Any Expert Guitar Advise on Green Grass and Flirting with Disaster

[Sweet_Lou]

I have beaten every song on expert except Green Grass and Flirtin with Disaster. I can play the songs no problem but the solos cause me to fail.

To Anyone out there that has beaten these on guitar expert. Any suggestions. I make sure I have full starpower going into the solos, but it is never enough.

Thanks in Advance,
Louie

[mct685]

I don't know... just play alot? The difficulty level kinda jumps in this game on guitar because everythin is pretty damn easy until these last few basically. Maybe go back and play some GH2 or something until you get better? The difficulty in that game for guitar is handled much better as in you get better the farther you go. Get better at some of them and you'll get better overall?

[sporkBrigade]

For Flirting with Disaster, I truely can't remember what was hard about that solo. Can you describe it?

For Green Grass, I definitely remember. :D There are 3 things you have to master to make it through that song, since Star Power won't be enough.

First are those stairstep sections. Let's use the G/R/Y/R/G as an example. Never lift your index finger off Green. Next, think if your middle and ring fingers as being taped together. So don't make any attempt to actually move them independantly, move them as one connect piece. It's weird, but this is what helps me do it. Now "roll" you fingers onto Red, then yellow, then roll them back off. You actually have to focus on doing this in time to the music, because you're going to tend to rush/speed up. But this is a smooth pattern. Slow and steady, rolling on, then off, then on, then off. Keep your time on the yellows, and just focus on being as smooth as possible rolling off, then back on to yellow. It sounds weird, but if you can trick your brain into doing this rolling trick, it smooths out your timing. The window for RockBand is smaller then any previous guitar game, so your timing needs to be spot on.

Second, sets of 4 pull offs. O/B/Y/R will be our example. There is something about the timing in this game that if I try all 4 pulls offs with all 4 fingers, I fail. There is something wrong in the transistion from pinky to the other fingers that is just enough to make it impossible for me, and I bet other people will find the same. However, I found that if I start at the top of the pull off with my ring finger on Orange, then think of it as a triple to yellow, I could nail it. With your index finger on yellow, just slide down to Red, and your done. Start over with Ringfinger on Orange. Again, this is one of those things that might have no effect for you, but I went from 25 percents to 90 percents on those sections when I started doing this. It was insanely drastic.

Finally, fast triplets. These are hard for your brain to reproduce. This song is very similiar to Free Bird, but with one drastic difference. All these patterns are triplets, where in FreeBird they were 16th notes. It's a subtle differance, but it messes with your head. Triplets have to be smoothed out. Your brain wants to seperate them out into sections of three with a space in between. To see what I mean, tap your foot right now in a steady beat. On every beat, tap your fingers in sets of three, starting with your ring finger, ending with your index finger. Ring finger always starts on the beat, in time with your foot. What you'll find is that the pattern staggers, you'll tap out the three beats faster naturally, and this creates a slight gap between them. This isn't what you want. You want no gap, you want a steady stream of notes with no audible transistion in between, and this is what the game wants. Practice this as you're walking around. Make it sound as close to a drum roll as possible. Make it impossible to tell the difference between each finger, as if it was just one finger tapping on the table really really fast in perfect time. If you can manage that, then those triplets in the game will clean up quite a bit.

Anyway, those are the finer points I had to focus on to beat that damn song. I hope it helps.

[DrEvyl666]

For Flirting with Disaster, I truely can't remember what was hard about that solo. Can you describe it?

It's real similar to GGAHT.... very long solo sections that are too long for you to be able to get through them on Overdrive.

I'm in the same position... I've finished Expert except for those two songs, and can't get past them. If the HO/PO functions in this game worked as well as GH3, I don't think I'd have a problem... but they seriously need to work on that aspect of the gameplay in this game. It's tough to even tell which notes you can even do that with, especially when you have them coming at you that fast.

Has anyone tried using the high buttons on the RB guitar for these? Does it help?

