Rock Band/Gameplay

Overview

There are 3 different peripherals for Rock Band. A microphone, a replica Strato Fendercaster 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 Fendercaster 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.

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.

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.