Drum Difficulty?

[pntbllrspdr]

Ok... They say that if you can play the drums in rockband on expert, you can play them in real life (not true of course, just said to show how hard they will be). Well, from all the videos I've seen, anybody could just walk up and play it. It seems extremely easy.... I'm really hoping the videos are shown of Medium at the max..

[R0ck3r]

Ok... They say that if you can play the drums in rockband on expert, you can play them in real life (not true of course, just said to show how hard they will be). Well, from all the videos I've seen, anybody could just walk up and play it. It seems extremely easy.... I'm really hoping the videos are shown of Medium at the max..

1) They said if it you can play it on hard, you can play drums in real life. Also that is in a way true because the timing of hitting the drumming and using the bass pedal in sync.
2) Nobody can know what difficulty they are on unless they showed it or played it. All of the difficulties use all of the pads and drum pedal.

[SoraRikuVGM]

Watch the Tom Sawyer drums on Expert video.

YOU'LL SEE

[Emo_Reaper]

Sorry Chief,but your NUTS if you think they're easy. Well,maybe not so nuts if your talking about medium,or easy,those are extremely easy.Then hard,well,it gets hard(if your not a drummer) assuming your not. Then here comes expert...and all expert is,is alot more kick pedals,crashes and fills. If you wanna see hard parts,look at Tom Sawyer,Wave of Mutilation,Epic,and Black Hole Sun on Expert. Im a drummer myself,and i just got PWNED by those songs today on expert. Trust me,they're challenging.You'll love em.

[pntbllrspdr]

Hmm... maybe I've been watching the wrong videos. Can I have some links to the hard ones please?

[CaptainHowdy101]

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easy as pie....

[pntbllrspdr]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, those look MUCH better, thanks man

[Akaymay]

Here's a REALLY tough one!

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[Emo_Reaper]

DANNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

That is INTENSE!

[pntbllrspdr]

holy crap!

[Emo_Reaper]

I no longer have a craving for playing that cowbell...

[jonfitzsimon]

Yeah, mastering the drums is going to be a challenge to say the least. I have a buddy who is in a kick-ass Texas funk band and i wonder how he would do...

[Bakkster]

I believe the quote was "If you can play on expert you can basically play the drums". Big difference is that you would still need to learn to control your dynamics (how to play louder, softer, and at the same volume). As well you will need to learn how to do a proper fill (instead of flail your limbs wildly) and be consistent (better by getting close to 100% on expert).

You will learn limb independence and a lot of common beats, so assuming you decide to play drums you have a HUGE head start. Just don't expect to be at performance quality having only played RB.

[Keebler]

I believe the quote was "If you can play on expert you can basically play the drums". Big difference is that you would still need to learn to control your dynamics (how to play louder, softer, and at the same volume). As well you will need to learn how to do a proper fill (instead of flail your limbs wildly).....

Perhaps the extensive Tutorial mode will teach us youngins how to do proper fills? :)

[Jimmik]

Reading those note charts and being able to understand and play those consistantly, I can confidantly say you would be able to play them on a drum set. Really, Dont Fear the Reaper isn't a terribly tough song on drums and those note charts make it look really tough, lol. Can't wait to get my hand on the drum kit :D

[jonfitzsimon]

the tough part would be memorizing them. you wont have a screen to look at on a real stage.

[icantwaitforrockband]

I believe the quote was "If you can play on expert you can basically play the drums". Big difference is that you would still need to learn to control your dynamics (how to play louder, softer, and at the same volume). As well you will need to learn how to do a proper fill (instead of flail your limbs wildly) and be consistent (better by getting close to 100% on expert).

You will learn limb independence and a lot of common beats, so assuming you decide to play drums you have a HUGE head start. Just don't expect to be at performance quality having only played RB.

FTW!!

Thank you!

[parastroke7]

HehehHARHARHAR.

pntbllrspdr came in here thinking this wasn't going to be tough...MAN!