[YellowPencil]

For Flirting with Disaster, I truely can't remember what was hard about that solo. Can you describe it?

For Green Grass, I definitely remember. :D There are 3 things you have to master to make it through that song, since Star Power won't be enough.

First are those stairstep sections. Let's use the G/R/Y/R/G as an example. Never lift your index finger off Green. Next, think if your middle and ring fingers as being taped together. So don't make any attempt to actually move them independantly, move them as one connect piece. It's weird, but this is what helps me do it. Now "roll" you fingers onto Red, then yellow, then roll them back off. You actually have to focus on doing this in time to the music, because you're going to tend to rush/speed up. But this is a smooth pattern. Slow and steady, rolling on, then off, then on, then off. Keep your time on the yellows, and just focus on being as smooth as possible rolling off, then back on to yellow. It sounds weird, but if you can trick your brain into doing this rolling trick, it smooths out your timing. The window for RockBand is smaller then any previous guitar game, so your timing needs to be spot on.

Second, sets of 4 pull offs. O/B/Y/R will be our example. There is something about the timing in this game that if I try all 4 pulls offs with all 4 fingers, I fail. There is something wrong in the transistion from pinky to the other fingers that is just enough to make it impossible for me, and I bet other people will find the same. However, I found that if I start at the top of the pull off with my ring finger on Orange, then think of it as a triple to yellow, I could nail it. With your index finger on yellow, just slide down to Red, and your done. Start over with Ringfinger on Orange. Again, this is one of those things that might have no effect for you, but I went from 25 percents to 90 percents on those sections when I started doing this. It was insanely drastic.

Finally, fast triplets. These are hard for your brain to reproduce. This song is very similiar to Free Bird, but with one drastic difference. All these patterns are triplets, where in FreeBird they were 16th notes. It's a subtle differance, but it messes with your head. Triplets have to be smoothed out. Your brain wants to seperate them out into sections of three with a space in between. To see what I mean, tap your foot right now in a steady beat. On every beat, tap your fingers in sets of three, starting with your ring finger, ending with your index finger. Ring finger always starts on the beat, in time with your foot. What you'll find is that the pattern staggers, you'll tap out the three beats faster naturally, and this creates a slight gap between them. This isn't what you want. You want no gap, you want a steady stream of notes with no audible transistion in between, and this is what the game wants. Practice this as you're walking around. Make it sound as close to a drum roll as possible. Make it impossible to tell the difference between each finger, as if it was just one finger tapping on the table really really fast in perfect time. If you can manage that, then those triplets in the game will clean up quite a bit.

Anyway, those are the finer points I had to focus on to beat that damn song. I hope it helps.

This is probably the most helpful thing I've read about beating this song.

Thanks for not just posting GO PRACTICE.
Off to go try that.

[Sweet_Lou]

thanks all will give this a whirl

Louie

[sporkBrigade]

It's real similar to GGAHT.... very long solo sections that are too long for you to be able to get through them on Overdrive.

I'm in the same position... I've finished Expert except for those two songs, and can't get past them. If the HO/PO functions in this game worked as well as GH3, I don't think I'd have a problem... but they seriously need to work on that aspect of the gameplay in this game. It's tough to even tell which notes you can even do that with, especially when you have them coming at you that fast.

Has anyone tried using the high buttons on the RB guitar for these? Does it help?

Personally I'm completely used to the look of the HO/POs now, and actually prefer them to previous GH games. The rectangles give you the chance to see more subtle differences in timing. That just wasn't possible with the circles. The size difference is also simply something to get used to. Remember the first time you noticed HOs in Guitar Hero had white circles instead of black? Yeah, that sucked for me until I grew used to it. Same story here.

