Rock Band 4 Catch-All: Let's get the band back together!

I wonder if the Pro Drums MIDI Adapter will still work here. I have a Roland TD15 which I'd really like to be able to use.

damnablebear wrote:

I wonder if the Pro Drums MIDI Adapter will still work here. I have a Roland TD15 which I'd really like to be able to use.

They have stated they want to make *all* last gen peripherals for both RB and GH(which I find remarkably consumer friendly) work with RB4 - so I wouldn't be surprised if they do!

Did anyone catch this? How was it? They played it at a very odd time, so I was unable to view it.

So, has anyone bought in? I plan to, but there is too much on my plate right now. I suspect I will pick this up over the holidays when my daughter is back in town. Maybe sooner if someone our friends are interested in playing.

How's the game, if anyone is playing?

I intend to but don't have a PS4 yet. Hoping to hear how the compatibility with old songs/dlc and instruments is, since I still have all my stuff in pretty good shape.

My guitars are not in good shape. On one the strummer only reads when you strum up, nd o the other the buttons don't register consistently at all.

Feels weird that there's a new Rock Band game out that I didn't work on. Weirder that I won't be getting it. (I don't have a PS4 or Xbone.)

I will probably play this weekend. Big Box is sitting in my living room waiting to be opened. But a band is never fun with only one person.

Unless you're Jack White.

I got it and tinkered yesterday. My initial impressions on the PS4 (though as you can see I haven't actually been able to play the game):

1) Downloading your old tracks takes time as you have to do them individually. There are some tracks that are just "unavailable" although they will become available. The tracks you already own show up as "free" in the game.
2) Some of the tracks didn't download, and when I tried a second time I would get an error "No data". I used my computer to sign into the PSN and repurchase them (for free) and force a download and that solved the problem.
3) I have only tried one of my old guitars and the calibration is waaaaay off (or I'm really that bad). this may be because of the age and condition of the [fake] instrument. The automatic calibration didn't work at all. So I haven't been actually been able to play it yet.
4) Related to above, I could not find "just" the new guitar which I would be willing to buy. The local Best Buy didn't have them and I couldn't find it on Amazon - there is only the bundle. As I already got the game I obviously do not want the bundle. So if I got the game intending to use my old [fake] instruments and they don't work then I'm just out of luck (?). This seems like something they should have covered (also how do you get the Bass?)

Flintheart Glomgold wrote:

4) Related to above, I could not find "just" the new guitar which I would be willing to buy. The local Best Buy didn't have them and I couldn't find it on Amazon - there is only the bundle. As I already got the game I obviously do not want the bundle. So if I got the game intending to use my old [fake] instruments and they don't work then I'm just out of luck (?). This seems like something they should have covered (also how do you get the Bass?)

Their FAQ says that they do intend to sell individual instruments, starting spring 2016. I assume they wanted to put as much stock as they could into bundles for people buying for Christmas before spreading it thinner.

Picked it up for the PS4:

* Yeah, downloading your songs is a pain right now. I'm guessing they'll get some improvements around that and it seems like all of the store data isn't quite right yet. The in-game store also usually comes up with an error at first but works on a second try.

* My old guitars and drums both seem to work just fine. I think I'm just a little rusty but it seems like the calibration isn't solid. Sometimes it seems right on and other times it seems off by a bit.

* Love the new set list voting. It gives you a pick of four songs and then all members of the band vote on it. Sometimes it's a specific song, othertimes it gives broad categories like "a song from 1976" or "a classic rock song". Makes building your set list fast and fun.

* The new guitar solo mode is interesting and probably fun for people that aren't as good at the game but I'll be sticking with classic solos and work on nailing them.

Otherwise it's what you expect from Rock Band. No frills, unreliable online store but still really fun!

Read the Ars Technica review this morning and it said that they still haven't worked out importing from the previous Rock Band games. Are those with the game finding that to be the case? That's the one that's a deal-breaker for me until it's get resolved. I have some downloaded stuff, but missing the set lists from 1, 2, 3, Lego and Green Day (I know Beatles will never happen), is a bit much to swallow.

