Instrumentals

[LameRockLord]

If Hmx ever finds a way to work instrumentals into the game what songs would you like to see as DLC?

Personally I'd like to see
YYZ by Rush
Orion by Metallica
and others

[Kilyle]

Canon Rock (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xjJXT0C0X4). That is all.

[TheKitchenSink]

Not going to happen. The singing part is, shall we say, instrumental to the game (sorry, I couldn't resist the pun). Taking that out would leave nothing for the singer to do, which would especially be a problem on a singing solo tour.

[Kilyle]

See, here is what needs to happen for there to be instrumental songs:

Harmonix needs to add a "breather" option during long sets.

Consider the scenario: You get your four players set up for a nice long set, say a dozen songs (http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58110), and just as the third song ends, the drummer gets a call from his girlfriend.

Past experience? This is going to take upwards of five minutes. Options?

1. Sit there and glare at him.
2. Tell everyone to take a break, like it or not.
3. Break the set, play something else, then start over when he's finished (and hope she doesn't phone a second time).
4. Have the vocalist take up drumming for a song.
5. Or - get this - play a song without a drummer, without actually breaking the set.

This option would work whenever one of the players needs to take a break - for whatever reason. A distraction. Needs to make dinner or heat a bottle. Needs an extended bathroom break or a clothing change (getting too hot to drum in that sweatshirt). Too physically tired to play up to par. The vocalist needs to soothe his vocal chords with a good honey tea - whatever.

The moment you allow a mid-set Breather option, you allow songs which have missing parts.

Choose "Vocalist Break" and you get instrumental songs - let your drummer and guitarists really show their stuff. Canon Rock (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xjJXT0C0X4) is one of these. (By the by, Frets on Fire already has Canon Rock - the guitar part, obviously, and not the drums.)

Choose "Guitarist Break" and you get songs with vocals and drums and maybe bass but no lead guitar. I think Within Temptation (http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57154)'s See Who I Am (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysyKcoZvIjk) would fit here (although apparently there are guitars that I just can't hear in that song).

Choose "Drummer Break" and you get songs with guitar and vocals but no drums - maybe even acoustic numbers, but I'm sure there are good strong songs that lack drums out there. Would be a nice change of pace during a long set. I'm sure people have run across songs and gotten ready to propose them here only to realize, oops, no drums. This would be a way to import those songs.

I suggest the Breather option could include a temporary change of difficulty (either up (break) or down (challenge)). It could also include songs of a more sedate nature than normal RB fare - I mean, even Alice Cooper had some ballads.

Or it could include songs with a much less even distribution of elements, the quirkier sorts of songs that wouldn't necessarily be a good choice for "normal" RB... ones with huge pauses in the vocals, or that use drums at two parts of the song but nowhere else. World of Warcraft Idol 2005 (http://wow.azzor.com/files/pafiledb.php?action=category&id=3) winner The Ganker is a piano-base with fun vocals and a repetitive drum track but virtually no guitar part except for a few accents... until the killer solo that I would love to try on Rock Band.

Anyway... there's no reason this couldn't be incorporated into RB2. I look forward to seeing this option made a reality.

[instantdeath999]

See, here is what needs to happen for there to be instrumental songs:

Harmonix needs to add a "breather" option during long sets.

Consider the scenario: You get your four players set up for a nice long set, say a dozen songs (http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58110), and just as the third song ends, the drummer gets a call from his girlfriend.

Past experience? This is going to take upwards of five minutes. Options?

1. Sit there and glare at him.
2. Tell everyone to take a break, like it or not.
3. Break the set, play something else, then start over when he's finished (and hope she doesn't phone a second time).
4. Have the vocalist take up drumming for a song.
5. Or - get this - play a song without a drummer, without actually breaking the set.

This option would work whenever one of the players needs to take a break - for whatever reason. A distraction. Needs to make dinner or heat a bottle. Needs an extended bathroom break or a clothing change (getting too hot to drum in that sweatshirt). Too physically tired to play up to par. The vocalist needs to soothe his vocal chords with a good honey tea - whatever.

The moment you allow a mid-set Breather option, you allow songs which have missing parts.

Choose "Vocalist Break" and you get instrumental songs - let your drummer and guitarists really show their stuff. Canon Rock (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xjJXT0C0X4) is one of these. (By the by, Frets on Fire already has Canon Rock - the guitar part, obviously, and not the drums.)

Choose "Guitarist Break" and you get songs with vocals and drums and maybe bass but no lead guitar. I think Within Temptation (http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57154)'s See Who I Am (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysyKcoZvIjk) would fit here (although apparently there are guitars that I just can't hear in that song).