As for GH3, they sort of spoiled you with their HO/POs. You may have not been able to tell unless you'd played previous GH games, but they widened the timing window in GH3 to make HO/POs easier to hit. I suppose it's up to personal preference as to whether that makes it "better". Rock Band timing is very very small. It's actually the exact same system, other then visually. Rock Band just requires a lot more precision. Also, just to clear up any confusion, Harmonix invented the HO/PO system, and Neversoft copied it in their attempt to recreate the Guitar Hero systems from scratch. So I'm pretty sure Harmonix doesn't need to learn anything from Neversoft.

The Solo Buttons make both of these songs much easier. Personally, I still need to strum certain parts to keep time, like the decending 4 pulloffs. But overall the solo buttons work like a dream. Once you're used to them, of course. At first, they'll make you fail out of even the easiest solos. :D

[Nickzilla]

If the HO/PO functions in this game worked as well as GH3, I don't think I'd have a problem... but they seriously need to work on that aspect of the gameplay in this game.

Please tell me you aren't serious. Part of what made GH3 such an piss-poor game was that they made the hammer-ons and pull-offs far too easy. Accuracy is important. I'd rather miss a note then feel like I cheated to get through. GH3 actually did something I didn't think was possible. It made Guitar Hero not fun.

The two guys giving advice both made excellent suggestions. Either work on those parts specifically, or go play GH2. GH2 had the most comparable gameplay to RB's, so skill gained there should translate nicely.

As for telling the difference between hammer-on's and regular notes, for me it's almost easier to just look for changes. If you're doing a bunch of Hammer downs, and you can't tell what's what just keep doing what you're doing until something looks different. Then strum.

Or, just practice. It seems like a nasty thing to say, but playing fake guitar is a skill, like being a fake soldier, or playing real guitar, and there are no shortcuts. To increase your skill level you just have to work at it. In the long run, that work may not even be worth it. I don't even play my solid gold strat.

[sporkBrigade]

This is probably the most helpful thing I've read about beating this song.

Thanks for not just posting GO PRACTICE.
Off to go try that.

Heh, you're welcome. I'm a huge supporter of Practice, but this song specifically had me stumped for a while. It was the very first song I failed during my Rock Band Solo tour. Not bragging, just making a point. It's specifically very hard, and I had to learn very specific timing to nail those parts. I can do stairsteps, decending 4s, and triples in GH2 and 3 to my heart's content. But it was very very strict here on your timing, so that changes everything.

Hope you all have better luck! I'll play through Flirting with Disaster when I get a chance and see if anything jumps out at me that's worth learning.

[sporkBrigade]

Just watched a video on Youtube of Flirting, and I remember now. It's just a hard f***ing solo. :D Staggered threes up and down seem to be the number one killer. I have two ways of doing these, which I use depends on what my brain is deciding to do to me at the moment. First way is I've learned the following combo without moving my fingers. O/B/Y/B/Y/R. So that's index on R, pinky on O. Learn that pattern as best you possibly can, and slide for everything else. So if the next part is Y/R/G, you just slide your index finger for Green, then reset with pinky on Orange.

However, there are days when my pinky is not in the mood for this action, so my back up involves way more sliding. I start ring finger on Orange, triple down to index on yellow, then middle on Blue, index yellow, slide to red. Then Middle Yellow, index red, slide to Green. In simpler terms, treat Orange to Yellow like a normal triple, then do the next 2 triples using only your middle and index fingers, sliding to the third note each time. This works especially nice on the strat, sliding on the Les Paul has always caused me more problems.

Some people can just hit each triple using ring, middle, index fingers, and move their hand down for each one. If you can do this, you're awesome! It always kills me for some reason though, so sliding works a lot better for me.

Staggering Hammerons are the exact same story, but harder. I don't know why they're harder, they just are. But try all three techniques I mentioned. Sometimes while sliding is easier for Pulloffs, you'll find moving your hand for each set of three is easier for Hammerons. Or Vice Versa. Weird, but true.

[DrEvyl666]

Please tell me you aren't serious. Part of what made GH3 such an piss-poor game was that they made the hammer-ons and pull-offs far too easy. Accuracy is important. I'd rather miss a note then feel like I cheated to get through. GH3 actually did something I didn't think was possible. It made Guitar Hero not fun.

