Sunday, February 28, 2010

Radio Days

All of the basic charts for ATD's "Steven Wells" are done, now I need to do the lower difficulties and animations and camera and FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Here's the song in convienet player form for all of you checking me out after being in The Sagittarian 3:
LIVE-
Radio Days (Live from The Vault) by RhythmBastard

Might be the first part of a three part song.

Friday, February 19, 2010

My Success Is Failure

Still under the weather, new song a comin' the second I stop being so nasal. My singing voice isn't perfect, I know, but any little bit helps. You'll probably be getting a song sometime around the 20th.

In gaming news, Bobby Kotick talks about opportunities lost:
Another acquisition that could have gone quite differently was that when Activision was looking at purchasing Guitar Hero from RedOctane, he stated that he didn't look in Harmonix's direction, which he felt was "somewhat a failed developer of music games." Kotick alluded that had he taken the trip to Boston to meet Harmonix, the "world of Guitar Hero would have been rewritten."

This is quite interesting. It also highlights the key differences between Rock Band and Guitar Hero.
Harmonix is a company of musicians making video games. Activision is a company of gamers making a music experience. Harmonix focuses on band dynamics, and getting good songs, Activision focuses on features and difficulty.

But it's interesting to see what would have happened should the two meet. I think I can make a few predictions:
1. The DLC scene would change dramatically. It would probably be a teensy bit more expensive (i.e. $2.50 instead of $2 per song) to compensate for Harmonix being less eager to put out more SKUs.

2. Better importable shit. For example, imagine if the AC/DC Track Pack not only featured a playable AC/DC, but you could import their likenesses and costume pieces into the main Rock Bandtar Hero game. Activision (at least Kotick) wants MOAR GAYMEZ, but Harmonix hates switching out discs. You get the star power of Aerosmith, Metallica and the like, without having compromise the overall songlist.

3. Green Day: Rock Band would have come out before The Beatles: Rock Band. Shit, imagine how everyone would have reacted: "Oh great, ANOTHER band centric game? Who did they get this time? NickelHOLY SHIT IT'S THE BEATLES!!!"

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Keeping Up With The Bastards

As it's become heir apparent, I've been putting less time in to learning Rock Band songs, and more time in RBN and my own music.

There's been two reasons for that:
1. I feel like I need to update if there's no song done, which is why I might skip Train Kept A Rollin' and Green Grass and High Tides. Like most of these upper tier songs, the main riff is simple, followed by a 2 minute long solo. As much as an accomplishment those two songs are, I just can't see myself memorizing all of that at a rate where I'd have regular updates. I could do smaller updates, but it feels like a cop-out when I crank one of those out.

2. Playing other people's songs has given me a penchant for playing my own. I know everything I do is bootleg right now (PUNK RAWK DON'T CARE). My guitar playing is slightly better than total amateur, my singing voice sucks, and I can't write a drum part.

I am up to learning the solo to "Flirtin' With Disaster", and that's really the cut off for me as far as solo lengths go.

Now, on to shit that's been occupying me time:
RBN- Working on the vocals for "Steven Wells". "OMG HE TALKS SO FAST! THE VERSES ARE THE HARDEST PARTS!" I say. Then come the choruses: "Oh, you tone-def Bastard. Clearly I'm the greater niusance! Automatic voice charting has given you nothing!" Then I smack Phil around for a few minutes and have some tea.
Hopefully soon I can get the drum tabs from ATD. If not, I need someone with a good ear for drums.

My Music- I have a few songs in the pipeline. A country-style song, "Radio Days" will be ready as soon as my cold clears up. Then there's another song I did called "Gonzo" which I'll aim to have out February 20th for obvious reasons. Then there's another song I made called "Axe Cop" because for some reason I come up with weirder shit sober.

The next big Open Mic Night is February 23rd. There's one tomorrow night, but it's snowy here in NY, and I don't think I feel like wheeling all my shit to the train station.

I'll try to add some new links in the sidebar this week.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Cutting My Teeth

So far, things have been going all right with making the song files in Reaper.

The guitar and bass parts were more or less a cinch, and I just finished them up on Expert. With primarily power-chord driven songs, it's a real bitch to set up all the chords properly. Think of the traditional power chord shape: You use your index and ring finger, right? With the plastic guitars, you can only make three of those kinds of chords. Punk songs operate on four chords. You do the math.

Another problem I ran into is that the bass is synthesized, so instead of getting a consistent run of notes, it wavers between two pitches really fast.

The other thing I have trouble authoring is the vocals. ATD's a rapper mostly, so I'm using "talkies". I haven't gotten too in-depth with the vocals yet, I just ran the "automatic charting" procedure in the dox. That's going to be a bitch.

The thing I hate the most is that I need a 360 to properly audition vocals and any venue effects I might add. AS WELL AS the Gold Membership and the Creators Club account.

Now, as for the original purpose of this blog, let's see...

The song I'm working on right now is "Flirtin' With Disaster". Progress seems to be so slow on these later songs, that I might give up and go with Guitar Hero I already.

With my own JAMZ, I have to record some bass and Fruity Loop up some drums. Unfortunately I'm going to a Super Bowl Party today!

Wait, unfortunately?

Shit I've been working too hard. (looks at recent posts) Or not hard enough... (Contemplates this, has a drink) Or not smart enough...

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Networking



I'M MAKING THIS SONG FOR ROCK BAND NETWORK!!!

I just got all the stems today, and I'm sorting out the guitar parts. It's a really easy song to cut my teeth on.

I'll update you on my progress as the project moves ahead.