The Old Man Band (Players Over 30)

[rockinrollers]

About 3 weeks ago, I posted about how I had tried my first RB vocals song - Visions. Did it on Fragile's recommendation to try barking the whole song and ended up FCing it and 6th place too.

As an experiment, I decided to try singing the other songs on expert vocals one by one. I would do a few songs each night and only try each song once.

Ended up going through all 84 songs and passing all of them on the first try, except for American Woman (2 tries) and Rob The Prez (6 tries). Even gold starred/FCed 10 of them.

So, I guess Platinum vocals will be easy for me to get.

However, I can't help but feel its kind of cheap because I know I'm not the greatest singer and will never be as good as many of the top vocalists on OMB like Zarlor, Bazoo and Fragile. There seems to be a big difference in the ease of Platinum Vocals vs. Platinum Guitar/Bass and especially Platinum Drums.

I was wondering why there were so many Platinum Vocalists out there. Is it because it is easy to pass the expert vocal songs, but hard to FC them?

[johnnyroq]

I don't know how easy it is to pass experts vox, I think singing in RB is a little different than singing in RL. You don't have a wavy line to follow and something telling you whether or not that last phrase was awesome or messy.
I was clicktaring with a vox and we had skype session with audio going. What I heard was not in the least bit singing, but him fluctuating his voice to match what RB wanted to "hear" from him. I think that kinda defeats the purpose of the game. Sure you wanna score points, but do it for real.

[HamsterRiot]

I think there is a big difference between scoring well in RB and singing the song ... I have a harder time with my scores because I like to really sing the song rather than 'keep it on the line' ... I just think it is more fun that way (points be damned! ha ha) ... with that said, plat vox is something I think many can get through by using some simple techniques but I think you end up feeling a sense of accomplishment by mastering the songs with true vocal structure ... I know when I hear Bazoozoo's voice come through his ustream feed it is a good voice not a mumbled or all falsetto noise to keep it on the line. (impressive!)

I usually keep the vocal track down low and sing when I play RB ... most songs I have been able to "make my own" ... many others I have to imitate the artist to make it work (lookin at you AC/DC grr) ... and I confess to using falsetto to make it through cool for cats.

I think the most important thing is you have fun and sing like nobody is watching!!

[Bazoozoo]

Yeah, this is something that frustrates me. Sometimes I feel like if I belt it out the way I want to the arrow will go way off the pitch bar... it's makes me mad. The mic they've given us isn't very good and there's no high quality alternative. I've tried to find ones but none work with the Wii.

I bought a pop filter in the hope that I could belt things out louder and stay on the pitch bar a bit easier. I think it helps a little bit but sometimes its seems like the arrow responds to volume as well as pitch. It can act kind of strange at times.

But some songs let you sing them properly. My favorite sounds to belt out (and still score well on) are:
Master Exploder, I Was Wrong, Alex Chilton, Kids Aren't Alright, Jane Says, Painkiller, Let There be Rock...

John - your experience with scoring well on vox stems from the fact that you already know the melodies from having done the songs on bass. That's the largest factor in being able to sing these songs (maybe 75% of it). The rest is a combination of technique (know the tricks), having the proper mic sensitivity setting (I adjust mine depending on the song but it's usually 2 or 3 notches down from max), and experience.

If it weren't for the fact that you know most of these songs you probably wouldn't have done as well. Try doing some true Vox sightreads (on songs you've never heard before) and then you might see a difference.

I'm happy to see you've done it and while I agree it's easier to do Vox, as compared to other instruments, there are some elements (and quirky songs) that make it tricky and frustrating to master...

[HamsterRiot]

I agree with Bazoozoo ... you have already have a good knowledge base of the music and I suspect a great voice too which will make it easier to ace the songs you know well =)

Mic sensitivity is a big thing with RB ... I keep mine just above half but some songs I adjust it for.

