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Rock Band 3 To Include MIDI Keyboard
xbeefsupreme writes with news that Harmonix has officially demonstrated Rock Band 3's 25-key MIDI keyboard. From USA Today:
"During the game, green, red, blue, yellow or orange keys flow on a 'stream' representing the notes to be played on five corresponding keyboard keys. In a new authentic Pro mode meant to help players segue to actual instruments, all 25 keys are used; the streams shifts left and right to cover the correct keys. The keyboard also works as a MIDI keyboard that can be connected to a computer. 'This is a real instrument and a real device,' says senior designer Sylvain Dubrofsky."
The game will also support more advanced "real" guitar controllers, which have six actual strings you can strum. Hit the link below to see the keyboard in use.
I can't read the article due to work filter, but since the game will come with a "real" midi controller, can I use my own with the game? I have an M-Audio Axiom 25.
Living With a Nerd
Please post them. I'm curious how it will register the notes without constantly making sure the guitar is perfectly in tune? Robotic autotuning?
And I will still lack the rhythm to play this awesomeness.
so the drum kit serves for people that don't have a digital drum kit, but i don't know anyone that would use a MIDI keyboard that doesn't already own one that is better than the one demoed for this game.
most play-along keyboards adjust the tempo to wait for the player... i'm assuming the game works like other guitar hero games and the song will just keep on going for the rest of the players... it will be much harder for the keyboard player to get their hands back in the right position after slipping up. i guess that's why it's "pro mode"... don't slip up.
new authentic Pro mode meant to help players segue to actual instruments
...while learning fingering that will trip them up later. Watching the way people hold drum sticks with Rock Band is painful.
... one of the franchises licenses Dire Straits music for their game. And not just Money for Nothing, I want Tunnel of Love, Brothers in Arms, and Sultans of Swing. And of course Romeo and Juliet, while we're at it.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Seems like pushing the buttons on a keyboard should be just like pushing buttons on the guitar controller except you don't have to strum. This should be pretty easy to pick up, right?
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Like this, but bigger...
First "just learn a real instrument post" in a Rock Band/Guitar Hero thread. Everyone take a shot!
Thanks hemlock00, for being a living stereotype!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
When your mom kicks you out of her basement?
They said that they're adding more realism in some modes as an aid for those who want to transition to real instruments. Your complaint is even more asinine than this complaint normally is, because they even SAY "This is to help you to be able to play a real instrument one day".
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
The same point when you put down Call of Duty and fight a real war, with real guns!
When you don't want to just sit around and have a few hours of fun with friends who may or may not be musically inclined.
Guitars able to produce midi signals are rather common in music business. There are two basic technologies: - Normal guitar with a kind of plug to read the string - MIDI controller with guitar like input I don't know if they use either of these, but technical details can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_guitar
Your "Piano Hero" is a much better idea than Sousaphone Hero idea.
Or French horn hero.
I think they're just about out of Konami games to rip off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboardmania
Around the same time that everyone stops playing sports or racing games...
if there ever is a Richard Clyderman rock band released, I'll kill myself.
That, that really grinds my gears!
I've said it before, I'll say it again. Ideas are worthless. It is all about execution. Konami had the idea years ahead of time, but it took Harmonix to execute it properly, creating a game with mass appeal.
If you want to play in a real fucking band then you should look into a career in the p0rnographic industry.
I'd like to see Accordion Hero with "Weird Al" Yankovic as the game host.
But do I still have to sing like a goddamn robot?
There has never been a good singing game.
STOP HAVING FUN!
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Rhythm games aren't dead yet? They are to me... It was a fad...
Or put down Left for Dead 2 and kill some real zombies!
Guitar Freaks/Drum Mania are art
Rock Band and Guitar Hero are just product by comparison.
Judging by this and your username, it's more likely that you're just a weaboo.
And with this, the door is now open to Rock Band: Rush.
Anybody want my mod points?
I have a MIDI keyboard with pressure and velocity sense and with learning features which are annoying to use at best. I'd love to have something like this teach me how to actually play it...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
and judging by the fact that you're posting AC, you're probably just a troll.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
In college we built "keyboard hero" using a Yamaha DX7, a microcontroller, a LED array and other bits and pieces. We had different difficulties of songs from chopsticks to an arrangement of "Koopa Beach."
We lacked polish but it worked great and was well received even though you had to play the song and not some dumbed down key sequence. Could have built to to use a tv but didn't have time that semester. Maybe we should have thrown creative commons on it but someone probably did it before us too.
This is not off-topic! It is about how to make cheap music. Not as cheap as moving 3000 songs between iPods and PCs with USB2, but cheaper than blowing your entire Pell grant at Guitar Center.
You can make a cheap keyboard by using a PS2 keyboard and an microcontroller. I've uploaded mine to the projects section of www.avrfreaks.net. Also there is a description of making a very cheap continous controller using a 16-cent InfraRed diode, a 16-cent InfraRed detector, and an op-amp. Moving your hand from 1 to 6 inches from the diode/detector pair changes the op-amp voltage between +0.2 and 4 volts. Plug this voltage into the microcontroller's analog-to-digital converter, map it to 0-127 range, and link it to the MIDI PitchBend or Filter Cutoff controller. Add a lot of reverb and echo-delay and you have very cool and very cheap sound.
Get a free VSTi host and some VSTi instruments for your PC. My absolute favorite is the Nanotron2, which is a Mellotron emulator. Moody Blues, King Crimson, and Strawberry Fields sound nearly exactly like the original recordings.