You jokin' me? Ever played a kit before dude? It's a lot different when you park yourself down and try to be a drummist for the first time. The "air drums" don't just play themselves like they do when you're sitting on your bed in front of your dresser. YOU gots to make the notes.

Just joshing you, but seriously...this game will learn you a thing or two about drum technique, even if it isn't an awful lot. If you can 97% Tom Sawyer on expert, you might want to consider buying a real kit. THAT, sir, is just plain common sense.

[Feigned]

I don't think you'll be disappointed on the drums. The hardest part is getting your foot to cooperate in sync with your hands. They were kicking my ass on hard (though I'm no drummer). I imagine that the learning curve will be as much fun as the guitar was on GH.

[PsycoCheerio]

I've played enough to be able to play some songs on hard, but I've played a hefty amount of time at bus tour and other game conventiony things so far...I actually have worked my way up from Medium, and i can still only do the easier songs on hard...

[RkBndDrmr]

the tough part would be memorizing them. you wont have a screen to look at on a real stage.

By the time you hit any kind of stage that matters, you've played the song a few hundred times...I could play my set list blind at this point.



Easy? Not at all. This will help you learn the drums for sure, but not quite. The position of the drums, range of movement, teaching a 4th limb new tricks (left leg), etc etc..which is the reason why some real drummers (expecting myself included) are getting owned playing the game on the harder levels. Knowing the song in RL is not gonna instantly give you a 100% in the same, and it's gonna be the same in reverse.

It'll be interesting to see how this game will affect the non-drummers in my house. It's rare now having anyone touch my kit but I have a feeling that will change. I'm gonna need new sticks...lots of sticks....

[KingofQUEEN48]

i just caNt belive that this kid wOuld think that the drums were'nt gOing to Be hard!

[DasBoot]

I'm so certain that the drums are going to be hard, very hard, that I have very little confidence that I'll be able to beat the expert tour. The "Don't Fear the Reaper" video has me worried (I really wish they showed the note chart during the solo instead of the players). Who knows thought, it may be like the learning curve in Guitar Hero

[pntbllrspdr]

i just caNt belive that this kid wOuld think that the drums were'nt gOing to Be hard!

I Just can't beliEve you didn't Read my post. I had only seen a few videos and the drums looKed easy on them. Of course I think differently now seeing the harder ones..

[Bakkster]

I Just can't beliEve you didn't Read my post. I had only seen a few videos and the drums looKed easy on them. Of course I think differently now seeing the harder ones..

Ooooh, BURN! ;)

[parastroke7]

hahaha

Word.

[JarethLegend]

I still have my doubts about the difficulty of the songs, but that's because I've been playing drums my entire life. I've seen the videos and I haven't found anything difficult yet and am not really planning on seeing anything difficult. I just really hope that fills in expert are not free-form. If anybody can confirm that all the fills in expert are charted entirely then I'd be a happy person.

[Magnet]

Considering the free-form fills are the only way to use overdrive in drums, I would expect them in single-player.

[vtjustinb]

I still have my doubts about the difficulty of the songs, but that's because I've been playing drums my entire life. I've seen the videos and I haven't found anything difficult yet and am not really planning on seeing anything difficult. I just really hope that fills in expert are not free-form. If anybody can confirm that all the fills in expert are charted entirely then I'd be a happy person.

I think our difficulty is going to come in the fact that the timing window will be just a little bit off, like GH always has been, and we have to play behind the beat or something way off just to hit the notes. :P

[JarethLegend]

Considering the free-form fills are the only way to use overdrive in drums, I would expect them in single-player.

That's pretty sad. Then another question would be how many of the fills are free-form? If the answer is most of them then the difficulty drops tremendously.


I think our difficulty is going to come in the fact that the timing window will be just a little bit off, like GH always has been, and we have to play behind the beat or something way off just to hit the notes. :P

Well then I guess I'll be using earplugs to play this game and I'll just imagine the songs in my head, heh.

