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Fake Plastic Rock
Fake Plastic Rock (www.fakeplasticrock.com) has great Rock Band news, photos, videos and more
Monday, Oct 26
Band Hero Track List
The full 65 song list was recently unveiled along with the fantastic news that all but four of the songs will be exportable to Guitar Hero 5! (Oddly, you can also go in the reverse direction, importing 69 Guitar Hero 5 songs into Band Hero.) It’s hardly the access to the nearly 1,000 song Rock B...
Friday, Oct 2
The Track Packs of Rock Band
Rock Band is lauded (and justifiably so) for its massive catalog of downloadable tracks — up to almost 1,000 songs at the time I write this. But for those people who don’t have online access to downloadable content for their PS3, Xbox 360, or Wii consoles, Harmonix also offers a series of ret...
Wednesday, Sep 2
Opinion: Rock Band Network Hands-On
Rock Band Network, as you may recall, is Harmonix’ attempt to make their Rock Band 2 song authoring tools public to get more bands and songs in the game marketplace. This is clearly a good, nay, a great thing. The Rock Band Network is tentatively scheduled for go-live in November. I can’t wait!
Sunday, Aug 30
Logitech Wireless Guitar Review
The good news is that this guitar plays every bit as well as the GH3 Les Paul or the GH:WT Schechter-alike. I’m a decent (but nowhere near world-class) expert guitar player, and at no point did I feel the guitar hindered my playing. There is of course an initial period of acclimation as this gui...
Friday, Aug 21
Rock Band and Guitar Hero Guitar Straps
Rock Band Guitar Strap – Gothic Rock Band Guitar Strap – Octopus Rock Band Guitar Strap – Tibetan Rock Band Guitar Strap – Skulls I haven’t personally used the official Rock Band straps, but they get positive Amazon reviews and cost about $9.
Friday, Aug 14
The Beatles: Rock Band Song List
“We’re on the precipice of a culture shift around how the mass market experiences music,” Alex Rigopulos told me recently. Rigopulos is the 39-year-old co-founder and chief executive of Harmonix Music Systems, which developed The Beatles: Rock Band and created the original Rock Band a...
Sunday, Aug 9
Mad Catz Wireless Bass Review
I recently broke down and purchased one of the new second generation Mad Catz Wireless Precision Bass Guitars. (Yep, this was the other part of the package deal with the guitar pedal.) I’ve had it for two days and run it through its paces in both Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour (gotta love t...
Friday, Aug 7
Rock Band Overdrive Guitar Pedal Review
I recently picked up a package deal that included the Mad Catz Rock Band Overdrive Pedal. This is as simple as it looks. It’s a freakin’ metal box with a switch that you plug into your Rock Band guitar (if you haven’t noticed, the port is on the side of every guitar). When you stomp on [...]
Tuesday, Jul 28
How to Look Hot While Playing Rock Band (or Guitar Hero)
Dress the part — like a rocker! Trick out your guitars or drumpads with decals. Be a hot chick. (err…) Adjust your strap to the right length when playing guitar. Learn to hold the drumsticks correctly. Grip the mic passionately with both hands. When playing bass, try alternate strumming. Pick an...
Wednesday, Jul 22
Opinion: Rock Band Network
Remember the lackluster GHTunes feature of Guitar Hero: World Tour, where you create your own songs from canned instrument sounds by pressing buttons on the guitar and drum controllers? It’s a plausible idea, but in practice the “songs” produced this way sound like MIDI songs gone horr...
Monday, Jun 15
MadCatz Premium Guitars
Designed exclusively for Rock Band 2, the Electro-Harmonix Overdrive Pedal quickly connects to the Rock Band 2 official guitar, the Mad Catz Wireless Wooden Fender Stratocaster Replica or the Mad Catz Wireless Fender Precision Bass Guitar via a 10’ cable. It allows gamers to simply pus...
Friday, Jun 12
The Beatles: Rock Band Trailers
The first substantive The Beatles: Rock Band details emerged at E3 last week. Up to] three microphones are counted as a single “player.” On the screen where you select your instrument difficulty level and choose between guitar and bass, you’ll be able to pick either “solo” or “harmonies” f...
Saturday, May 23
Opinion: Mobile Guitar Hero: On Tour
I previously talked about Harmonix’ upcoming portable iteration of Rock Band, Rock Band Unplugged for the PSP. But Guitar Hero went portable first, with Guitar Hero: On Tour for the Nintendo DS. I am now required by law to show you what may be the cheesiest promo video for a game of all time. It’...