I'd tell you I wasn't serious if I wasn't, but I am... There's a point when "accuracy" becomes ridiculous, I thought GH3 was a blast and then had to relearn the old way (which seems to be more suited to a gamer's mentality than a musician's) to do the harder sections. After a while I stopped even caring if I hit the fast sections of the solos because the HO/PO stuff was too much of a pain in the ass.

But I guess it all is in how you define the word "fun". I personally don't think grinding my fingers to hamburger doing a video game song on a fake guitar over and over and over and over for "accuracy" is fun, especially when the accuracy isn't so much that I'm not hitting the right note at the right time, it's that the game does things in ways that aren't exactly natural in a musical sense. I'd rather put that work into a real instrument and go out and do some gigs.

[visualdeity]

Please tell me you aren't serious. Part of what made GH3 such an piss-poor game was that they made the hammer-ons and pull-offs far too easy. Accuracy is important. I'd rather miss a note then feel like I cheated to get through. GH3 actually did something I didn't think was possible. It made Guitar Hero not fun.


If he's not, I am. I'd kill to have GH3's hammer-ons and pull-offs in this game. Harmonix dropped the ball by making the window tighter, it tips the frustrating/fun balance too much to "frustrating".

[sporkBrigade]

If he's not, I am. I'd kill to have GH3's hammer-ons and pull-offs in this game. Harmonix dropped the ball by making the window tighter, it tips the frustrating/fun balance too much to "frustrating".

Wait, are the two of you saying that Rockband is more frustrating then GH3?

What bizzarro universe have I stumbled into?

The only reason GH3 made their HO/POs sloppy was so that they could double the number of notes you had to play, and it wouldn't be impossible. Frustrating as hell, ironically enough, but not impossible. If that's your thing, super. But how is a more realistic timing window "frustrating"? I mean, other then it's not what you're used to?

[visualdeity]

Wait, are the two of you saying that Rockband is more frustrating then GH3?

What bizzarro universe have I stumbled into?

The only reason GH3 made their HO/POs sloppy was so that they could double the number of notes you had to play, and it wouldn't be impossible. Frustrating as hell, ironically enough, but not impossible. If that's your thing, super. But how is a more realistic timing window "frustrating"? I mean, other then it's not what you're used to?

I don't give a damn about realism. If I wanted realism, I'd pick up the real guitar sitting in my living room and play that. I'm playing a game, and want to have fun. Rock Band's timing window is too tight, and it makes it not fun.

GH3 is too hard, it's true, but that's only once you get late in the game. Up through the 6th tier, the difficulty is just fine, and the looser HO/POs make it play like a dream.

EDIT: And I just don't bother with anything past the 6th tier in GH3, because I can't stand any of those songs except One, which I just play on Hard.

[dblduece]

I'd tell you I wasn't serious if I wasn't, but I am... There's a point when "accuracy" becomes ridiculous, I thought GH3 was a blast and then had to relearn the old way (which seems to be more suited to a gamer's mentality than a musician's) to do the harder sections. After a while I stopped even caring if I hit the fast sections of the solos because the HO/PO stuff was too much of a pain in the ass.

But I guess it all is in how you define the word "fun". I personally don't think grinding my fingers to hamburger doing a video game song on a fake guitar over and over and over and over for "accuracy" is fun, especially when the accuracy isn't so much that I'm not hitting the right note at the right time, it's that the game does things in ways that aren't exactly natural in a musical sense. I'd rather put that work into a real instrument and go out and do some gigs.

Good lord dude, you complain about the singing, you complain about the guitar playing. Why the hell did you buy the game?? If you'd rather go out and do some REAL gigs then do it and stop putting stupid videos of yourself on YouTube playing the game that you hate so freakin' much!

[visualdeity]

Good lord dude, you complain about the singing, you complain about the guitar playing. Why the hell did you buy the game?? If you'd rather go out and do some REAL gigs then do it and stop putting stupid videos of yourself on YouTube playing the game that you hate so freakin' much!

