My Own Worst Enemy: GS No 21

Been a bit of a gap there, but finally made it to 21! I don't know why but this took a lot of attempts. It's fairly simple, but I kept missing the odd beat here and there, and almost always when I was in Overdrive which stopped my getting the GS. But the good old Robert Bruce spirit kept me going!

Nine In The Afternoon - FC No 7/GS No 20

Another fairly simple song, but it's quite a nice sounding song and quite nice to play. Kind of like this one, and 20 feels like a milestone somehow! It's been a long and quite broken career so far, what with accidents and life getting in the way of fun! Oh yes, this performance also earned me my "Flawless Drumming" trophy. I'm glad they've included Trophy support in RB2.

And the First RB2 GS! GS No 19 In My "Career"...

Eye of the Tiger is not exactly the hardest song on the planet but it's fun and it's start! I hope they patch the game soon to show your stars in the song list as it's hard to see what needs improving.

Rock Band 2 Came!!!

It finally arrived! Only a week after launch, which isn't bad considering it had to get from Canada to the UK, but it's here. There are some great new features, but I have to say the on disc songs just aren't generally as much fun as the on disc songs in Rock Band 1. Seems to be more emphasis on insane speed rather than interesting beats and rhythms. It's early days though. There are still some great songs on there, and of course, all the wonderful DLC I have! Happy happy joy joy!

24th October 2008: Something In The Way - FC No 6/GS No 18!

Been a frantic few weeks, outside of "Rock Band". I was shocked to discover there is a life outside of Rock Band! But apparently there is. Sadly this has meant limited practice time, but this was an FC/GS on sight read. First time I have ever managed that!

At Last! Tier 6 Completed!!!

God that felt like a lifetime! I finally managed to complete Tier 6 drums on Expert. Crap scores, but I'm glad to have done it. The only downside to that is that it brings me to tier 7!

My DM5 Pros In Action!

I thought it might be fun to post a video of the DM5 Pro drums being used in the game. I made a few mistakes near the start, and my fills weren't my best. I think I was a bit self-conscious of the camera! But it's such a great experience playing with real drums.

5th October 2008: Simple Man - FC No 5/GS No 17!

It's been a good day for Gold Stars! Simple Man now added to my list. I know this should be a fairly easy song, but I have struggled to GS this one for ages. It used to be impossible (pre-patch), or maybe just possible with perfect squeezing (a practice that I really can't be bothered to learn). But the patch obviously made it possible. However, I just couldn't get a streak. I'd drop notes. Sometimes maybe it was the drums (see my previous post about setting them up), but also because I would kind of lose the rhythm slightly in the middle for no good reason and hit a few bum notes. But this time, not only did I GS it, but it was a perfect FC as well! Happy man, simple man.

5th October 2008: She Sells Sanctuary - GS No 16

God I love that song! I'm so glad I GSed it, because this is one I love to play. I just need to get my girlfriend to pluck up the courage to try Expert vocals and we should get a band GS on this! She lacks confidence and just won't try Expert at all. She's really good (regular 99-100% scores on Hard), but she just won't accept that she's that good. Luckily she loves the song too, so fingers crossed!

5th October 2008: Monsoon - GS No 15

This was a tough one, mainly because I learned that my kit still isn't perfectly set up. The section with rapid crash/snare/bass patterns was dropping loads of notes. Even on this run I dropped a few, but I've almost got it set up perfectly now. It's just my "small" crash cymbal which had the crosstalk set too high. I had to turn down the crosstalk and turn up the "Noise" setting. Still needs tweaking as I say, but it's nearly perfect now. I'll try this song again in a minute after tweaking the Noise setting up a bit, and see if that gets it perfect.

5th October 2008: Gimme Three Steps - GS No 14!

And number 14. Glad to get above 13 to be honest. I'm not superstitious, but, well...

4th October 2008: No. 13 Baby - GS No 13!!! How Apt!!!

How appropriate is that!!! My 13th Gold Star. It's No 13 Baby!!!

3rd October 2008: Charlene (I'm Right Behind You) - FC No 4/GS No 12

I stalked this song until I got it! Actually fairly easy, but I got an FC, so I can't ask for any more.

3rd October 2008: I Could Have Lied - FC No 3/GS No 11

And another one. This song is pretty simple. Not only GS number 11, but also an FC! Just downloaded the RHCP album this morning, and it's great. But I wish they'd left Sir Psycho Sexy alone, instead of butchering it like they did. No way we'll be performing that one when we have a vocalist.

2nd October 2008: Monkey Gone To Heaven - GS No 10!!!

Got my GS achievements into double figures tonight, with Monkey Gone To Heaven. Yay!

