Something Mind Blowing

Kurt Cobain in GH5



REALLY SORRY.

But the use of all these dead rockers makes me a little uneasy. Having Nirvana, Hendrix and Johnny Cash songs are fine; they were great musicians and had some awesome songs. Also, record company distribution deals take some of that choice out of their hands.

But likenesses? How could we know if they really approve of the game experience enough to want to be featured? It's like asking "What Would Jesus Do?" Sure, you have their experiences and words to go off of, but at the end of the day, it's still your interpretation, not theirs.

It's for this reason I approve of the Aerosmith, Beatles and Metallica games (release frequency notwithstanding). They have some degree of control over the matter, since it's no longer "Here's a song by Metallica your pre-fab rocker can play", it's "PLAY AS METALLICA!!!", and they want to make sure that they are done justice. With RB: The Beatles, it sorta matters that John Lernnon and George Harrison are dead, but ultimately that decision was up to Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, so the artist has some approval.

I'm too young to know about Nirvana while they were active, and Kurt while he qwas still alive, but from what I've heard, he wouldn't have wanted this. There is the argument that if he didn't want something like this to be a possiblility, then he shouldn't have signed to a major record label or toured or sold albums.

But I think we should leave the dead buried, wouldn't you agree?

U Mad?

Sorry for the lack of updates, but between getting ready for school in a week, and a cruise I just got back from, I haven't had much time for the Experiment.

Les Paul Dies

You know, I always thought Les Paul was just a brand name, but Lester Polfuss, aka Les Paul, died today.



God speed.

Not Practical Problems

As I've mentioned on this blog before, I'm an Engineering student, and this kinda shit blows me away.

Basically, robots that can recognize the color of the fret in Guitar Hero, and "plays" the note by flipping a switch and pressing the button.

You have, of course, the original, SlashBot:


Also, Cythbot:


Now, while both are amazing, I think the BIGGEST flaw is, as the later video shows, fast strums, or really alt-strumming in general. From observation, they seem to have the little piston that flips the strum bar to the perfect distance where the bar goes far enough to recognize the strum, but not so far that it comes back so that it can flip it as fast in only one direction as flipping it up and down.

One thing that I can reccomend to off set the "fast note" problem seen in the CythBot is to also allow for width detection. If the camera detects something the width of a note followed by something of the same color, but narrower, then hold the same fret(s), but if it's followed by something of the same width, then it strums really fast.

But which one is better, you ask?
All right, FACE OFF: CLIFFS OF DOVER!

96%, good job SlashBot!

99%? Cythbot Wins!

This Happened On The Watchtower

JOKER AND THE THIEF

This is one really easy song. All that's really a concern is the hammer-on/pull-off bit right here:

G--------0h5h7--
D-0h5h7----------

Everything else is really simple.