Not sure what to play? Download a MIDI file to sheet music notation program and some MIDI files of your favorite songs. You'll need to learn to read music and figure out what the chords are. But if you learned C++ then learning music notation is a breeze. Soon you'll just look at a cluster of notes and know that it's a E-flat, suspended, sixth chord.
Cheap MIDI synths like the Yamaha TX81Z allow you to get some seriously strange and industrial sounds. You can always resell any old cheap synth that you buy a year later for what you paid for it, if you grow tired of it.
Huh. See, to me that was the exact opposite of a "just learn a real instrument" post. I mean, "At what point do you just play in a real band" to me sounds like it's saying "If they keep trying to make it more realistic, eventually you'll be better off just starting an actual band"
The point of these games is that they _aren't_ real instruments, and making them more realistic may silence some critics, but it may also make the game a hell of a lot less fun.
When we have a interest in doing so? It's a game. Get your head out of your ass.
At what point do you just make a _real_ fucking post?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
See, thats the best kind of XKCD reference.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why not just join a band?
when you get _real_ friends who can play _real_ instruments.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/option
One thing that has long puzzled me is the simplified, but not skill-transferrable interfaces for Guitar Hero and similar games. Maybe I too could learn an instrument with enough hundreds of hours playing such games ... but I don't have any desire to become a concert-level wielder of ... a "Guitar Hero" controller.
(Far more understandable that in games with swords, the sword's controller is purely symbolic, and that racing games mostly involve automatic transmissions. But musical instruments really are hand-held or at least person-centric, don't smash or cut people* by intent, don't need a track or cleared airspace** -- so, as a non-musical idiot, I would like it if such games all had some didactic effect, even if they're not Mavis-Beacon style.
timothy
* I realize there are exceptions, but bear with me ;))
** OK, OK -- tuba, and probably others, need a bit of airspace ...
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Yes, it's a game that now has an option for you to play with a real guitar/keyboard. I can't figure out why this upsets you so much.
I posted a year ago saying the only thing left, was for one of the Guitar/Band games to add keyboards to their games, then they would finally catch up with Konami.
Komani did this years ago in the arcade and on the PSX and PS2. Yes the linked all their KeyboardMania, DrumMania, and GuitarFreaks systems together into 1 giant band arcade setup. Very few arcades outside of Japan ever bothered though. The main problem that Konami had was that they didn't bother to have their in company bands copy US music hits like Harmonix did in the beginning. Konami tried to do all their own music and stuff that was popular in Japan which is part of the reason why it didn't take off in a huge way in the US, let alone Europe.
KeyboardMania (Arcade/PS2/PC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboardmania
DrumMania (Arcade/PS2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DrumMania
GuitarFreaks (Arcade/PSX/PS2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GuitarFreaks
I have no idea if the new Rock Band 3 will allow you to have 2 keyboard players at the same time in the band, but I will say that Konami already did this in their arcade link up. So you could have 2 guitars, 1 drummer, and 2 keyboard players all playing at the same time on the same song. So you could have 5 people playing on the Konami system. I seriously doubt that Rock Band 3 will be good enough to have 5 instrument players and 1-2 vocalists.
I would imagine that one of the Open Source band game programs will probably eventually have up to 6 or 7 players with a variety of instruments playable. I suspect that it will probably Frets on Fire that gets there first before some of the others. The only issue is if/how-fast they can add 2 or 3 part harmonies to the software. I know that some of the open source Sing-Star clones are already doing 2 part harmonies, so I would think others could do the same.
Now they only need to add the last part of the mix that I have talked about for awhile, to finish the stealing from Konami. They just need to add Dance-Dance-Revolution to the band mix for those back-up singers and dancers you see on stage at some concerts. Add that and the music rhythm games will be all in one for everyone. Then you will have the ultimate rythym/band game. LOL
So to recap, just mix GuitarFreaks, KeyboardMania, DrumMania, Sing-Star, and Dance-Dance-Revolution and the rhythm game field will be all-in-one and the innovation will be over, and we can finally move on to something else.
Yes, I am kind of being sarcastic and trying to be a bit funny, and no I don't ask why people don't learn to play a real instrument instead. Who wants to spend months learning to play a popular song for fun on a real instrument instead of just pressing a few buttons to have fun with a party type game.
Wow, have you ever actually played Guitar Freaks or Drum Mania? Compared to playing Rock Band/Guitar Hero, it's incredibly primitive. It doesn't "communicate" about music any more than Tetris communicates about building construction, what a bullshit thing to say!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Yes. I've been playing since '99. Okay, so the guitar has two less buttons, but who cares about that? Konami's been using USB MIDI drums since the PS2 Guitar Freaks/Drum Mania games way back when with the DTX Express, years before Guitar Hero even came out.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Has Harmonix mentioned how many players you will be able to have on the 360 at the same time? There is a potential of seven (Guitar,Bass,Drums,Keyboard,3 vocalists) can the 360 even handle that many controllers?
See, thats the best kind of XKCD reference.
The kind where you plagiarize?
WEE-A-BOO!
WEE-A-BOO!
So I've played piano for many years and what I find myself wondering is, does anyone learn to play piano in this manner, where the actual key to press is the visual cue instead of musical notes? There are many techniques/methods for learning piano and I cannot make up my mind if this is an approach that may translate into useful, valid, musical skills. Thoughts?