I think it is great that you are giving vox a go!! Keep us posted on your progress =)

[zarlor]

I keep mine on half all the time for sensitivity. Doesn't seem to make much difference for me to either side of that, but it does seem to have some effect on picking up taps (I tap the side of the mic holder, not the stand, the actual rubber holder, with a drumstick which makes for pretty accurate reads when I have the sensitivity at half.) But, yeah, I can sing most every song in the game straight (I need falsetto on a few, but because it's in my falsetto range, normally... falsetto is not a bad thing, it's still your voice and your vocal range and if you work at it well enough you can even smooth out that break point between those vocal registers 2 and 3 so the transition isn't abrupt.)

But there are plenty of frustrations. If I want score I can get the most consistency by mush-mouthing the consonants so as to keep the vowels flowing, and some of the talkie sections require specific techniques (some of them not very good for you to use vocally). Plus not every song is exact about what they want sung, as some singers play with the pitch a lot but RB wants you to hold it steady, or RB wants you to sing something the vocalist isn't even singing at all (Tngled Up In Blue anyone?) A constant, specific song and pitch are all fine and dandy for a choral singer, but RB2 doesn't help much doing lead vocals anyway because a good singer will often play around with pitch in a song anyway, and RB doesn't let you do that. Guitar Hero: World Tour does have some improv sections to do that, but they are even more annoying in their own way. Trust me, RB2 is far better for vocals implementation, even if it seems "easy" to do.

But I agree, top scores for it are less about belting away at the song, and more about precise notes and timing and an uncanny ability to activate Overdrive in the right spots and at the right lateness, not an easy thing to do. So to me Platinum Vox doesn't man a whole lot, but lots of FCs and/or GSes on Vox do mean quite a bit, just not about vocal technique, per se (after all without vocal technique you aren't going to be on the right pitches in the first place!), but it is about a certain level of skill at doing the things needed to get the game to score you well. Knowing some of those things, and how hard some of them can be, are what gives me more of an appreciation for some of the scores vocalists post moreso than how well they might be able to sing overall. (And why not, it's not about how well you play guitar when hitting those buttons, is it?)

[HamsterRiot]

some of the talkie sections require specific techniques (some of them not very good for you to use vocally).

ohhhhhh ... that darn part in 'One way or Another' ... grrrrrrr

I swear I will never figure it out .. ha ha!!

[rockinrollers]

Good feedback from three great singers I respect. I want to reiterate, I think its easy to pass the expert vocals songs, but hard to score high. I had 10 GS/FCs but also had about 20 songs in the 80s too.

I tried singing all of them with my normal singing voice but I quickly noticed a fair amount of them were out of my normal range (e.g. Paramore, Go-Go's, Avenged) and I had to go falsetto or drop an octave on these.

I agree Baz, familiarity played a role in some of this because some of the songs I hate and never play on the other instruments were tougher for me on vocals.

It's too bad the game doesn't reward the highest scores for true vocal representation of a song as opposed to the way the game wants u to sing it.

[zarlor]

I sometimes wish OD weren't involved in scoring, at least for vocals, at all. Yeah, we'd see a TON of tied scores, but at least we'd all know that we, essentiallly, nailed it. Maybe in that sense the percentage of notes hit meter in GHWT is a better meter (although it also uses OD for scoring purposes.) As to having notes be what you are really hearing as opposed to what RB wants you to sing, that is strictly a function of what the developers code in. I belive the comparison here is to, essentially, a midi file with the notes in a single octave range that they are matching to. If the notes in that file don't match what the singer is singing (and I suppose double-flats might be a tad odd to put into a midi) then they just won't match that song. Sometimes you see really odd decisions as well, even in the same song, where the HMX team decided to hold a note at a steady tone when the singer in the song drops off with it, but then later the want you to sing the impromptu stuff by that same singer exactly. I never can figure out why they decide to do it sometimes but not on others.

[jammmer]

Vocalists so temperamental...