Sooo, about these extra five buttons...

[Brock_Landers]

There seems to be two schools of thought on this. One is that the five buttons are for you to use both hands and pull off Eddie Van Halen style solos.. and the second is that they're identicle in use to the original five frets, and just make HOPO solos easier due to their position and smaller size.

Of course this is all speculation and conjecture, because the GI article was kinda vague on it.

Is there any way we can get some official confirmation on how this works? I'll understand if it's not something that can be discussed yet, but it sounded pretty finalized so y'know...

[Apoc29]

My understanding is that you only use the extra 5 buttons for special solo sections, but it would be good if they would let you use them for regular notes as well, you know, just for variety.

If by "Eddie Van Halen style solos" you mean "tapping", then they don't really intend for you to use 2 hands, but it would make you look cooler. Their intention is just to relieve you of the strumming responsibility.

[Brock_Landers]

You're relieved of strumming responsibility with any HOPOs already, though?

[Apoc29]

For HOPOs, you have to strum once to get the chain started, and if you mess up, you have to strum again to continue the HOPO chain. With tapping, you don't have to worry about strumming at all, just jam on the fret buttons at the right time. I believe this is what Harmonix is trying to do, but of course, I can't confirm that.

[MountainKing]

It isn't confirmed, but in the GI article I beleive the quote was something like..."so you dont have to keep time with the strum bar". So just straight HoPo for the really hard solos.

Sounds kewl to me. I have faith in Harmonix, they pulled it off better than anyone with GH, then just got better with GH2. So anything they do with it will work exactly how you would want it to.

[Slab_X]

I think they'll use the extra frets in a combination of Guitar/Bass solo's, plus general higher notes, so you're moving your hand up and down the guitar neck periodically. I think it's going to be an awesome, refreshing guitar experience.

How will they distinguish between the 2 sets of frets? Perhaps the different background colour of the fret board? That's what I thought at least when I saw the screen shots with the purple fret board.

-Slab

[sa_nick]

If by "Eddie Van Halen style solos" you mean "tapping", then they don't really intend for you to use 2 hands, but it would make you look cooler. Their intention is just to relieve you of the strumming responsibility.

I was thinking that tapping is exactly what they wanted us to do since we wont have to strum. Most people probably wont, but those of us who are really into music probably will. It'll be awesome! I've alway wanted to do it with GHII but yeah, when ya screw up once you have to strum again.