You're drawing conclusions which are not supported by the facts. Having complaints about a game doesn't mean you hate it. I have complaints about almost every game I've ever played, but that doesn't make them games I hate by any stretch of the imagination.

[sporkBrigade]

I don't give a damn about realism. If I wanted realism, I'd pick up the real guitar sitting in my living room and play that. I'm playing a game, and want to have fun. Rock Band's timing window is too tight, and it makes it not fun.

GH3 is too hard, it's true, but that's only once you get late in the game. Up through the 6th tier, the difficulty is just fine, and the looser HO/POs make it play like a dream.

EDIT: And I just don't bother with anything past the 6th tier in GH3, because I can't stand any of those songs except One, which I just play on Hard.

Well, it played like a dream for you. For me, it was sloppy and inaccurate, I didn't enjoy it very much.

I think you're making a big leap by comparing the "realism" of a smaller timing window to picking up your guitar and playing it. There is still a gap between those two activities about the size of the grand canyon. I think there is a middle ground of more accurate timing that is still very short of real instrument playing. I'm sure you're willing to ignore that middle ground in favor of your criticism, though.

Of course, there's always my favorite default. If you love GH3 so much, go play it and stop posting in Rock Band forums. :D

Wow, sorry for indulging Thread Hijacking. I promise I won't post here again unless it's on the topic of how better to complete Green Grass or Flirting with Disaster.

[visualdeity]

Well, it played like a dream for you. For me, it was sloppy and inaccurate, I didn't enjoy it very much.

I think you're making a big leap by comparing the "realism" of a smaller timing window to picking up your guitar and playing it. There is still a gap between those two activities about the size of the grand canyon. I think there is a middle ground of more accurate timing that is still very short of real instrument playing. I'm sure you're willing to ignore that middle ground in favor of your criticism, though.

Of course, there's always my favorite default. If you love GH3 so much, go play it and stop posting in Rock Band forums. :D

Wow, sorry for indulging Thread Hijacking. I promise I won't post here again unless it's on the topic of how better to complete Green Grass or Flirting with Disaster.

Rock Band is nothing like playing a real guitar, you're correct. I didn't say it was anything like it, I said that I didn't care about realism because I can get the ultimate realism from the real instrument. If I wanted more realism, why would I stop at the middle ground when I can easily go for the whole thing?

And I play both games, thank you very much. Unlike most people around here (and on the GH3 forums for that matter, Rock Band gets a lot of undeserved hate there), I have the capacity to play both games and not have some bitter hatred towards either one.

[the_spike]

The Flirtin w/Disaster solo is easy for me.

Just strum every now and then in the string of hammer ons to make sure you don't break one and miss 10+ notes at a time. I just strum the beginning of each OBY hammer on sequence instead of just hitting OBYBYRYRG with hammer ons. That way you'll only miss two notes if you mess up the hammer ons and not the entire sequence after when you're struggling to get back on speed.

[DrEvyl666]

Good lord dude, you complain about the singing, you complain about the guitar playing. Why the hell did you buy the game?? If you'd rather go out and do some REAL gigs then do it and stop putting stupid videos of yourself on YouTube playing the game that you hate so freakin' much!

Annoying you is much more fun. LOL

[DrEvyl666]

Wait, are the two of you saying that Rockband is more frustrating then GH3?

I wouldn't say so, no. I'm just 2 songs away from finishing RB on Expert guitar, and I would kinda like to get there... I dunno if I can with the "realism" version of HO/PO (which, BTW... is not realistic at all when you consider what you're mimicing).

I'd say Rock Band's songs in general, are easier... the HO/PO thing is the only thing keeping me from finishing the game on expert guitar...


What bizzarro universe have I stumbled into?