[Haruka]

I still haven't seen anything as difficult as some of the songs on DrumMania (disregarding DrumMania has an extra pad) :(

I'm not really a fan of the Rock Band song list (when it comes to rock I'm more into rock'n roll or classic/soft rock - hey you can't please everyone :) ) but I've been considering getting Rock Band just so I can get better at DrumMania when I can't make it to the arcade (cause yeah the DM console controller sucks and I can't afford an electronic kit yet).

So is there stuff on Expert with similar difficulty to these tabs, or should I just save my money for e-drums:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1cx0lD8PEg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeSiB1MpP4M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jHI7Olt-G0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WylOiVjDt8E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFIgiiGqR50

[undertow]

Here's a REALLY tough one!

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This one posted by Akaymay, looks just as hard, if not harder than most of the links you provided for Drum mania. Also, the only reason you see a cool down on either drumer is due to the mode they are playing. Otherwise, one drummer would be expected to play all parts continiously.

Even, if in your opinion the links you provided are still harder, you cannot deny that atleast in this one clip provided for Rock Band, it is quite comparable.

[jq71586]

That video scares the bejesus out me. I'm going to be starting drums hopefully on medium and it's going to take a while to work up to that.

[TheRocker]

That video scares the bejesus out me. I'm going to be starting drums hopefully on medium and it's going to take a while to work up to that.

I know thats what makes me want to play the drums even more , The Challenge!

[Haruka]

Yeah I've seen that video, the bit before the camera is on the screen looks like it might be pretty hard, but the rest actually looks easy (tiring leg-wise maybe).

I'm just curious exactly how hard the songs get on Expert, there aren't a lot of vids around to give you a good idea :( . And I haven't seen any full length songs at higher difficulties (some stuff on Hard at E3? but that looked fairly plain). On DrumMania a hard song will be hard for 2 minutes straight. But because Rock Band uses existing material and not songs created especially for it I'll assume that the difficulty of an Expert song will waver between solos/fills and beats (not that I actually know 90% of the songs on the game so this is just a guess :) ). Hence we're probably missing seeing the hard parts of a song on video?

Guess we'll have to wait for the game to come out for some decent Expert videos to appear.. Being an Aussie I'll have plenty of time to pore over them before we get Rock Band here :rolleyes:

[JarethLegend]

This one posted by Akaymay, looks just as hard, if not harder than most of the links you provided for Drum mania. Also, the only reason you see a cool down on either drumer is due to the mode they are playing. Otherwise, one drummer would be expected to play all parts continiously.

Even, if in your opinion the links you provided are still harder, you cannot deny that atleast in this one clip provided for Rock Band, it is quite comparable.

You are completely wrong. I'm guessing you don't play drums and have never played DrumMania? RockBand in terms of difficulty from everything I've seen, including all the songs announced so far, the free-form fills and the fact that it uses one less pad means that it isn't even remotely comparable.


I still haven't seen anything as difficult as some of the songs on DrumMania (disregarding DrumMania has an extra pad) :(

I'm not really a fan of the Rock Band song list (when it comes to rock I'm more into rock'n roll or classic/soft rock - hey you can't please everyone :) ) but I've been considering getting Rock Band just so I can get better at DrumMania when I can't make it to the arcade (cause yeah the DM console controller sucks and I can't afford an electronic kit yet).

So is there stuff on Expert with similar difficulty to these tabs, or should I just save my money for e-drums

Honestly, if you have a limited amount of money, care about drumming and difficulty then the way to go is with a good set of e-drums. Not only can you use them on DrumMania which is an extremely difficult game, but you can also use it on your computer to play DTXMania which allows you to have even more difficult custom songs. And that is just the gaming use for the e-drums. They have so many other uses. Check out Tony Verderosa ( http://www.tonyverderosa.com/ ). He uses an acoustic/electronic mixed kit and plays entire techno shows by himself. I own all his videos and they are amazing.

[Spear_of_Destiny]

I dont know about all this drumming business, (guess i will soon), but judging by those vids, i would surmise that the hardest instrument that seems to make most people suck hairy mooseballs is vocals. why isnt there anyone who sounds good being given a microphone? for the love of God....

