accomplished something if i finished the vocal career singing rather than humming.

Personally, if I'm gonna bust my ass trying to sing good, it's because I'm going to be getting PAID... and if I went out to do gigs and 90% of the top vocalists sounded like someone was raping a cat, I certainly wouldn't put a lot of effort into sounding good... in fact, I'd just put my effort into sounding like I was raping 10 cats at the same time.

I dunno, man... I guess it's just a case that there's a lot more people here that wish they could go out and do gigs than there are people who could do them, or have done them... So I guess being able to sing "properly" in a video games makes them feel a little closer to getting there, and so doing it "properly" means that much more to them.

Myself... there really isn't anything rewarding about it, other than getting a good score. I'm already had the chance to sing in front of hundreds of people for real... and doing it in a game really is just kinda stupid from my perspective... and so it's impossible for me to take it seriously.

Fact of the matter is... I didn't hack the game... and I used my natural voice with no processing. If the game scores it as a "AWESOME" phrase, then I sang it right.

So it's NOT cheating... and I don't really give a flying crap what the "gaming community" thinks.

[DrEvyl666]

I apologize for the crappy quality, but here's the vid of me doing Miss Murder on Expert without looking up to 83&#37;.

I'll make a better vid tomorrow.

Making it to 83% is easy... it's making it past there that is the battle... I didn't even spend 40 minutes learning it... it took me 3 tries.

And there's one problem with the video, and it's that I can't see you or your face, and what you're looking at. You can clearly see in my video that my back is to the monitor, and that I'm looking around the room.. not to mention that my Rock Meter is in the green for almost the entire song.. so you're gonna have to play a lot smoother to beat the score.

Like I said, the only thing that is different between Hard and Expert is 3-note chords, so if you'd like me to go relearn it on Expert and post a vid, I'd be glad to do it.

So I guess in this case... I own. LOL

[knyght]

Yeah I 5 Starred Creep with 100% First time singing the song. Of course I am a huge radiohead fan, that always helps. And I am not tone deaf.

[SSPWOLF]

Personally, if I'm gonna bust my ass trying to sing good, it's because I'm going to be getting PAID... and if I went out to do gigs and 90% of the top vocalists sounded like someone was raping a cat, I certainly wouldn't put a lot of effort into sounding good... in fact, I'd just put my effort into sounding like I was raping 10 cats at the same time.

I dunno, man... I guess it's just a case that there's a lot more people here that wish they could go out and do gigs than there are people who could do them, or have done them... So I guess being able to sing "properly" in a video games makes them feel a little closer to getting there, and so doing it "properly" means that much more to them.

Myself... there really isn't anything rewarding about it, other than getting a good score. I'm already had the chance to sing in front of hundreds of people for real... and doing it in a game really is just kinda stupid from my perspective... and so it's impossible for me to take it seriously.

Fact of the matter is... I didn't hack the game... and I used my natural voice with no processing. If the game scores it as a "AWESOME" phrase, then I sang it right.

So it's NOT cheating... and I don't really give a flying crap what the "gaming community" thinks.



This is exactly why I stopped playing Rainbow Six Vegas. I thought myself, "Self... here we are defending the ****ing world from terrorism and ****ing George Bush doesn't have the decency to even give us a medal!"

I checked online for base play plus special warfare pay, hazardous duty pay, imminent danger pay, and hostile fire pay, and it's actually a decent salary. Then I checked my bank account..... NOPE. Not ONE SINGLE government paycheck.


I'm still waiting for Vince McMahon to officially announce me as the Smackdown Champion though. I sent him videos of me taking John Cena out (sold out show at the garden, it was a good match.)

Thank god DrEvyl understands what I'm going through.


I stopped playing RockBand alltogether when Virgin and Warner both turned my band down for a record deal.

Stupid suits!

[DrEvyl666]

This is exactly why I stopped playing Rainbow Six Vegas. I thought myself, "Self... here we are defending the ****ing world from terrorism and ****ing George Bush doesn't have the decency to even give us a medal!"

I checked online for base play plus special warfare pay, hazardous duty pay, imminent danger pay, and hostile fire pay, and it's actually a decent salary. Then I checked my bank account..... NOPE. Not ONE SINGLE government paycheck.


I'm still waiting for Vince McMahon to officially announce me as the Smackdown Champion though. I sent him videos of me taking John Cena out (sold out show at the garden, it was a good match.)

Thank god DrEvyl understands what I'm going through.


I stopped playing RockBand alltogether when Virgin and Warner both turned my band down for a record deal.

Stupid suits!

Now see there.. If I'd have known you were that dumb, I would have cut you some slack and taken some pity instead of expecting that you might say something intelligent. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

If you were an agent for the Homeland Security Department that wrestled in the WWE on the side, I might say you had a point there... but all the hating in the world isn't gonna make me not a musician who has and will continue to play professionally.

But there's gotta be some reason people feel some compelling need to play the game "right" and that's the only reason I can think of... it means something more to them than it does to me.

Unless, of course, your point is simply to help keep my thread on page one and the hit counters going up on my videos... and if that's the case, I thank you profusely for the bump.

[DisposableSoul]

My youtube video says that it's been linked to from somewhere in this forum, but I can't find references to it anywhere. Arrrr.