I dunno, man... next thing you know people will be saying that chocolate is better than vanilla, the toilet paper roll goes on the holder so the end is on the front, and dogs and cats will be sleeping together invoking the kind of mass hysteria that only a Cecil B. DeMille production could accurately capture on screen.


The only reason GH3 made their HO/POs sloppy was so that they could double the number of notes you had to play, and it wouldn't be impossible. Frustrating as hell, ironically enough, but not impossible. If that's your thing, super. But how is a more realistic timing window "frustrating"? I mean, other then it's not what you're used to?

It's not the timing window that is the issue for me, it's the unreastic method of fingering notes where you have to hold the freaking buttons down the entire time, and where the HO/PO does not coincide with the reality that the guitarist in the song is doing a HO/PO. That is not realistic at all.. and considering that my fingers have been conditioned for 27 years not to do that when I'm playing fast stuff, I highly doubt I'm gonna relearn it in a way that RB will like. Not to mention that I'd rather not screw up my ability to do it for real.

GH3 specifically seems to feel more natural for how a musician would play it.

And BTW.. I played GH2 before GH3, and I was so happy that the changed that in GH3 that it wasn't even funny. Hey, what do you know, I can actually finger it like I would on a guitar!

[ThePaska]

For Flirting with Disaster, I truely can't remember what was hard about that solo. Can you describe it?

For Green Grass, I definitely remember. :D There are 3 things you have to master to make it through that song, since Star Power won't be enough.

First are those stairstep sections. Let's use the G/R/Y/R/G as an example. Never lift your index finger off Green. Next, think if your middle and ring fingers as being taped together. So don't make any attempt to actually move them independantly, move them as one connect piece. It's weird, but this is what helps me do it. Now "roll" you fingers onto Red, then yellow, then roll them back off. You actually have to focus on doing this in time to the music, because you're going to tend to rush/speed up. But this is a smooth pattern. Slow and steady, rolling on, then off, then on, then off. Keep your time on the yellows, and just focus on being as smooth as possible rolling off, then back on to yellow. It sounds weird, but if you can trick your brain into doing this rolling trick, it smooths out your timing. The window for RockBand is smaller then any previous guitar game, so your timing needs to be spot on.

Second, sets of 4 pull offs. O/B/Y/R will be our example. There is something about the timing in this game that if I try all 4 pulls offs with all 4 fingers, I fail. There is something wrong in the transistion from pinky to the other fingers that is just enough to make it impossible for me, and I bet other people will find the same. However, I found that if I start at the top of the pull off with my ring finger on Orange, then think of it as a triple to yellow, I could nail it. With your index finger on yellow, just slide down to Red, and your done. Start over with Ringfinger on Orange. Again, this is one of those things that might have no effect for you, but I went from 25 percents to 90 percents on those sections when I started doing this. It was insanely drastic.

Finally, fast triplets. These are hard for your brain to reproduce. This song is very similiar to Free Bird, but with one drastic difference. All these patterns are triplets, where in FreeBird they were 16th notes. It's a subtle differance, but it messes with your head. Triplets have to be smoothed out. Your brain wants to seperate them out into sections of three with a space in between. To see what I mean, tap your foot right now in a steady beat. On every beat, tap your fingers in sets of three, starting with your ring finger, ending with your index finger. Ring finger always starts on the beat, in time with your foot. What you'll find is that the pattern staggers, you'll tap out the three beats faster naturally, and this creates a slight gap between them. This isn't what you want. You want no gap, you want a steady stream of notes with no audible transistion in between, and this is what the game wants. Practice this as you're walking around. Make it sound as close to a drum roll as possible. Make it impossible to tell the difference between each finger, as if it was just one finger tapping on the table really really fast in perfect time. If you can manage that, then those triplets in the game will clean up quite a bit.

Anyway, those are the finer points I had to focus on to beat that damn song. I hope it helps.

Thanks a lot this will really help me I think, Green Grass and High Tide's "stairstep" part of the solo, I think it is H and I, are so hard for me to get, hopefully now I can pass this song and be done with it!