Tips and Tricks, Vol. 1

Big0ne calls in some singing ringers to give you the essential tips for not just surviving, but excelling on the mic.

Everyone who has ever picked up a guitar, drum sticks, or microphone has gone through the growing pains of learning how to use their instrument. If you are gonna be good at the instrument you have to practice and use the correct technique. We’ve come to find out that both of these and a little bit of luck / ingenuity are needed to become a top notch GHWT, or Rock Band player. If you want to skip the learning curve and jump right to the head of the class read on, or if you just want to pick up a few tricks to improve your score these columns should come in handy.

For the next few weeks Plastic Rockers will be taking a look at the different parts of Rock Band and World Tour. We know that some of you are wizards of the axe but couldn’t keep a steady drum beat if Peter Criss was holding your arms for you. That’s ok. We were noobs once too. That’s why PR is reaching out to some of the “experts” at 2old2play to help the rest of us conquer some of those instruments that drive us crazy. Even if you consider yourself to be decent on most parts, we’ll find some tips to help you take your game to the next level.

This week, we’re taking a look at one of the most intimidating parts to the full band games….vocals. We’ve looked at the leaderboards and achievement lists and we know that you let your significant other do the heavy lifting on this part of the game. Well, it’s time to take back the mic. We reached out to Fetal and MeefJ, two of the best vocalists on the site to ask their tips on improving your scores and keeping that crowd meter high. Here’s what they had to say…

Fetal: 

1. Sing in your own voice and find the rhythm of the song.
2. If you can't sing, try squealing like a little girl for those harder songs like "Painkiller." I'm not ashamed to say I can barely sing that song in my own voice and four-star it. I had to sound like my nuts had retracted and I had grown a mangina to five-star that bitch.(Fetal, c'mon, dude. That's too easy. -- ed.)
   
3. Try to hit the right note before the green line appears so you don't waste time finding it during the part you're supposed to be singing.
4. Set your mic sensitivity one grade higher than default. If you go any higher and the mic picks up ambient noise around you and can throw off a note. Unless you're Mike James ... then you should set that sucker's sensitivity to "not picking up any tone deaf noise what-so-ever." You don't want to break your mic.
5. Watch the circular meter for each bar. When it is full, you don't have to sing anymore, so save your breath for later. You're going to need the extra breath for harder songs that force you to conserve your breath like “Almost Easy."
6. La-la'ing a song is a cheap, easy way to make it through a song you don't know the words to, or they just seem too fast. “Cool For Cats” or “Where Are You Now” are great examples of songs anyone can five-star on expert if they just la-la-la all the way through them.
7. Finally, if you just want the virtuoso achievement, grab something that's loud and makes noise at a fast steady rhythm like a fan or a blender, set your mike sensitivity to its highest setting, and select the Beastie Boys “What'cha Want” on Expert. Place the mic next to loud prop previously mentioned and go have a quickie, smoke a cigarette and grab a beer. When you return you'll have the perfect score on expert achievement points.

Meef J:

1. Use Falsetto. The absolute best tip I can give to anyone looking to better their vocal skills in RB is to sing in falsetto. Falsetto is basically “singing high” – think BeeGees here. Going all “Barry Gibb” on a song accomplishes a few things normal singing does not. First, you can hold notes for longer, which, be honest, is something all guys want. There are a few songs where you have to hold some notes for an extended period of time, or songs that have multiple phrases linked together with no decent spot to take a breath. Singing falsetto allows you to get through these sections without passing out. The end of "Pretend We're Dead" where you say "De-eeeeeeeeaaaaaad" about 50 times is a good example. Second, singing falsetto is easier on your vocal chords so they do not wear out as quickly. For anyone planning a long singing session, this is useful so you’re not sounding like Joan Rivers by the time you’re done. Third, it’s generally easier to hold a pitch when singing falsetto than singing normally, where your voice is more likely to oscillate unintentionally. Lastly, it’s quieter, which can be very useful when trying to match the pitch of a song. Pitch-matching is pointless if you’re drowning out the vocal track, but a necessary tool for songs like "Tangled Up In Blue."
   
2. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Some songs have little “blips” of notes that are distant from the normal range of notes. If they are small enough, they can be ignored so as not to throw off the rest of your phrase. A great example of this is in the song “Hello There.” In the second phrase of their lyrics, “[Would ya like to] [Would ya like to]” – the second “like” in that sequence is an off-kilter high note that is too distant to guess and too short to pitch match. The rest of the notes are all the same, so in this example, you can sing the off-kilter “like” as the same note as the rest, and still get an Awesome for the phrase.
3. This ain’t karaoke. Karaoke is trying to sing a song exactly like the original artist. In RB, you have the advantage of the fact that the game does not care about the octave in which you sing a note. If I sang a RB song acapella without the vocal track or band accompaniment, it might sound drastically different than the actual song, since I sometimes raise or drop an octave to stay in my range. A good example of this is on the song “Bad Reputation” near the end during the “Oh no, not me” section. On screen, the “not” and “me” have a wide separation, but near the end, they are the same note, just a different octave. Learning to sing songs differently to fit your range will help improve your scores.
4. Don't forget the friggin' "A" button. The last tip I have is really more of an FYI. I did not know for a long time that you can use the A button on the controller for the “cowbell/clapping” sections rather than hitting the mic with your hand. This makes nailing those sections much easier, especially if you’re using a headset instead of the microphone.

Big0ne:
(Yeah that’s right I threw myself into the mix. So what. I help write the damn thing.)

1. Don’t go all Luciano Pavarotti on the songs. By that I mean, keep the vibrato at a minimum. The game generally hates it and wants you to sing with a very flat (not in key, but in style) manner.
2. If you are really struggling with a song, try humming through it. You’d be surprised how effective this can be.
3. I think one of the guys alluded to this earlier, but be quiet. At the Chicago LAN last year a couple of people would walk up to me and say “I could barely hear you.” There’s good reason for that. It keeps the mic from over modulating and throwing off your arrow, plus it helps me to be able to hear the song. Being familiar with a song is much different than knowing a song. I have 380+ tracks on my hard drive and I’m sure I’ll never be able to memorize every little vocal nuance to every song. If I stay just a little quiet it helps me to be able to hear what’s coming next and to take note cues from the other instruments.
4. If you have one of those Turtle Beach headsets or the fancy Tritton (Tritton sucks. -- ed.) sets, use them. It’s much easier to hear the tone of the vocalist in the song when it’s being pumped directly into your eardrums. It’s also useful to be able to hear your own voice piped through the headset along with the music so you can quickly catch when you’ve strayed off key.

Hopefully, you’ve found something useful here that will help you conquer the World Tour on Expert or at least finish on Easy. If you have some more tips or if you are still having trouble with a particular song, let us know. One other peace of advice we might give is to sing at the level of the lowest member of your band. Whatever the lowest difficulty selected is what you get scored for anyway so you might as well set vocals to that difficulty and enjoy the song. After all, this is still a game and it's supposed to be fun. Throw in some colorful lyrics. Try "meowing" through "Still Alive."  Hopefully, with a few of these tips, the next time a band says, "We only have room for a vocalist right now," you'll be able to fill the void. 

Other News

Guitar Hero: Metallica will be out in just a couple weeks. To get you ready, and if you are cool like us and listen to Sirius/XM radio, turn to channel 27 beginning March 14th - April 13th for the Mandatory Metallica channel.  A solid month of all Metallica all the time. While you're at it, if you haven't pre-ordered the game yet, Best Buy, Gamestop and Game Crazy are all offering rock swag if you get your order in for the game now.

While we're on the topic of Band-centric game titles, there's rampid speculation on the net right now that the guys at Activision are working on Guitar Hero: ... wait for it ... wait for it ... VAN f-ing HALEN!  When asked to confirm the rumor, the developers gave the customary: "We're focused on the upcoming GH:Metallica title" response. Typical. For our purposes, we're taking a "if they don't deny it, we assume they're confirming it" stance. Yeah, we really want this game.

The Escapistmagazine.com is reporting that the upcoming Rock Band: Beatles game will feature "never before heard material." That might not be much news to a younger generation who barely know who the Beatles are, but for an older generation who've been raised on a "Yellow Submarine," that's big news. That may be the kind of material that will bring folks into the rhythm game spectra who might otherwise never have picked up a controller. Sounds like an excellent marketing tool to us. We'll see if it's a full song or just Ringo farting into a microphone.

Deciding between the Beatles game and the Metallica game may have just gotten easier.