[Haruka]

Honestly, if you have a limited amount of money, care about drumming and difficulty then the way to go is with a good set of e-drums. Not only can you use them on DrumMania which is an extremely difficult game, but you can also use it on your computer to play DTXMania which allows you to have even more difficult custom songs. And that is just the gaming use for the e-drums. They have so many other uses. Check out Tony Verderosa ( http://www.tonyverderosa.com/ ). He uses an acoustic/electronic mixed kit and plays entire techno shows by himself. I own all his videos and they are amazing.


Thanks for the link. I didn't realise there were people who used an acoustic/electronic mix, that's awesome. Yeah e-drums are something I'm definately going to get in the near future... but it's an investment a bit further down the line. I'll probably get Rock Band at some point though (when we get solo instrument options here in Oz) because even though my heart is in DrumMania I love experiencing mostly any music/rhythm game (GH2 has exposed me to stuff I wouldn't normally listen to but I've decided some of it was alright).

What I hope is that with the DLC we'll get more of a range of music. I know it's called Rock Band but I seriously can't see a Jazz Band, Pop Band, etc making an appearance. I really love the range DrumMania has (rock, pop, ska, disco, classical, jazz, surf rock, etc) so hopefully HMX realise they can tap into other market areas by expanding the music choices available. The other cool thing about DrumMania is all the original content that is produced for it, if HMX worked with bands to create new material we could see some really hard charts for those that are after that and it would be supporting the music industry too.

Back on topic, I found some more videos on GameSpot that showed bits of Expert songs and they really aren't that hard at all. I can do the same thing, or just about, on DrumMania and I'm nowhere near good at that game yet. So unless they're hiding the really hard stuff from us or the difficulty level jumps dramatically I don't think we'll have anything insanely difficult to deal with. But I'm glad there's a lot of bass drum work in charts, I have trouble getting my leg to alternate with my hand at a decent rate (notably when keeping time on the ride/hi-hat with a snare thrown in) and DTXMania on keyboard doesn't help the physical limb coordination bit, so that'll be of use to me until I can get to the arcade more regulary or buy e-drums.

And yeah I agree vocals will be hardest of all... I can't sing for crap, hard as I try

[McDeezy]

You could use the rock band drum set for a DrumMania sim, but with one missing pad that would suck.

[HeXcoda]

I dont know about all this drumming business, (guess i will soon), but judging by those vids, i would surmise that the hardest instrument that seems to make most people suck hairy mooseballs is vocals. why isnt there anyone who sounds good being given a microphone? for the love of God....

Agreed. In fact, I'm wondering if there was something wrong with the audio sync on those Gametrailers videos -- the guy was hitting the right pitch but was consistently off by half a beat. It made watching the drumline itself very difficult because what you saw and what you heard was not lining up.

I've played and cleared every Karaoke Revolution game, but granted, I rarely bothered with the higher difficulties (since they don't net you much). I wonder how much harder RB's gonna be? Early reports from the tours say the vocals are utterly unforgiving...

If we're expected to shanghai our family and neighbors to play BWT, hopefully BWT will allow easy difficulty settings for casual gamers -- and the easy settings for drums will be playable with a minimum amount of hours poured into it. Save the shattered elbows for the folks who want to hit the pinnacle of Expert drumming, that's fine, they deserve the bragging rights, as long as there are modes mere mortals can play, too!

[Haruka]

You could use the rock band drum set for a DrumMania sim, but with one missing pad that would suck.

Yeah, with the console version you'd have to put the cymbal or hi-hat on Auto (whatever didn't get mapped - assuming it worked out ok anyway) and that would be pretty boring. I think DTXMania might let you map two things to one pad if it could recognise the controller.... but that would sound kinda bad if say both toms were always triggering simultaneously. Plus it would screw up learning to move around the pads.

Lucky DM let's you add in whatever you please while playing, correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't RB penalise like GH if you hit when there isn't a note? Kinda sucks for adding your own touches in breaks or whatever if so :(

I'm actually curious if anyone in the DM community comes up with any mods for the drums. I know you can use GH controllers for GuitarFreaks with almost no issues.

