Rock Band 3 details: RB2 export confirmed for all consoles, 'pro' mode DLC may be more expensive

@gordogg24p
Pro Drums are already included as "standard" charts and you won't have to pay extra for Pro Drum charts. They are also included in pretty much all existing DLC as well as the cymbals have always been charted, but the data was never used in the games! The premium price is mainly for the pro guitar/bass charts which are incredibly time consuming to create... being, basicaly you know, guitar tabs.

@Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar
Hopefully it's the same deal for pro keys are it doesn't seem like *that* much more work than normal charting and hey, EVERYONE will have the peripheral to play it who plays keys at all...

@Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar

Seriously... where the hell are you getting your information? No offense, but that kinda sounds like a bunch of BS. Why would they chart the cymbals on songs from the current games and not use them? That's just a waste of time. Also... it takes me about a day or two to create a guitar tab. It's not rocket science, so that's not a proper comparison.

@oJMan240o

1) People have been playing builds of the game with all existing DLC, and have found PRO drum charts on pretty much every single song. I haven't heard of any that haven't had it.

2) The Rock Band Network documentation was updated to explain how to chart PRO drums. There are people out there that crack open the RB DLC and examine it/export the charts, and after this update, they've found the PRO drums tracks on even RB1 era DLC.

3) If you look at the extremely early build of RB1 (the "Welcome to the Jungle" leak video), you'll see that at the time the track was showing a different symbol for tom/snare versus cymbal. So it was originally intended to contain this info, but HMX decided to start off less complicated and make the drums a bit more abstract while people were learning them. They fully knew at some point people would be good enough that they could turn it on, it's just a matter of the right time in terms of progression.

@oJMan240o Before responding to my posts please, remove your head and torso from your anus, mr Angry Gamer.

That's one of the most commonly know facts about RB3 DLC and been mentioned and quoted all over the placed. It's common knowledge around the official RB forums and "Official sources" include:

"The Pro Drums is the only instrument that most legacy songs are already charted. This was due to the fact of adding cymbals to the RB2 controller even though they were not charted at the time. Not all songs will have pro-drum charts, but most will."
From the official (stickied) Rock Band 3 Rumors and Facts thread (marked as fact): http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171722
Other sources:
Plasticaxe interview: http://www.plasticaxe.com/2010/06/11/exclusive-interview-new-details-on-rock-band-3-pro-mode-peripherals-and-drum-functionality/2/
(Let me back up for a second. You said that the legacy content already supports cymbals. Did you mean that you’ll see the cymbal icons when playing older DLC in Rock Band 3?!

DS: [clearly amused] Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.)
etc, etc. (don't want to spam comments with links and quotes)

Why be such a dick about it. And "it takes me about"... yeah, but it needs to be playtested, synched and redone for the plastic guitar as they use two different charts because of the difference in the number of frets. And then done again for the bass guitar. Don't make me browse for links again, sorry, but don't have time for your BS. Do your own homework.

@Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar

lol pwn

@Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar

Attaboy!

@Crayola Q Pants ESQ

that's what I'm wondering. If you buy a PRO chart do you get the expert,hard,medium, easy charts as well?

Also I don't like the idea of going "Why didn't they make "that" song into a PRO chart. NooooOoooooOOOOOoooooo."

@TRONdll
I can only assume the song would have to be bought fully once again. I hope that's not the case, but it's what I'm expecting, which would suck. I think I'm going to stop buying DLC for the time being.


Honestly though, I would have thought that after Rock Band 1's dramas they would have had the export licensing all sorted out for Rock Band 2. Apparently not.

@Demaar

the licensing issue isn't necessarily with harmonix. if you've ever worked on any kind of media project and tried to get licensing from record companies, you know that it's a major pain in the ass.

@TRONdll I'm assuming you mean Burning Down The House as in The Talking Heads song. Unless the 2003 Steve Martin/Queen Latifah movie is coming as DLC; which if it is, I am VERY excited.

@TRONdll
The way I see them doing is it is releasing songs, track packs etc as they have been but when you go to buy it from the store you'll select either the pro version of it or the normal version.
Or at least I hope so...

@Demaar

Not sure what drama you speak of, but the original licensing agreements for the games involve allowing the songs to be on disc. You have to re-license and start the process over if you would like to use the content in another fashion. In a perfect world, this would have been worked out upfront, like with LEGO Rock Band and Green Day, but this was not the case with Rock Band 2.

@julian412

too funny :P

@RagingStormX Now if only they will release the pricing for the Squier guitar controller...

@xYOSSARIANx I heard that the cymbals are already in the DLC we've been getting, so that shouldn't be much of a change. I'm not quite sure how Pro works for drums, if it's just cymbals that are already there, or if it'll be something more drastic.

