5 Star The Cars Album (hard drums)

So I 5 stared the entire album by The Cars today on hard drums. to be honest it isn’t much of an accomplishment since they were all sight reads(first time playing through). A couple were of them were close but none were a real challenge. I am a fan of the group and the album so they are very fun to play though. I couldn’t help thinking of Fast Times at Ridgemont High while playing Moving in Stereo though! i finally got my new RMA’d drum set and it has made a big difference as well.

I actually did some other stuff too but I will leave that for another time.

Keep on Rocking,

Mr. Mediocre

Some increases in Drum scores

I worked on a few drum scores and made some nice improvements. It must have been a long time since I played these songs because the increases were pretty big and the songs seemed much easier than I remember them being. All in all it was about 300,000 increase on my total hard score(only about 50k increase in my career score though). Click the pics to enlarge them.

4 Star’d a couple of roadrunner songs

Well my new drum set didn’t come today so I decided to to try my old broken drum set (yes I have broken drum sets) and was pleased to realize that it wasn’t near as broken as my newer one. The yellow pad is broken as well but the pads don’t drop hits near as much. i am not sure if it was the set working better or I am getting some muscle memory on Constant Motion because my score increased by about 18,000 and I got 4 stars and 91%.

Constant Motion hard Drums 4 stars 91%

I decided to give Clouds over California another go with this set and i did much better. I didn’t get 90% (89%) but did get 4 stars and raised my sscore by about 21,000.

Clouds over California hard drums 4 Stars

After seeing the better scores, I decided to move up to expert and see what I could do.  I played a bit with nothing special and then gave Indestructible a run. I did improve my score but only by 4,000 or so. i am very happy with note streak and % increase though. BTW that streak was not in the chorus.

Indestructible 88%

I finished up with Life is Beautiful by SIXX A.M. this song was awesome on hard drums so i decided to see if I could pass it on expert and i did pretty well. 86% on my first run isn’t bad considering it had some parts that tripped me up and confused me at first.

Life is Beautiful expert drums

Keep on Rockin’,

Mr. Mediocre

Growling my way through some vocals + Flawless Singing!

So last night I decide to try the Roadrunner songs on guitar. I started on expert (mistake) with Constant Motion. I know it is one of the hardest songs in the game but I thought it would be fun to see what I could do. The result wasn’t pretty. I have arthritis which was acting up pretty bad last night. It hurts but I can get through the pain. The problem was that I was having a real hard time moving my fingers fast enough. Anyway, i ended up failing Constant Motion and Clouds over California pretty badly. I decided to drop to hard and proceeded to fail both on hard as well as Sleepwalker. Hopefully my hand feels better by this weekend because i am pretty sure i can pass these on hard at least.

So after that disaster I decided to give the vocals a try. I started with Aesthetics of Hate by Machine Head. This song is all talkies (where you only have to talk instead of singing) except 2 pretty easy phrases. I was pleased to see that none of the talkies were broken. I decided to have a bit of fun and growled my way through the song, much like the real singer does. I did pretty well with over 176,000 points and gold stars on the last phrase. Also you will notice at the bottom of the photo that i got the Flawless Singing achievement for getting 100% on expert. This achievement has alluded me for a while so that made me pretty happy. My score put me in the top 50 on XBL but I doubt it will stay that high since I am 20,000 below first place.

Aesthetics of Hate 100% Gold Stars

Next I decide to give Clouds over California a try. I did OK but the song is broken and that sucks. there is a phrase that just doesn’t work at all. It also has only 2 places to use Overdrive which means the only way to increase my score is to squeeze, which I don’t care to with the broken talkie.

Clouds over California 5 stars

Next up was Constant Motion. I failed it a couple of times on expert since I don’t know the song very well yet so i dropped to hard. i beat it without a problem although I was pretty annoyed that it has several broken talkies as well. I can’t wait till Rock Band 2 which is supposed to fix the talkies.

Constant Motion hard vocals 3 stars

I stayed on hard and decided to work on my career score a bit. I worked on Maps and was pretty successful as i almost doubled my score and got 5 stars. not bad at 97% I could full combo it but didn’t really want to play it any more to work on it.

Maps hard vocals 5 Stars

I finished up the night by singing Disturbed’s Indestructible. I love singing this song and did improve my score a decent amount. I think I can get 5 stars with another  4 or 5 run throughs.

