Drum difficulty level? (compare with Drummania)

[AdamWill]

Hi, all - sorry if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find it. I have RB on pre-order, but as a regular Drummania player I'm wondering about the RB difficulty level on drums. For anyone who's played both RB and DM, are there any songs which would rank among the hardest Drummania songs (level 90+)? Or do they only really go up to 70-80s?

[Kylekillgannon]

Hi, all - sorry if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find it. I have RB on pre-order, but as a regular Drummania player I'm wondering about the RB difficulty level on drums. For anyone who's played both RB and DM, are there any songs which would rank among the hardest Drummania songs (level 90+)? Or do they only really go up to 70-80s?

NEIL PEART WILL RAPE YOU!......that's basicly it.........

[admanimal]

I don't have an answer to your question....but if your user name is based on your real name, we may have the exact same name.

[Kylekillgannon]

I don't have an answer to your question....but if your user name is based on your real name, we may have the exact same name.

So you're talking to your self?

[AdamWill]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yZBl_5HSJI

if that's the expert level, then the song's not very hard. that'd only rank in the 60s on DM. unless it's a lot harder in other places.

[AdamWill]

Yeah, it's based on my real name. My surname's Williamson.

[admanimal]

Yeah, it's based on my real name. My surname's Williamson.

Ahhh so close, but not quite. I don't have the "on" at the end.

[AdamWill]

so, er, anyone else care to take a shot at the question? :) Is Tom Sawyer as hard as it gets? Does that song get any harder than shown in the video I linked?

[admanimal]

I remember an interview where Alex said that he thought Won't Get Fooled Again would be the final song on the drum solo career, so that means that it is probably the most difficult.

[Rock_Band_Wii]

so, er, anyone else care to take a shot at the question? :) Is Tom Sawyer as hard as it gets? Does that song get any harder than shown in the video I linked?
Oh that's just the beggining. Towards the end it gets **** you in the ass hard. But DM is still harder. Think of this as Guitar Hero. Newer versions will only get harder. But DM's extra pads and overall harder songs is what puts it ahead. But since this is a home console game it's not gonna be that crazy. Plus it's Harmonix and not Konami.

[AdamWill]

can't find any video of that one. except a short IGN clip which doesn't seem to be on Expert. oh, well. guess I'll have to wait and see.

[admanimal]

can't find any video of that one. except a short IGN clip which doesn't seem to be on Expert. oh, well. guess I'll have to wait and see.

Are there any videos of Drummania on expert? I'd be interested to see how hard some of their songs are.

Edit: This looks insane...is that really how fast the notes go by?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITQoYBIu6PU

[AdamWill]

rock_band_wii: thanks. I can B a few 90+ songs in DM so I guess RB shouldn't be that hard. can always go for full combos though. :)

"Plus it's Harmonix and not Konami."

yeah, the local insanely good GF players found GH rather easy, so it kinda matches what I was expecting.

I don't think the extra pad in DM really makes much difference to difficulty. RB switches around the roles of the pads far more often, so it could reproduce pretty much all the difficult fills in DM. There's not that many times where all five pads actually come into play in such a small space of time that the passage couldn't be mapped onto four pads without making it easier. In the same way that GF is harder than GH despite only having three fret buttons; you don't actually need that many controls to implement almost arbitrarily difficult patterns. In real life they're necessary because you can't switch what sound a pad will play all the time (even on an electronic kit), but in a game you pretty much can.

[Rock_Band_Wii]

Are there any videos of Drummania on expert? I'd be interested to see how hard some of their songs are.
Did you even put forth any effort on that one.

Also Guitar Freaks is harder.

[admanimal]

Did you even put forth any effort on that one.

Also Guitar Freaks is harder.

Considering I have no knowledge of the game, I can't tell what difficulty all of the youtube videos show.

Thanks for being a jerk though, it was helpful.