@xYOSSARIANx
Harmonix recently asked gamers to post "which songs they would like to see updated with Pro content" on their forums. It's understandable that they won't update all 2000 songs, but fan favorites may get the treatment.

@xYOSSARIANx You don't have anything to worry about with pro drums, it's safe to assume all standard DLC tracks should include pro drums with no extra charge. All current DLC tracks except for a few early RB1 songs already have them in the files, so it's no extra work for HMX.

In the video he also specifically mentions pro guitar and bass as being time consuming, he doesn't say pro drums.

@Ryuk

well this is my biggest comment fail ever....caps on... and I cut it off.

I wish I could buy you rock band 3, just the keyboard. I guess the $130 price tag is fair too, maybe I could convince my parents to get this for me as a birthday/christmas/you're surviving college kind of gift

@garnsr
No you already exported them, no need to pay again.

@jdeiro

most likely will not be supported due to what i think is software compatible, plus there is no there game content for the keyboards and multi-vocal in RB1/2.

@jdeiro I hope so. I hope they're included in the Rock Band 2 export.

@julian412

They won't be, as that would be NEW content, not an export of current content.

@RockBandAide You're right. Hopefully sometime in the future they'll update a few of the songs from the RB1/RB2/Lego discs.

@Mazrael

Yeah, because Metallica, Slayer & At the Gates are the only ones who use open strings.

@Mazrael Open notes are charted as open notes so it will not sucked. Harmonix mentioned that what you play is the actual tab for the song. Also, I see no reason why they wouldn't be? Even the "buttoned" Mustang controller has strings instead of a strummer.

@Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar
lol @ my typos

@Mazrael Yep. There's a lot of stuff that I'm very skeptical about with this pro mode.

An E5 can be played in so many positions.

I can just imagine them doing something like this for Joker and the Thief:

e---------------
B--------------
G----------5-7
D--5-7-5-----
A-5------------
E---------------

Instead of:

e---------------
B--------------
G----------0-5-7
D-0-5-7------
A---------------
E---------------

Also, maybe we can hop aboard the fail boat with this comment. Let's see.

@Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar

There are many ways to play a song. Everybody plays Smoke On The Water differently, as an example.

That's reassuring to know.. it does kinda dumb when a track is far easier on a real six string vs 5 buttons

@Tiptup300 just for you.. I must point out the word "like" in my comment

@Mazrael I've been trying to reply for hours but Joystiq keeps refusing to post my comments for some reason.

once again then; in a nut-shell:
Open strings have been confirmed, and are visible in the Rainbow in The Dark video available on IGN (Joystiq refuses to post my comment when I link, sorry!)

Also, there is an in-game language called "chord waves" which tells you which variant of the chord should be played. Hope that helps!

(Insert random comment about how I should get employed by Harmonix for being awesome at PRing.)

@syed117

I'm sure they will.

@syed117 All downloads and imports will work with all future versions.

@Def Zeppelin

I'm confused as to why you would want to do that at all. The song license is $5, if it's similar to the last game, and you get every song that wasn't relicensed... like Enter Sandman was from the first game.

All you have to do is skip a few on the list. That's not really a big deal. And you bought the song, keep it, there's no point in getting rid of a song you paid for. Though you could definitely go to your HDD from the Nav Menu and delete the songs yourself. They definitely aren't going refund your money for that stuff if that's what you were hoping.

Unless you have an old ass PS3 then HDD space probably isn't as much of an issue as 360 owners like me who still have a paltry 20GB. Assuming you don't download and store whole movies.

@Def Zeppelin There is a way to rate songs on a scale from 1-5 - lowest rated songs won't appear in random setlist etc but can still be played if you choose to. No need to delete a song ever again!

@Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar
Yeah but why pay to have songs you hate take up space on your hard drive at all? I think having low rated songs not show up in random setlists is a great start, but xbox users have been able to just erase songs this whole time. Surely Sony or Harmonix could think of a way to let us browse the Rock Band game data file and remove certain tracks. Visions is so un-fun it doesn't deserve the 2 seconds it will take me to rate it a 1 :P

It has nothing to do with hard drive space. The random song setlist is one problem (yeah I CAN beat Visions on expert, but I really don't ever WANT to hear or play it again), and also the sorting of songs when I want to make a setlist has become very cluttered. I have probably 600 DLC songs, plus AC/DC, Lego and RB1. Now add 84 more from RB2. That's a lot to go through. If I remove songs I never want to play again, I will only see songs I like. If I pick a challenging random setlist, I don't have to dread hearing those insanely horrible (my opinion of course) vocals on Visions. Even if I'm forced to keep everything from the new game, let me delete some of the old stuff.

On another unrelated note, I really miss Enter Sandman.