Tuesday, Apr 21
Rock Band Unplugged
The tracklist consists of existing Rock Band 1, Rock Band 2, or DLC tracks. Even if you have no interest in all in a portable version of Rock Band, note that those 9 exclusive tracks listed above are confirmed to be released as Rock Band DLC eventually.
Sunday, Mar 29
Dual Drum Kick Pedals for Rock Band and Guitar Hero
On the Rock Band side of the fence, I was surprised to discover that Harmonix now has an officially blessed dual drum kick pedal solution too! You can buy an add-on kick pedal for $24.99. The only place I could find the pedal for sale is at GameStop, as the Universal Rock Band Drum Pedal.
Saturday, Mar 7
Opinion: 10 Things Guitar Hero World Tour Gets Right
Addition of the open bass note on bass guitar. Heavy drum notes. Bridged chords on guitar. Here’s hoping they continue to improve the platform with each new release this year — GH: Metallica, Guitar Hero Greatest Hits, GH: Van Halen, and of course the inevitable Guitar Hero: World Tour 2.
Friday, Jan 23
Get a Real Guitar, Already!
Btw, Alan has an interesting comment on users of Guitar Hero, however Guitar Hero has spawned a huge interest in people wanting to learn real guitar. Many of my guitar-teacher buddies are overwhelmed by the number of students they now have, mostly kids who got the guitar itch from the video...
Tuesday, Dec 23
Opinion: Drum Silencers for Rock Band 2 Drums
In Quieting your Rock Band Drums, I described a few ways you could reduce the terrible clickety-clack noise of the old Rock Band 1 drumset. Fortunately, with the Rock Band 2 wireless drum kit, noise is much less of a problem, as the drums come with a thin rubber layer on top this time around.
Saturday, Nov 15
The E-Tambourine and E-Cowbell Mod
This is awesome! No more tapping the mic; you can use an actual tambourine or cowbell to play those parts as the vocalist! It looks complicated, but it’s actually not too bad. I performed the mod this weekend and here’s what I used: Spare Rock Band or Guitar Hero World Tour microphone(s) a Tam...
Saturday, Oct 18
Beware the Rock Revolution
The most interesting thing I’ve seen so far, in terms of something I’d like to see Rock Band and Guitar Hero add to their games, is the note grading system. It’s not a binary hit-the-notes-or-not system — like many older rhythm games, ...
Tuesday, May 20
Competitive Fake Plastic Rock
Scorehero is generally regarded as the ultimate source for competitive Guitar Hero and Rock Band online. And that’s in addition to the built-in online leaderboards in the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the games. I do wonder, however, why they don’t support Rock Band — it’s very difficult for...
Thursday, May 15
Becoming a Better Rock Band Vocalist
To get better at vocals, you’ll need to do the same thing you do on drums and guitar — practice, practice, practice. Of course, it helps to know the lyrics to the songs by heart. Here are handy links to web lyrics for the built in Rock Band tracks, in alphabetical order: Are You Gonna Be [...]
Friday, May 2
What’s Next for Harmonix?
You may know Harmonix as the developers of Rock Band and Guitar Hero I and II. But did you know they were founded out of the MIT Media Lab in 1995, and also released much lesser known games like their very first title, The Axe? It looked a little like this: The Harmonix story is told [...]
Thursday, Apr 10
Padding the Inside of your Rock Band Drums
In my neverending quest to reduce Rock Band drum noise to an absolute minimum, I experimented with padding the inside of the drum heads. Here’s how I did it. First, I popped off the drum head. This may take some effort depending on which kind of drum kit you have — EL drum heads come [...]
Wednesday, Apr 9
Rock Band Drum Support Struts
I saw these on eBay and I immediately bought some. Here’s a picture of my new Rock Band drum support struts in place: I hope Harmonix is listening. These red and green drum struts should be built into the next edition of the Rock Band drums!
Friday, Apr 15
Mad Catz Wireless Fender Stratocaster Review
The first thing you need to decide is whether you prefer your fret buttons flat (Rock Band style) or embossed/raised (Guitar Hero style). If you love or hate a particular button style, this guitar, despite its awesomeness, will not change your mind. Yes, the “premium” strum mechanism is a b...