[AdamWill]

admanimal: yes, many. Here's a few:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZmywLe6zLM

(that's a 98)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YH6fh_2g7Q

(that's a 90)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fck3W3mSdaM

(that's a 91)

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

(that's a 96, hardest song I can pass, I'm nowhere near that good at it though. I hit about 85% of the notes.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky12bxSFPb4

(the hardest song in the game, a 99. shnchobi's the top DM player in the world, and he can only full combo it using this trick. I think one person has full combo'ed it using regular two stick style).

[admanimal]

Wow those are unbelievably hard looking. I can barely follow the notes. I can't imagine any songs on RB being that difficult.

On another note, I hope they release a "deluxe" drum set at some point that has light up pads like the drummania ones... that would be sweet!

[holyground]

I was crusing along with you on the first link: that sounded like a pop song that could be played on the radio in korea, but here's my main point:

You're really compairing two different games in that they have different goals. If you look at the music, HMX is trying to hit a wide audience with popular music. Some of your "90"s don't seem like they'd get much air time.

I'm not sure rockband will ever hit the difficulty level of DM, even in DLC. I say this because I will never buy DLC to play hard songs. I--and I assume most people will follow me on this, but not all-- will buy the songs I like. That's why they announced the Who, Nirvana Metallica: Most of their core audience loves that music.

I may be wrong and they'll release songs that are 99-1101011s. But I think, if I've understood them correctly, that HMX wants rock band to serve as a platform, where people can share music in a new way:

Hey, instead of just listening to my taste in music, let's "play" it.

[RevenGer]

Are there any videos of Drummania on expert? I'd be interested to see how hard some of their songs are.

Edit: This looks insane...is that really how fast the notes go by?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITQoYBIu6PU

You can adjust the speed from 1.0 to 8.0 i believe (the guy on the video was playing on 5.0)

And that song is far from being insane, it looks like an average 'Expert' song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y52PgMYjvzw <- THIS is Insane

[admanimal]

Yeah, I think DM is more about playing a video game and scoring points more than RB, which is about experiencing the music. Nothing wrong with either, just different.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in DM/GF/DDR you only get to play short clips of the song, not the whole things, right?


You can adjust the speed from 1.0 to 8.0 i believe (the guy on the video was playing on 5.0)
e

Do you get more points for playing on a higher speed?

[SmokaCola]

Wow man, I just hope the RB drums are that fun to play. That makes me want to get a PS2 and buy that game.

[AdamWill]

yeah, this isn't a 'DM is better than RB!' thread or anything, just wanted an idea of the difficulty. It's not a *problem* if there's nothing that hard in RB, I just wondered. I love DM but then I also loved GH2, more than GF actually (as I suck at GF :>). I think RB is going to be great from what I've seen.

admanimal: scroll speed is variable between 1x and 10x. 10x is impossible to read, people only use that for playing 'blind' to show off. Elite GF players go up to 7x-8x, but very few DM players play about 5x, that's about the fastest you can comfortably read the notes. Most players stick around 3.5x-5x. I play at 4x. That Desert Rain video is at 5x.

That guy was playing a console version, with a home-brewed controller built from a bunch of Yamaha pads (the DM arcade controller uses Yamaha pads).

Desert Rain is a fun song, it was 67 when introduced and now has been re-rated to 72. I've scored an S on it (which means 95% or more of notes 'perfect' or 'great'). It's nowhere near as hard as the others I've linked to here.

You don't get to play clips, exactly, but the songs are much shorter than in GH / RB. They're all around 1:30 - 2:00 long. The original songs are usually written to this length. Licensed songs are edited down. There are a few 'long' songs in the game which are 4-5 minutes.

[AdamWill]

smokacola: problem with that is the controller. The Konami controller for PS2 DM sucks horribly - I've seen a few people complaining about the RB drums but they look *waay* better than the DM controller. You can play DM with a Yamaha electronic kit, as in that video, but that's very expensive - a decent kit is $800+ new or $500+ second hand off eBay.

It's best just to be lucky and live somewhere there's an arcade machine. Arcade DM is just insanely fun. I've probably spent $2,000+ on it in the last year and a half, heh. I'm in Vancouver where we have very nice machines imported from Japan and maintained pretty well.