[McDeezy]

Yeah, with the console version you'd have to put the cymbal or hi-hat on Auto (whatever didn't get mapped - assuming it worked out ok anyway) and that would be pretty boring. I think DTXMania might let you map two things to one pad if it could recognise the controller.... but that would sound kinda bad if say both toms were always triggering simultaneously. Plus it would screw up learning to move around the pads.

Lucky DM let's you add in whatever you please while playing, correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't RB penalise like GH if you hit when there isn't a note? Kinda sucks for adding your own touches in breaks or whatever if so :(

I'm actually curious if anyone in the DM community comes up with any mods for the drums. I know you can use GH controllers for GuitarFreaks with almost no issues.

I think the reason it doesnt let you add you own sound is becuase each pad isn't assigned its own sound. In drum mania each pad is for one noise. Rock band is just like playing guitar hero with pads.

[Haruka]

I think the reason it doesnt let you add you own sound is becuase each pad isn't assigned its own sound. In drum mania each pad is for one noise. Rock band is just like playing guitar hero with pads.

That's actually incorrect. While the pads are more defined in DrumMania you still have the cymbal pad doubling as a ride/crash cymbal and the hi-hat will sound different in different parts of the song depending if it's open or closed. The toms also sometimes change their assigned sound mid-song, such as acoustic to woodblocky or real electronic/techno sounding effects.

So if part of the song calls for open hi-hat sound (say 4th notes for 2 bars) and you play 8ths on the hi-hat pad instead then you'll hear all open hi-hat sounds. If the next bar is done the same except it's a closed hi-hat then the sound changes.

RB could do the same thing in that repect with regards to the drums (ie pad that is making cymbal noise continues to do so until it is changed to tom sound or whatever). I suppose it makes it harder if you're only allowed to hit notes when the chart says so.. And given RB doesn't use a timing rating system it's about the only way you can realise you're doing something wrong. DM let's you play whenever you like but the timing is nowhere near as forgiving as RB/GH and you know when you're hitting something that isn't there or you're timing is slightly off. One reason Guitar Freaks is so damn hard is that it has brutal timing and you have to stick to the note chart.

[espher]

I think you pointed out the big difference between DrumMania and Rock Band's drums:

Rock Band uses existing material whereas the stuff for DrumMania is often specifically for the game.

The RB can't be all Jordan. ;)

That being said, you might get some epic drum tracks out of DLC (as you would for guitar), keeping in mind the majority of it will be classic songs and perhaps not speedcore techno drum machine drum fests, but the launch suite will probably not be in the same ballpark as DrumMania (although it will have some challenging tracks). ;)

[HeXcoda]

I think you pointed out the big difference between DrumMania and Rock Band's drums:

Rock Band uses existing material whereas the stuff for DrumMania is often specifically for the game.

That's the major appeal, to me. I tried DrumMania and Guitar Freaks while at an anime convention once, but the music... it's just random custom music for the game. Designed more for artificial difficulty than for listenability, it doesn't really work as MUSIC. GH/RB/etc take material that was engineered as music first, then applies a game layer on top -- usually less difficult, but more enjoyable as a result.

[JarethLegend]

That's the major appeal, to me. I tried DrumMania and Guitar Freaks while at an anime convention once, but the music... it's just random custom music for the game. Designed more for artificial difficulty than for listenability, it doesn't really work as MUSIC. GH/RB/etc take material that was engineered as music first, then applies a game layer on top -- usually less difficult, but more enjoyable as a result.

I think that all depends on your definition of MUSIC.

[Haruka]

That's the major appeal, to me. I tried DrumMania and Guitar Freaks while at an anime convention once, but the music... it's just random custom music for the game. Designed more for artificial difficulty than for listenability, it doesn't really work as MUSIC. GH/RB/etc take material that was engineered as music first, then applies a game layer on top -- usually less difficult, but more enjoyable as a result.