Choose "Drummer Break" and you get songs with guitar and vocals but no drums - maybe even acoustic numbers, but I'm sure there are good strong songs that lack drums out there. Would be a nice change of pace during a long set. I'm sure people have run across songs and gotten ready to propose them here only to realize, oops, no drums. This would be a way to import those songs.

I suggest the Breather option could include a temporary change of difficulty (either up (break) or down (challenge)). It could also include songs of a more sedate nature than normal RB fare - I mean, even Alice Cooper had some ballads.

Or it could include songs with a much less even distribution of elements, the quirkier sorts of songs that wouldn't necessarily be a good choice for "normal" RB... ones with huge pauses in the vocals, or that use drums at two parts of the song but nowhere else. World of Warcraft Idol 2005 (http://wow.azzor.com/files/pafiledb.php?action=category&id=3) winner The Ganker is a piano-base with fun vocals and a repetitive drum track but virtually no guitar part except for a few accents... until the killer solo that I would love to try on Rock Band.

Anyway... there's no reason this couldn't be incorporated into RB2. I look forward to seeing this option made a reality.

Would you have to do this between songs? Because I could see a band pick the option when something like Blackened comes up. Would it just automatically swap out that song?

I like this idea, because I really want some excuse to be able to include songs that won't necessarily work for everyone. John Lennon's Imagine would fit the "no guitar".

But what about a song like Bohemian Rhapsody? That has lead guitar, but only near the end... or Exit Music (for a film) by Radiohead, or Behind Blue Eyes by the Who, which both have no drums until the end. Would that still count as a "drumless" song?

Like I said, that sounds like a great idea.

[BuRn7 CaK3]

i wouldn't mind instrumentals. Since most of the time i do play RB with friends, we usually dont have a singer.

[2pacchrist]

I'm not a singer and i'd like to see some crazy solo guitar stuff so I'm all for it

[xerichx07]

Never going to happen.
(Vocalist, duh)

[Kilyle]

instantdeath999, the way I'm envisioning this, the Breather would simply insert a song - once the song is over, the set continues as if nothing happened. I think replacing a song would sorta defeat the purpose of a long or random set in BWT. That said, I'm neutral about the idea.

If you look at the end of my long post, you'll see where I point to quirky songs with only a little guitar here and there or the like (e.g., The Ganker, which has a killer guitar solo but almost no guitar presence the rest of the song - and a drum track that was clearly generated by some machine just to be backup). I think that these could work for when a player just needs a physical break but doesn't need to leave the game for a bit. So when his foot is too tired to drum, you start up a song that has only a little drumming near the end, and he takes a break for most of the song.

It might be good to have a Breather song be in no-fail mode, since technically it's not part of the set you're actually playing. But that's assuming they even get a no-fail or jam mode to begin with.

Bear in mind, I think they have a ton of full-band songs to import before they even get to this stage, and I think the coding will be in RB2 or later, not as a patch to RB1. But ignoring the possibilities inherent in partial-band songs would be a sad thing indeed - especially for, as BuRn7 CaK3 said, groups that don't usually have a singer anyway.

[I am Legend]

yyz definatly, malignant narcissism, and natural science would be great for rockband.

[Kilyle]

YYZ by Rush
Orion by Metallica
Canon Rock

I assume these are also instrumentals:

Malignant Narcissism
Natural Science


And these are songs that lack one or more instruments, so would be fun to play if they added a mid-set "Breather" option:

See Who I Am (Within Temptation)
Imagine (John Lennon)
Bohemian Rhapsody
Exit Music (Radiohead)
Behind Blue Eyes (The Who)
The Ganker (winner of World of Warcraft Idol 2005)

Any further suggestions?

[digglefallen]

I agree 100%.....the singer can sit there and do tamborine for all i care....

Heres what we need

Interstellar Overdrive by Pink Floyd
Jessica by The Allman Brothers
Maggot Brain by Funkadelic
Tocatta by Emerson,Lake, and Palmer
Moby Dick by Led Zeppelin
Soul Sacrifice by Santana
Walk-Don't Run by The Ventures
Wipe Out by The Surfaris
Buck's Boogie by Blue Oyster Cult
Cause We've Ended As Lovers by Jeff Beck
Scatterbrain by Jeff Beck
Green Onions by Booker T. and The MGs
Surfing with the Alien by Joe Satriani
YYZ by Rush
Hall of the Mountain King by The Who
Lark's Tongue In Aspic - King Crimson
Nottingham Lace by Buckethead

[defenestrater]

I can't see them ever putting instrumentals in the game, but if they did I think F***ing in the Bushes by Oasis would be perfect.