2nd October 2008: Dreamin' - GS No 9

Well, the drums are pretty well set up now. Got to say that since yesterday's adjustments, every single missed note has been my own fault. It's a shame in a way, because that puts my usual excuse out the window! ;)

Anyway, this is not actually my best ever score on this song, but obviously the patch has lowered the GS cutoff. Almost into GS double figures!

1st October 2008: Silver - FC No 2/GS No 8!

I know, I know. Simple song! But I haven't tried to GS it since Harmonix patched the game to make it possible to GS every song. So I did this one this morning just as a minor test of the new drums now I have them adjusted properly. I had to make a small tweak to the yellow tom, but after I did that, an FC/GS followed suit. The song actually still needed some squeezing to get the GS, but it wasn't too hard.

It's taken me this long to get back up to speed between the new drums and my injury. But I feel like I'm getting somewhere again.

1st October 2008: My New Setup!

I haven't posted much since the accident. After my last post, my recover was slowish, but I got there. My drumming improved until I got back to my old standard. And I expanded my drum setup!

Yes, I went out and bought an Alesis DM5 Pro e-drum kit and an adapter sold by sethgamerg on these forums. Drums plug into adapter, adapter plugs into PS3. I'm now playing real drums with elevated cymbals and loads of pads in Rock Band. It's really difficult, but it's immensely good fun! I'm getting to the point where my scores are pretty much up to where they were with my Goodwoods. It's just getting your brain used to deciding instantly whether to hit a tom or a cymbal. Getting used to the green cymbal being to the left of the blue cymbal. I actually cheated and have two green cymbals now. One to the left and one to the right of the blue one. Both have different sounds so I can have that quiet crash with quick decay that they use a lot for the "green cymbal as rhythm" sections, and then a real loud and long crash for the big rock endings and the dramatic crashes. It works really well. Took me while to set it up properly and to get the cross-talk settings correct. My advice if anyone decides to do this is to use the "Noise" setting rather than the "XTalk" one to try and eliminate the cross-talk. Using the XTalk one seems to cause dropped hits quite often, where the Noise setting seems to have solved it for me.

Another thing I did was mod the heads slightly to try and reduce the noise of the drum pads. What I did was purchase a set of 8" Z-Ed mesh drum heads. These fit straight onto the DM5 pads with no modification. But I then placed a circle of gum rubber (actually prchased originally as a silencer for the original RB drum kit) under the mesh and tightened the mesh heads over these circles. It improved rebound and made them much quieter. On some songs (especially the tom-heavy ones) it was putting the singer off before. Problem solved! I then had to re-adjust all the XTalk and Noise settings as the pads actually made the drums MORE sensitive for some reason, but I seem to have it pretty close to perfect now.

Anyway, hopefully I'm back to getting some Gold Stars now!

9th August 2008: Good News And Bad News

Mainly good! I played drums yesterday. For the first time since my accident, I got to hit things with sticks. And it felt good!The bad news? I discovered that my Goodwood Mods Stealth Mesh Head Drums (try saying that when you're drunk) have started dropping notes on the red pad. I'm a bit upset by that. I've emailed Goodwood, and I'm sure Rich will put it right, but I was so excited to be able to play again, it's a bit sad to see your scores drop by 10-20k and it's not because you're rusty!But just drumming again is good. I love it. Managed to do a few miles on the new motorbike as well, but not many. It's not overly comfortable, but I have to get my life back to normal, so I'll keep pushing myself to do a bit more every day.

27th July 2008: Ouchie!

Well, sadly (and I do mean sadly), my drumming career is now on hold. Last week, I had an accident on my motorcycle, the end result of which was - (most men, and women of a squeamish disposition should probably stop reading now) - that I had to have my scrotum sewn back on. Well, I warned you.Anyway, suffice to say that I am in a lot of pain. I'm on some great painkillers (which is quite rock & roll in itself I suppose), but they don't work miracles! I'm unable to sit on my drum throne, and even if I could, working that pedal is WAY beyond me right now! So I can't drum. And I miss it.

I also miss my bike and standing up to pee, but those are separate issues.

10th July 2008: Tier 6 Is Killing Me!

What is it with Tier 6 Drums and me?!? I breezed straight through Welcome Home and Green Grass & High Tides, and can't get through a single one of the others! Everyone talks about GGHT as if it's a big deal. Do they mean guitar? Or was I just lucky? Or maybe it just suits my playing style, or my brain-hand-foot coordination? But those other three are killing me!Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh!!!!