Ok I don't actually know the figures on how much in DrumMania/GF is written specifically for the game and how much is covers/masters of real music. It is probably something like 70% covers/masters vs 30% original, but hey I could be wrong. I honestly have only managed to scratch the surface in exploring the music across all 15 versions (yeah 15, lol). A portion of the covers percentage also get significantly different musical arrangements, such as the classical stuff being generally rock themed.

Your argument about the 'music' is based purely on your personal taste and I don't think you should make assumptions about a game you obviously don't know well enough (and only played once? Maybe you picked crap songs :D ) I don't really appreciate people saying my music tastes suck so bad they shouldn't be called music :mad: . Not everything in DM is hard, or designed to be hard.... so don't get that impression. There are plenty of songs that only have a top rating of about 30 or 40 (out of 99, most songs have 3 levels of difficulty) but they are really fun. And a lot of the songs are apparently covers/masters of popular J-Pop and J-Rock stuff - from a few I've checked out the originals of the drum parts match too.

It's been said before but it all comes down to music tastes really, that's why I was trying to focus on discussing the differences in the game mechanics (the bits HMX didn't borrow ;) ) and the charts. I don't really like RB songlist.....at all. I'm sure I will tolerate it but I'll be focusing on my beats not the rest coming out of the TV (which isn't to my tastes - bar a few songs). Taste is not necessarily about knowing the songs either, when I started DM I didn't really know anything (ok the first time I ever played was cause 2nd Mix had 'I Only Want To Be With You' which I love :rolleyes: woo 60's pop).

I don't really care how hard RB songs are on drums, what worries me is that the charts in videos look very repetitive... Even for the long versions on DM you don't get bars and bars of repeated backbeat, you actually have some interesting variety that doesn't sound crap. Mostly every RB video I have seen is Beat 1 - Fill - repeat Beat 1 - maybe another fill or a couple of extra beats thrown in. So when I was asking about difficulty before I meant variety because repeated beats = easy and boring if you don't love the music.

[vtjustinb]

I don't really care how hard RB songs are on drums, what worries me is that the charts in videos look very repetitive... Even for the long versions on DM you don't get bars and bars of repeated backbeat, you actually have some interesting variety that doesn't sound crap. Mostly every RB video I have seen is Beat 1 - Fill - repeat Beat 1 - maybe another fill or a couple of extra beats thrown in. So when I was asking about difficulty before I meant variety because repeated beats = easy and boring if you don't love the music.

But most of those tracks (and most studio drumming anyway) are repetitive because the songs aren't about virtuosic playing. It's about groove and support. By that same token there are plenty of contemporary drummers that are anything but minimalist behind the kit, and there are also ways of playing the same beat with subtle variation (hi-hat pressure, ghost notes, etc.)--but at the end of the day it's about the pocket.

I don't want to get into a discussion about taste or appropriateness (I personally can't stand people that are so into proving their chops in a song that they are all over the place unmusically), but the parts in RB should be somewhat repetitive. Both to support the novice players who will need to develop that approach to play, as well as to be true to the original tracks and the experience of being part of a song.

I think the bottom line with the difficulty is that there will be tracks that challenge you at the highest levels, and some might not be authentic to the track for various reasons (practicality of the input device, accessibility for the general public, etc.), but it will be fun to play especially with your friends. It's more about the experience of creating music in a social context, and those people that are all "if there's a missing tom note in that fill the song's ruined for me" are sorely missing the point.

[axe990]

Wow, Drummania couldn't look less fun. Seems like, WOW LOOK HOW FAST I CAN HIT THIS! I KNOW IT SOUNDS TERRIBLE BUT I CAN PLAY IT! Rock band is real music with real drum charts and seems WAY more entertaining. Plus i don't see y people need everything to be so hard, why cant it be a challenge (not ridiculously impossible) and still fun.

