Rock Band/Getting Started

Overview
There are 3 different peripherals for Rock Band. A microphone, a replica Fender Stratocaster guitar controller, and a drum kit which has 4 pads and a kick pedal.

Guitar/Bass
The guitar/bass part isn't much different from Guitar Hero. On the Fender Stratocaster controller, there are 10 frets, 5 on top of the guitar, and 5 more narrow buttons for solos. The solo buttons can be used outside of solos if you have small hands or don't want the hassle of moving your hand up and down the neck for solos. Also, there's an effect switch which affects the sound during Overdrive and solos.

To play the guitar/bass, you hold down the corresponding fret buttons that come down the board and press on the strum bar as it crosses over. You can strum up or down.

Hammer-ons/Pull-offs
Just like a real guitar, you don't have to let go of the lower frets when playing a single note, only the highest note counts, the one closest to you. For example, you could be holding the green and red fret and play the red fret as it comes.

Anyway, hammer-ons are when you strum one note, and fret the rest, only when the notes are close together. For example, you strum the green note and you can press the red fret, then the yellow fret.

Pull offs are the exact opposite, you strum the first note, and let go of it to get to the next note. For example, you can strum the yellow fret, let go, press the red fret, etc.

Hammer-on and pull-offable notes are half sized, so you know when you can use it.

Solos
In solos, the fret board will turn blue and and percentage number shows up. During a solo, you can tap the smaller fret buttons without strumming. If using the bigger buttons, you must strum the notes. Every (small) button pressed counts as a strum, because of this, you can hold down one button of a chord and as it crosses over, hit the second button. After the solo you will get a score based on how well you do.

Bass Groove
The bass multiplier can go up to 6x. Once it goes beyond 4x, you enter bass groove. The fret board will look a bit stylish in bass groove.

Drums
The drum kit comes with 4 pads: red, yellow, blue, and green; a kick pedal (orange), and authentic drum sticks. To play the drums, you hit the corresponding pad as it crosses the bar at the lower part of the screen. Generally, the red pad is a snare drum, yellow is a hi-hat, blue is a tom or ride, and green is a crash. This will be changed to fit the needs of the song. For example, yellow and green can act as extra toms and red will become the hi-hat at times. If you can drum on expert, you can play real drums.

Drum Fills
Drum fills show up as empty bars extending across the board. These are free style notes, and you can play whatever you want. During these drum fills, the red is a snare, yellow and blue are hi and low toms, green is a crash. At the end of the fill you have the option of finishing it with a crash symbol, this sends you into overdrive.

Vocals
Unlike the other instruments, the vocal sheet spreads horizontally, not vertically. Words will come at you from the right, you sing when the words cross the bar. You have to match the pitch represented with a green line. You can sing an octave higher or lower to match to pitch if you can't reach the singer's pitch.

There are "talky-talky" parts which have no pitch and tell you to sing the words without any pitch needed.

Freestyle sections tell you to "make some noise" and sends you into overdrive.

There are also parts where you use the mic as a cowbell or tambourine. Hit the mic with your hand during these parts. or alternatively you can blow hard into the mic.

Overdrive
Overdrive is Rock Band's equivalent of Star Power. It makes your crowd meter climb and doubles your score multiplier. To enter overdrive, you must hit white energy phases. Guitar/bassists can use their whammy bar to directly extract energy from long notes. Once the energy bar reaches halfway, you can use energy.

Big Rock Ending
Some songs have a big rock ending at the end of it. This is shown with big wide open spaces across the note board. When this happens, go wild on your drum kit/guitar to achieve a score bonus. Catch is, you must hit the last note(s) for the score to count. If in a band, everyone must hit the last notes. The singer doesn't have a big rock ending in solo mode, but must activate on the activation space for a band big rock ending score to count. The rest of the instruments get points for every note they hit in a 1.5 second timeframe. The guitar and bass earn 150 points per 1.5 seconds for each activated fret, for 750 points per 1.5 seconds when all five are active. Drums will always earn 750 points per 1.5 seconds as long as at least one pad and/or the bass pedal is activated within the timeframe. To get the most points out of a big rock ending, slowly hit the beginning ones, and go mad towards the end for more points. Let There Be Rock by AC/DC has the longest Big Rock Ending.