Would still love to hear how the experience is for anyone playing on Xbox One. If I do break down and buy, I'm still on the fence between chunking out for a new guitar or just getting the wireless adapter and maybe picking up a new plastic ax next year if I'm still playing the game.

ubrakto wrote:

Read the Ars Technica review this morning and it said that they still haven't worked out importing from the previous Rock Band games. Are those with the game finding that to be the case? That's the one that's a deal-breaker for me until it's get resolved. I have some downloaded stuff, but missing the set lists from 1, 2, 3, Lego and Green Day (I know Beatles will never happen), is a bit much to swallow.

Songs from previous games can't be imported yet, but it is something they'll be doing.

Our Band-In-A-Box showed up from XBONE yesterday, and I immediately cleaned (enough) of the living room to accommodate a new drum kit.

As mentioned above, the Xbox process for "download your old songs" is just as bad as the PSN version. I tried to do this all online at the end of last week, and nothing showed as having been previously purchased. I had my wife go through the XBL store via the console to "pre-download" what she could, but only got about 20 songs before the add-ons screen ran out. We ended up booting into the game and going through the store on there and downloading everything that we could.

To directly answer ubrakto - no, I haven't seen anything related to exporting old disc content. I did feel like a ton of the RB1, RB2, RB3, and RB:Green Day songs were available for $2 each in the store, but since I already have those discs I'd love to be able to port them out. We'll see what Harmonix comes up with.

As for the hardware, the first big surprise to me was the feel of the new guitar. I love it, the buttons feel ready for more wear and tear, and I had zero issues with the auto-calibration (once I turned up my speakers a little bit). I have had an issue where the controller input has "frozen", showing in game as having buttons held or registering the strumbar as "constantly down". When this happens, I had to flip the guitar and pull out a battery to force a reboot, and then be back in business. If this keeps happening, I'll probably reach out to Mad Catz about a replacement, but will most likely get the legacy adapter so I can use my older guitars while waiting for a replacement RB4 guitar.

The drum kit also feels much better. The pads feel "beefier", and will hopefully last a lot longer. The kick has a stronger spring, but the drawback is I'm finding I have to lift my foot all the way up to reset the trigger for registering kicks. I'm "that guy" who leaves the pedal depressed all the time, and only lifts to trigger the kick drums - I felt like the old drum kit handled this a lot better, and finding myself missing a bunch of kicks unless I focus. The base of the kit also feels like it has way more "anti-skid" rubber material. I didn't have any instances of "wandering drum kit" while we played for a few hours last night.

My final big change about the hardware that I love - the new drum and guitar only need TWO AA batteries!

As for the game, I'm liking the new guitar solo piece. Instead of having a 100% pre-scripted solo "section", now you have four major "play styles" - freestyle, hold note, quarter-notes, and eighth-notes. The game takes whatever your (potentially sh*tty) input is, and makes it sound awesome.

I'm also a big fan of the dynamic fills on the drums. In RB3, you just had "fill sections" where you could play whatever you wanted, and so long as you ended the section on a green note, you'd trigger Overdrive. Now, those fill sections get randomly filled in (pun intended) with notes to play. Miss the notes and you lose your streak, but you can still end the section with a green note to trigger Overdrive.

ubrakto wrote:

Would still love to hear how the experience is for anyone playing on Xbox One. If I do break down and buy, I'm still on the fence between chunking out for a new guitar or just getting the wireless adapter and maybe picking up a new plastic ax next year if I'm still playing the game.

We went with the band-in-a-box specifically to get brand new hardware. Yes, we've got 2 old guitars and a drum kit, but the guitars are a little long in the tooth, and the drum kit has a loose wire that I've never found and fixed that makes the kit unplayable.

After unboxing and playing for a few hours last night, I'm really glad we went ahead and got the big box.

Yeah, I'll definitely be in on this one--it's just a matter of when. I plan on picking up an Xbox One along with it, so it'll be a hefty investment and I definitely need to save up to pick it all up.

McIrishJihad wrote:

I'm "that guy" who leaves the pedal depressed all the time, and only lifts to trigger the kick drums

Wait, is that not the right way to do that? That's how I've been playing all of these games!

Is this a 'how do I play drums' question or 'what technique do you use to play rock band drums' question?