[Haruka]

Wow, Drummania couldn't look less fun. Seems like, WOW LOOK HOW FAST I CAN HIT THIS! I KNOW IT SOUNDS TERRIBLE BUT I CAN PLAY IT! Rock band is real music with real drum charts and seems WAY more entertaining. Plus i don't see y people need everything to be so hard, why cant it be a challenge (not ridiculously impossible) and still fun.

Obviously you've never played DrumMania, and didn't read any of my comments. DrumMania DOES use real music (wtf is there such a thing as fake music) AND real charts. I posted video links to some of the hard songs... not everything is anywhere near that hard. There is a Beginner's mode and in Standard mode the difficulty ranges from about 15 to 99, with charts gradually getting harder. There are 450+ songs in the current arcade release (V4 - or version 14DM/15GF) and mostly all songs have 3 difficulty levels.

Hence if you want to play insanely hard stuff you can... otherwise you can choose how much you challenge yourself. If you don't want to play hard stuff then don't, simple, no need to whinge about it. Obviously some people care about pushing themselves as far as possible, maybe that's fun to some people.

I think it's really sad people put down this game without having ever played it, or simply because it doesn't cater to one music taste and they'd have to know where to look in the song list to find the music of interest to them. Most people don't realise that HMX has yet to do anything new or innovative with the drums that hasn't been done before, save creating a controller of good quality.

Try playing the game for a decent amount of time before you give a mature comparision next time.

[McDeezy]

Obviously you've never played DrumMania, and didn't read any of my comments. DrumMania DOES use real music (wtf is there such a thing as fake music) AND real charts. I posted video links to some of the hard songs... not everything is anywhere near that hard. There is a Beginner's mode and in Standard mode the difficulty ranges from about 15 to 99, with charts gradually getting harder. There are 450+ songs in the current arcade release (V4 - or version 14DM/15GF) and mostly all songs have 3 difficulty levels.


I think it's really sad people put down this game without having ever played it, or simply because it doesn't cater to one music taste and they'd have to know where to look in the song list to find the music of interest to them. Most people don't realise that HMX has yet to do anything new or innovative with the drums that hasn't been done before, save creating a controller of good quality.

Try playing the game for a decent amount of time before you give a mature comparision next time.

With the music, I understand 100%. It's the same **** with DDR. In the arcades the music is great and very fun to play. I played DDR for about 4 years and I knew everysong on every version (back when I played there was 8 which was DDR Extreme). Playing the arcade music was great. Even though some of it was wierd it just gave the game its on personality. It may have been created for DDR or Beatmania (becuase alot of DDR songs were just shorter edits of Beatmania songs), but the stepcharts were great. Then the us versions come out. You cant really make a cool stepchart to Justin Timberlake's "Rock Your Body". I think DDRMAX was great it had 95% Jap songs from the arcade. DDRMAX2 was decent. But DDRExtreme was where it got bad with the music. I popped in Supernova 2 to check out the song list the other day and I couldn't find an arcade song. I know its meant to pull more people in that could give a damn about that, but to the arcade players it sucks.

I'd be happy as all hell to be able to try drummania. They don't have it around where I live so I'm screwed.

[Haruka]

Yeah I've played DDR for 4 years ^_^ Funny how all the fans import the Japan console releases to avoid the crap they put in on the US/PAL releases. I don't have a modded PS2 yet so I'm stuck with all the 'Dancing Stage' PAL releases (I do have 2nd mix & Club mix on my Dreamcast though). There are actually a couple of western songs I really like on some of the games.... but Tatu on SuperNOVA...yuck. A lot of the western stuff they put in just doesn't work, the step charts are so boring and/or don't match at all.

Hopefully you'll get the chance to try DrumMania sometime ^^ unfortunately I don't have one really near me either :( I have to travel about an hour to get to it. It's sad that a lot of arcades are dying off these days. Speaking of western songs, DrumMania V4 has quite a few as part of it's new song additions - including Rock And Roll All Night by KISS, Fat Lip by Sum41, BLACK NIGHT by Deep Purple, NEMESIS by Arch Enemy, PARANOID by Black Sabbath and September by Earth, Wind & Fire. I've only played September and Fat Lip so far and both were really fun. Makes me wonder if Konami will wake up and release GF/DM here with a more western soundtrack.

