A vote and proposal for better Pro Mode and better Pro Guitars

[Dizco-Pat]

I would also love pro improvements. But as SheSaidSheSaid said, there are not near enough people playing pro compared to people who just do standard.

Even if instead of 1 pro track every week there were 2 pro tracks for guitar. That would make me happy.

[raynebc]

Regarding latency of the pitch detection, they could do what Bandfuse claims it will do: Mute the guitar track, play the audio coming out of the player's guitar and score the playing on the fly. This removes latency from being a scoring problem, but they'd probably end up wanting to add software effects processors to model the guitar audio appropriately for the song.

Allowing for larger range keyboard transcriptions would also be nice. To make screen space less of a problem, maybe they could display it in standard musical notation, scrolling left to right (like the vocals). As a side effect, this helps the user gain the ability to read sheet music. During solo play, there would be plenty of screen space for a much wider, RB3 style pro keys highway that scrolls back to front.

While this is all nice in theory, and there is some demand for it, I acknowledge that there's probably not going to be enough to make it worthwhile for Harmonix to pursue.

[Edwinox]

To answer several points brought up in posts here (thank you all for your contribution):

Lag shouldn't be a (new) problem. There is already a sofosticated lag correction, which is necessary. I recognized drums to be very strict on timing and having a correct lag setting or not made a huge difference. Routing digital sound though my TV made 100 msec, connecting my XBox directly to my receiver brought this down to below 10 msec. Same goes with Rocksmith. As my PS3 is already connected to my receiver directly, I did not encounter any problems at all there.

Cost benefit analysis is something for Harmonix to do. I do not work for them. But as a customer I think I can give feedback and may tell them there is a market for such things. If it's only me, it will not be a sufficient customer base, but I hope there are more out there who like rock band but want play real guita with it.

Showing finger placement is nice but the java programs out there for connecting other midi guitars already showed it is not necessary for the game.

Rocksmith: I already own Rocksmith and really love it, the technology is great. But the game presentation is the weak part. I love Rock Band more here and also like the song library more. Rocksmith is also guitar only, and we play keyboard and Drums as well (Pro Srums are really great with an e-drum set). Looking into both forums: For me there seem to be a lot of people playing and loving both. The people playing the real guitar and pro mode in games may not be the majority, but they seem to be enough for a fair market share. And there already is a market for guita books, DVD's and even training software.

I play karaoke style with my real guitar, but getting points and achievemts on it gets me more fun. We play a lot as band together, which is great fun, but this would be even better with a real guitar for me.

So my main points with this thread are: Show respectively check that/if there are more people interested in a more advanced pro mode. So please continue sharing your thoughts about this here.

[Hippie403]

I'd like Harmonix to continue to develop the Pro instruments in future Rockband titles.

I'd like support for ordinary MIDI guitars, it would open the way for using a cheap bass with a Roland GK-3B pickup and a old Roland GI-20 or Yamaha G-50 guitar MIDI interface as a Pro bass without the need for a PC and MIDI software in the loop.

Even better if Harmonix could get together with a hardware manufacturer and make a "GK" pro adapter that would allow the use of any 13 pin interface equipped guitar directly.

I'm NOT going to ask for an option to plug in an ordinary guitar, I'm aware of the laws of physics and I know that it can never be practical to do this for Rockband style game play. (Rocksmith gameplay is a whole different thing)

I can understand why the casual gamers didn't get on board with Pro, but the casual crowd had already left the house by the time RB3 was released. I know there were factors that limited the uptake of Pro guitar amongst the hard core plastic axe players:

1. premature release of the game before the hardware
2. high cost of Squier and Mustang
3. limited availability of the Squier

Harmonix worked hard on Pro and hoped to grow their market into new areas to counter the loss of casual gamers and I'm sure they attracted some new players that never would have considered playing 5 button plastic guitar. But because of the poor uptake of Pro amongst the core RB players they have been forced to scale back production of Pro guitar tracks.

So all you 5 button pushing monkeys out there who are smug in the knowledge of your elite expert mode skills I implore you to step up and buy a Mustang next time they are on special, buy some pro guitar tracks and reward Harmonix for their hard work.

Let's make those legacy game play modes truly legacy and make pro mode the standard. LOL

[Odin Force]

I really think Harmonix should try to partner with the guys who make the YouRock Guitar... it's surprisingly cheap and effective. I'm sure they'd love the publicity and it seems to be a mutually beneficial concept.

But I'm no CEO or R&D guy, just a guy on the outside and I'm looking in...

[defdog99]

I'd like to hear the pro track in a song with no other instruments playing.

Here's what it _should sound like_ now your turn.

Some drum patterns I cant hear so easy.

[Hippie403]

I really think Harmonix should try to partner with the guys who make the YouRock Guitar... it's surprisingly cheap and effective. I'm sure they'd love the publicity and it seems to be a mutually beneficial concept.

But I'm no CEO or R&D guy, just a guy on the outside and I'm looking in...

I think the YouRock people have been trying to reposition the YouRock Guitar as a serious MIDI controller, so they might not be quite as keen these days to have gaming links.

The existing agreements with Fender and MadCatz may preclude Harmonix from making deals with other manufacturers.

Having said that, I'd like to see more options, I have Mustangs and a YRG. The non standard fret spacing on the YRG throws me off. I'm interested to see what their new Generation 2 YouRock guitar is like. The one image I have seen of it looks like it has a larger strat style body and standard fret spacing. I assume it is still using the same rubber touch fret board.

[zacharyamaranth]

I'd like to see a return of something akin to the Squier. I hated the Mustang, but I slogged along with it until it got wrecked with all my stuff in a fire. I don't want to replace it, because I'm not big on buttons instead of strings. One of these days, I AM picking up Rocksmith, but I would like to be able to play "real guitar" on RB3 because I enjoy the game so much.

[thatmarkguy]

Imo there is demand for a Rockband 4 with Pro Mode enhanced or a better Support of Pro Guitar, Bass and even Keyboard in Rockband 3.

Whether or not there is sufficient demand... isn't really a matter of opinion.

[Whizzer191]

I'd like to hear the pro track in a song with no other instruments playing.

Here's what it _should sound like_ now your turn.

Some drum patterns I cant hear so easy.

I think you can turn down all audio that is not the instrument that you are playing, in effect boosting volume on the instrument you are playing. Should get you the desired effect.