On a real drum kit (being a drummer) the kick pedal generally can hold your resting foot on it, in a stationary position, but a drummer is generally careful not to depress it. Depressing the pedal forces the beater head to rest against the head of the kick drum, which would muffle any sound going through it by any other source (like a second beater head.)

For kick drums only using one pedal, it's not a totally conscious decision to leave the pedal down against the drum when not in use, but generally I don't think people intentionally do that when playing.

IMAGE(http://drumlearntube.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Kick-Pedal-Slide-Technique-re-done-YouTube.jpg)

Gah. I want to want this so badly, but until there's a reliable way to get my Ion Drum Rocker working on the Xbox One there's no way I can justify the purchase. Right now my options are:

Pay over a hundred bucks to downgrade to the new drum controller. Even if I actually wanted to do that my wife has vetoed this option.

Buy a PS3 brain for the kit, a PS4, and repurchase all our DLC. I definitely can't afford to do that.

Hopefully something reasonable will come along by Christmas. I guess either MS will have to relent on allowing USB instruments or somebody will have to make an Xbox One brain for the Drum Rocker.

I would be shocked if "something reasonable" comes along by Christmas, because while us ION kit users have been vocal, we're a tiny part of the market. That said, I'd be happy to be wrong.

I've been working on manually entering numbers for calibration and I'm getting better results. Now I'm not sure if I'm really rusty or it is the calibration. It is getting better and almost enough to play.

I think I'll get new guitars when they come out for individual sale though if I'm still playing this by then (I'm sure at least my wife will she loves Rock Band).

Saw a post on Twitter (citing some Amazon reviews) that some people who ordered Xbox parts are getting variety of wonky shipments, including PS4 hardware with the Xbox game (and packaging) or all the right parts, but not the game disc itself.

It's good to know that, with Mad Catz, some things never change.

damnablebear wrote:

Is this a 'how do I play drums' question or 'what technique do you use to play rock band drums' question?

On a real drum kit (being a drummer) the kick pedal generally can hold your resting foot on it, in a stationary position, but a drummer is generally careful not to depress it.

Well blow me down, maybe that's why this one generation has a beefier spring?

Guess I'll try things a little differently next time I fire it up.

Haha I apologize if the response sounded like I was being a dick, I just wasn't sure what the question at hand was, and had to explain myself for asking if that's actually what the question was.

Oh, no "dick" perceived or taken on this end. It all makes sense now.

Thanks for the impressions everybody! I think this has to be a digital download for our household, but I just discovered we only have about 17gigs free on the PS4...time to clean the fridge I guess. I hope there ends up being a solution for downloading the older game songs - that's a lot of songs I'll miss. (That said, we still have the PS3 hooked up, so we can always go back.)

Interestingly, in the middle of a two song setlist last night, my guitar suddenly became just totally unresponsive - no XBOX menu or anything. Light was still on, so I doubt it was a battery thing.

Great first impressions so far. Along with paying for songs I already own.

damnablebear wrote:

Interestingly, in the middle of a two song setlist last night, my guitar suddenly became just totally unresponsive - no XBOX menu or anything. Light was still on, so I doubt it was a battery thing.

Great first impressions so far. Along with paying for songs I already own.

Happened to me twice on day 1. Had to pull a battery to give the guitar a forced reboot, but then it reconnected and worked just fine (until it happened again).

Also, heads up, but Amazon lists the "legacy controller adapters" as out of stock for the moment.

Got the controllers working last night. Looking through the forums it seems to be a rare occurrence to have problems like I did.

Now I really know I am rusty...

Pre-ordered the XBox One Band in a box. It was an obvious thing for us, as we still have plenty of original hardware and that's going to give up any of these days.

Planning on playing tomorrow at the office. I wasn't aware they didn't have export working for old discs yet... That's a bummer. Might end up hauling the 360 with me tomorrow, after all.

It'll be a little while until I have enough cash saved up to pick up an Xbox One for this, but hopefully by then the Rock Band 1/2/3/Lego/Green Day song import stuff will be sorted out.

Seriously, if I can have that whole entire library in RB4, I would be such a happy guy.