[JarethLegend]

Makes me wonder if Konami will wake up and release GF/DM here with a more western soundtrack.

Well if you mean they should release in the United States then sadly I don't believe they can. I've read many times and even on wikipedia they show that MTV has a patent on "drum simulation games" which means that Konami can't release DrumMania here. I can't believe you can patent something so general in the first place. I've been extremely bitter about this issue ever since I first found out. DrumMania is a million times a better game than anything that has or will be coming out for a very long time.

[JackBNimble]

Here's a REALLY tough one!

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Looks like a challenge

[axe990]

why is there an extra snare hit in Dont fear the Reaper during the verses. If you look, thers one to many red notes. You can even see the fake drummer (in the game) hitting the snare two times, where theres only one hit...

[vtjustinb]

why is there an extra snare hit in Dont fear the Reaper during the verses. If you look, thers one to many red notes. You can even see the fake drummer (in the game) hitting the snare two times, where theres only one hit...

I think it's b/c the guy playing doesn't really know what he's doing.

Which also makes me wonder how hard it really is, or if they're just flailing wildly without a clue. :P

[The_Vampire_Lestat]

I think it's b/c the guy playing doesn't really know what he's doing.

Which also makes me wonder how hard it really is, or if they're just flailing wildly without a clue. :P

Well it is dueling... and it prolly just matters who has the highest score at the end.

And to the person who is talking about DM:

Without a doubt DM is more advanced then Rock Band's drums. 5 pads and a kick pedal. But it really is about the songs we will be playing... even though I wish they had done 5 pads and a kick.

[axe990]

I think it's b/c the guy playing doesn't really know what he's doing.

Which also makes me wonder how hard it really is, or if they're just flailing wildly without a clue. :P

No im saying that the note chart itself has an extra snare hit.

[Haruka]

Well if you mean they should release in the United States then sadly I don't believe they can. I've read many times and even on wikipedia they show that MTV has a patent on "drum simulation games" which means that Konami can't release DrumMania here. I can't believe you can patent something so general in the first place. I've been extremely bitter about this issue ever since I first found out. DrumMania is a million times a better game than anything that has or will be coming out for a very long time.

Because of Drumscape yes... but according to Wikipedia (looks like the Drumscape page was updated since I last looked from just saying that it was apparently crap) there were international patents for all music games..


Devecka's Patents

First and foremost, Devecka's international patents not only covers drumming games but also all music games (including but not limited to Guitar Freaks, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution, and others in the genre)

Devecka was a pioneer in the creation of music games, as the MTV Drumscape was the first coin operated musical instrument based video game. The introduction of his patented music game was more than one year prior to Konami's Beat Mania in 1997. Devecka's international music patents are now owned by Activision.

The article lacks sources though so taking that with a grain of salt might help.

Plus what about Donkey Konga? That was released and simulates bongo drums. I really think that it shouldn't be an issue for Konami to get GFDM out to the US/PAL countries. And from reading that Wiki entry it implies Activision have a right to sue Konami (and even HMX) for breaching it's patents anyway, which is absolute bullcrap given how much Konami have done for the music game genre.

Anyway if anyone was sued because of the patent I don't believe the court would do anything. We don't see patents for racing game, platform or FPS genres do we? Or to look at it another way, there's no patent for crime novels, fantasy novels, action movies, etc. Patenting a genre is just ridiculous...

EDIT: reading the Drumscape patent, it seems to focus on referring to an arcade machine and a tool specifically to help you learn about drums. I doubt much more of it could really stick. People apparently make patents for anything from what I can see...


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EDIT 2: Can't be bothered making a new post for this but I just remembered something I read on DDRFreak but didn't pay attention to cause it only concerned US. DrumMania V4 is actually getting a US release in arcades. In fact you guys get to use the e-amuse system and have real-time battles with people in Japan playing the game. So unfair we don't get e-amuse in Oz :(