10th July 2008: Countdown To Insanity - GS No 7

Another GS to add to the list. Thanks Goodwood! It's getting harder now. I think this is the last of the really easy songs to GS, so I'll have to work a lot harder to get any more! This one missed out on being an FC because I stupidly hit an extra bass pedal in there, and then managed to miss a note later on. Still, another GS for my collection. It's hardly up to top-of-the-leaderboard standards, but I'm pretty proud of my little collection. :)

9th July 2008: Live Forever - GS No 6

Managed to Gold Star "Live Forever" tonight, on my second attempt. :) I think I'm starting to run out of the easy songs now though! Tried to GS "Simple Man" but I just couldn't do it. I FCed it, but no Gold Stars were forthcoming. I'm not sure if it's the overdrive path, or if it just can't be done.Poo.

8th July 2008: Brass In Pocket - GS No 5

"Brass In Pocket" has finally been Gold Starred! It was actually harder than I expected it to be, because the GS almost needs an FC, and there was one stupid little bit that my brain wouldn't do! Basically, you're playing a bass hit every second beat all the way through the song, and then just before the end, there's a bit where you skip one. My brain (and foot) kept putting that in and then messing up the next few notes as a consequence! D'oh! Anyway, I managed it. Not quite an FC, but I'm happy with the GS! :)

7th July 2008: Wanted Dead Or Alive - GS No 4

Creep was hotly followed by "Wanted, Dead Or Alive". All of this puts me 6139th on the Leaderboard for drums at the moment.And that's where I am now. I'll add a blog whenever I achieve something new.

7th July 2008: Creep - GS No 3

A few days later again, and "Creep" was Gold Starred.

2nd July 2008: I Think I'm Paranoid - My First Ever Expert FC!

A few days later, this was followed by getting my first ever FC on Expert! Again, on "I think I'm Paranoid". This is a great song to work on for people looking to get their first Golds or FCs.

28th June 2008: Hard Solo Tour Complete!!! At Last!!!

Then I decided to really test myself. I had moved onto Expert as I just couldn't complete "Run To The Hills" on Hard. I decided to test out my Goodwoods. First run, I completed it! Only 3 stars, but anyone who has tried it will know how tough that song is. I'm happy with that. Some day I'll go back to it and try to 5 Star it, but 3 is good for now. It completed the Hard Tour, so it was great to get that out of the way. I was actually even more excited (if that's possible) than I was to get my first Gold Star!

28th June 2008: Say It Ain't So - GS No 2

This was followed by Gold Starring "Say It Ain't So". Another easy song, but I was ecstatic!

28th June 2008: I Think I'm Paranoid - GS No 1!!!

My first ever GS for "I Think I'm Paranoid"! An easy enough song, so an appropriate first one to GS. The fact that it's easy didn't stop my excitement though! I was running around the house with my arms in the air shouting "Oh My God!" over and over again! Really. Sad, I know.

27th June 2008: My Goodwoods Are Here!

OK, now I'm playing with some decent kit, I've decided to run this blog as a way of keeping track of my progress. I exclusively play drums. My band (99 Steps to Pavement) consists of me on drums and my girlfriend on vocals. We have unlocked the Unlimited Setlist, but she refuses to play through it, so we're kind of stuck there now.



My kit consists of the Goodwood Mods Stealth Drums, and a pedal which I made myself from a Gibraltar drum pedal and an alarm sensor. The Goodwoods are awesome! I didn't manage a single Gold Star on my old kit (which was admittedly 6 months old and well used), but within days of receiving the Stealths, I had my first Gold Star! I had to do some work on them before they were this good though. Being a launch customer, I knew that my set would be liable to suffer from teething problems, and they did. It was very simple to sort though, if a bit fiddly. After a bit of messing about, I got them to a point where they seem to miss no notes at all, other than the ones that I mess up on!



The pedal, I made after my bass work seemed to be letting me down on the harder songs, particularly Paranoid by Black Sabbath for some reason. I wanted to buy a Rock Pedal, but with a 3 month backlog I didn't want to wait. So I decided to make my own. Really easy to do, and it made a huge difference. Again, I had to adjust it a bit and mess around to get it just right. The first time I built it, it was registering double hits a lot. But I moved the sensor slightly further back on the pedal, and that solved that one. It definitely improved my performance, but strangely I now can no longer play with the stock pedal! I'm now hopeless with it! Small price to pay though.

New Beginnings!

This Blog has been created as the Rock Band forums have done away with the blog function, which I had been using to keep a record of my progress through my Rock Band drum career on PS3. So I have migrated all my posts across to this site, and reposted them in the order in which they originally appeared. At least I know this blog is going nowhere now. Not impressed with the RB site for that one!