3 cymbals to 2: Is it cheating?

[snakebert]

I have a Rockband 2 drumset that I upgraded to pro by adding 3 cymbals (yellow, blue, green). I have been doing a lot of Pro Drumming and I can play most songs on hard and some easy ones on expert. I can even gold star a handful of 3 notches of difficulty songs.

I would like to make the leap to Pro Drums expert. Would it help to drop the cymbal count from 2 to 3 (by lowering the physical difficulty)? Are the Pro Drums scores different when using 2 cymbals instead of 3? Whould that be considered cheating?

Thanks,
Snakebert

[Bulzeeb]

Pro drums are scored differently compared to regular drums. Legacy Drum notes are worth 25 each and Pro Notes are worth 30.

When playing Pro Drums, kick notes and red notes are always worth the 30 points since there are no variants of them possible when changing from Legacy to Pro. However, yellow, blue, and green notes can either be worth 25 or 30 points depending on which cymbals are activated.

So to answer your question, no you're not cheating if you need to deactivate a cymbal for higher difficulties, as the game compensates the easier feel of not needing to distinguish between a pad or a cymbal note for one color by reducing the points for that color back down to 25.

[blaze122]

I got my Pro Cymbal kit soon after RB3 was released and out of the box the green ymbal didnt work so I've always had 2, i dont mind. I have never honestly noticed the scoring difference, I still gold star songs on Pro.

[Pitch-Black]

Yeah, I had my blue cymbal go out quite a while ago and have been stuck with two ever since. Personally I find it more difficult to play without the cymbal than with it since my brain doesn't think tom when the sound is a cymbal. Then again, I never played drums in RB before Pro. And since the option is available to disable each cymbal, obviously HMX themselves didn't concider it cheating and realized that it might even be necessary at times.

[The-XaiaX]

I started using the cymbals with RB2 (just playing by ear), and a couple times I've had issues with a pad or cymbal on the ion drum set, and reducing the number of cymbals to 2 doesn't really make it any easier. (When RB3 came out and "pro" was added, I had to relearn a few parts I had misheard, or perhaps are mischarted - but otherwise the transition was basically instant)

The vast majority of the time you're going to be hitting the yellow cymbal, for the high hat. Lots of rock songs will supplement that with playing the same beat on blue for the ride. Doing transitions between cymbals is easier than trying to go back and forth from cymbals to pads, because you don't have to adjust the height you're playing at.

So, just put up all the cymbals you have, and play with all of them. It's not going to be easier to switch, and if you were doing that, when you wanted to add in the ones you weren't using, you'd have to unlearn all your previous muscle memory. Better to start out doing it "right".