AdamWill2
01-09-2008, 12:52 PM
I kinda figured this was obvious, but it seems from some other threads it isn't, so I figured it was worth posting about it for the benefit of anyone who didn't know. :)
People often seem to assume that, when you're playing drums in Rock Band, it actually triggers sounds directly based on you hitting the pads. It does not.
It might be easiest to explain this with a comparison to the other major drum rhythm game - Drummania.
Drummania does trigger sounds directly based on you hitting the pads. How it works on DM is like this:
* The writers create a drum chart based as closely as possible on the original song's drum track.
* Code is then written to make it sound as good as possible when triggered by the game's pads. Things like what sound a given pad should trigger at a given time and how loud it should be are coded in: the stuff the player can't actually control.
* When you play at the highest difficulty level, this is generally all that's played back for the percussion track of the song. On lower difficulty levels, the game automatically (and perfectly) plays the notes that are left out of the chart.
So every hit, when you're playing DM, is actually triggered by the pad directly. If you hit a little late or a little early, you'll hear the beat a little late or a little early. If you have a particular style of playing a roll, you'll hear that style from the game.
RB *does not work this way*. RB uses a much simpler system.
* HMX writes a chart based on the original song's drum track, as closely as possible (usually) for expert, or simplified for the lower difficulty levels. There is no code to actually translate your hits into a good sounding drum track; this is not what RB does. It simply checks that your hits fall within the acceptable parameters for 'matching' the chart, then basically throws them away.
* When you play the game, it simply plays back the master drum track for the song. If you miss a beat, RB will cut a beat out of the master track a split second later, or throw in a stick clack, or both. What's being played back is not triggered by your hits; if you're a little late or a little early you won't hear it, and you'll never hear your own personal style of playing any fill except in the freeform sections, where it simply triggers one given sound per pad.
Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage of the DM approach is that it does not sound exactly like the original song; even if they base the sounds triggered by the pads on samples from the original master track, they don't sample *every single hit separately*, and the cod-electronic-drumkit code can never quite match what the original drummer for any given song did. The advantage is that you actually hear what you play. If you're fast, you can hear it, and adjust, before you get too far outside the boundaries to trigger a miss. Ditto if you're slow. If you screw up, you *hear* what you screwed up.
The RB approach is the opposite. The advantage is that what you hear *is* the original song. If you get 100%, you hear the master drum track in its entirety (minus the freeform fills, and the big rock ending). The disadvantage is that you get no audible feedback on what you're doing. If you're a little fast, but within the boundaries of a 'miss', the game doesn't play back the track fast, so you can't *tell* until you get so fast you trigger a miss. Ditto if you're slow. If you miss a beat, you still hear that beat on the master track, but then a *different* beat is dropped out. This is particularly infuriating if you mess up, for instance, a tough bass triplet, and the game drops out a hi-hat hit a split second later. It makes you think what you missed was the hi-hat hit, when it wasn't.
Personally I prefer the DM approach, but I can see that others would disagree, and I can also see that in a way the RB approach is better suited to the game. You'd lose a lot by not hearing the actual master track for some of the iconic and very well-known songs in the game.
But I thought it was worth clarifying this for anyone who didn't realize it, and I guess it'd be nice to know what other people's opinions are.
People often seem to assume that, when you're playing drums in Rock Band, it actually triggers sounds directly based on you hitting the pads. It does not.
It might be easiest to explain this with a comparison to the other major drum rhythm game - Drummania.
Drummania does trigger sounds directly based on you hitting the pads. How it works on DM is like this:
* The writers create a drum chart based as closely as possible on the original song's drum track.
* Code is then written to make it sound as good as possible when triggered by the game's pads. Things like what sound a given pad should trigger at a given time and how loud it should be are coded in: the stuff the player can't actually control.
* When you play at the highest difficulty level, this is generally all that's played back for the percussion track of the song. On lower difficulty levels, the game automatically (and perfectly) plays the notes that are left out of the chart.
So every hit, when you're playing DM, is actually triggered by the pad directly. If you hit a little late or a little early, you'll hear the beat a little late or a little early. If you have a particular style of playing a roll, you'll hear that style from the game.
RB *does not work this way*. RB uses a much simpler system.
* HMX writes a chart based on the original song's drum track, as closely as possible (usually) for expert, or simplified for the lower difficulty levels. There is no code to actually translate your hits into a good sounding drum track; this is not what RB does. It simply checks that your hits fall within the acceptable parameters for 'matching' the chart, then basically throws them away.
* When you play the game, it simply plays back the master drum track for the song. If you miss a beat, RB will cut a beat out of the master track a split second later, or throw in a stick clack, or both. What's being played back is not triggered by your hits; if you're a little late or a little early you won't hear it, and you'll never hear your own personal style of playing any fill except in the freeform sections, where it simply triggers one given sound per pad.
Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage of the DM approach is that it does not sound exactly like the original song; even if they base the sounds triggered by the pads on samples from the original master track, they don't sample *every single hit separately*, and the cod-electronic-drumkit code can never quite match what the original drummer for any given song did. The advantage is that you actually hear what you play. If you're fast, you can hear it, and adjust, before you get too far outside the boundaries to trigger a miss. Ditto if you're slow. If you screw up, you *hear* what you screwed up.
The RB approach is the opposite. The advantage is that what you hear *is* the original song. If you get 100%, you hear the master drum track in its entirety (minus the freeform fills, and the big rock ending). The disadvantage is that you get no audible feedback on what you're doing. If you're a little fast, but within the boundaries of a 'miss', the game doesn't play back the track fast, so you can't *tell* until you get so fast you trigger a miss. Ditto if you're slow. If you miss a beat, you still hear that beat on the master track, but then a *different* beat is dropped out. This is particularly infuriating if you mess up, for instance, a tough bass triplet, and the game drops out a hi-hat hit a split second later. It makes you think what you missed was the hi-hat hit, when it wasn't.
Personally I prefer the DM approach, but I can see that others would disagree, and I can also see that in a way the RB approach is better suited to the game. You'd lose a lot by not hearing the actual master track for some of the iconic and very well-known songs in the game.
But I thought it was worth clarifying this for anyone who didn't realize it, and I guess it'd be nice to know what other people's opinions are.