Indestructible Hard Vocals 4 stars

Keep on Rocking,

Mr. Mediocre

A little more drumming fun

So I got home from work and decided to play some drums. First I decided to play Dream Theater’s Constant Motion some more to see if I could get my score up. I may have been a bit premature in yesterday’s prediction but you never know. I played it 4 more times, failing once (just got really off during the really fast part) and ended up increasing my score a pretty good bit during one run. I didn’t get to 90% yet but my set is really not doing well. It makes it really hard to tell if I am missing the note or my pad is missing it. My red pad misses maybe 20% of the time and my yellow pad has a crack in it. I don’t think I will play drums anymore until I get my new set. Of course i said that yesterday, so well see.

I really, really like this song so I can see myself reaching my goal of 5 stars but it might take some time. I normally don’t have the attention span to dedicate to a song and play it over and over. This one is very fun to play though so I don’t get bored as quickly as i normally do. I added over 27,000 points and 5% which is great, but i am very happy that I was able to pretty much double my note streak. Feel free to laugh at my kitchen chair as my drum throne

Constant Motion 3 stars again

After Constant Motion for some reason I decided to give Disturbed’s Indestructible a run on expert drums. Not this best idea on my broken set but I do love playing this song as well. I can pass this song pretty much every time but do have trouble keeping a combo during the chorus. I have gotten a little better since the last time I played this so I had hoped to get a better run, but only increased my score by a few hundred. I don’t know if I will ever be able to 5 star this one but it sure is fun to play, and a hell of a work out to boot.

Indestructible Expert drums 3 stars

I hope to get to some guitar or vocals tonight if the olympics are boring.

Keep on rocking,

Mr. Mediocre (Elvis Lawson)

Roadrunner pack 01…My first stab at drums (hard)

So I thought I would give the Roadrunner pack a go on drums(hard). I have only made it about halfway through expert drums at so far and knowing these songs would be just insane I played them on hard. I decided to start with my favorite song in the bunch, Constant Motion by Dream Theater. I am a big Dream Theater fan and was excited to see this as a bit of a precursor to Panic Attack being in Rock Band 2. I was a bit concerned before starting these songs since my drum set if broken but it was working well enough for now (I will be getting a replacement in a couple of days). This drum chart was all I wanted it to be and more. As I expected from a Mike Portnoy song, this chart used all the pads and was all over the place. It was difficult, but not overly so which is just what I like.

Constant Motion 3 stars (hard drums)

The photo quality sucks but 83% on my sightread (first time playing) is not bad for me and since I really like listening to and playing this song, I expect to be in the low to mid ninety percent and 4.5 to 5 stars in a week or two.

Next up was Clouds over California by DevilDriver. I had never heard the song before (actually never heard of the band before) so i wasn’t sure what to expect other than it being metal. the song is not really up my alley with the vocal style. I listen to allot of heavy metal but often struggle to like bands with growling singers and those that scream all the time. In Rock Band though while playing the drums, the drum track is raised in volume and the drums themselves are loud so i could barely hear the vocals anyway. With all that said, this chart was pretty fun and very challenging. Like the Dream Theater track, this one is hard but fun and will get some replay from me. Again bad quality, but 84% is not a bad start and I should be able to improve it a decent bit.

Clouds over California 3 star (Hard drums)

Next up was My Curse by Killswitch Engage. I was familiar with this song from it being in Guitar Hero 3 and thought it was OK. Not my favorite but not bad at all. This chart was not bad but not particularly fun. I could do better and liked it enough to work on it sometime down the road. I can easily get this in the 90% range on my next run and may do it tomorrow.

My Curse 3 stars (Hard drums)

Well I would love to post more photos but unfortunately that is all i have since I failed the other 3 songs. First was Runnin’ Wild by Airbourne. This song really seems like a rip-off of “You’ve got another thing coming” by Judas Priest and that was kind of a turn off for me since i don’t like that song much to begin with. this drum chart was pretty easy for almost all of it. I got a bit confused by the end alternating cymbals and couldn’t pick it up before failing at 93%. I know I could pass this song easily if i just took that part in practice for 5 minutes, but honestly I don’t know if I want to play it again. Having over 150 songs give me lots of options so this goes pretty far down the list.

Next in my punishment was Sleepwalker by Megadeth. I like Megadeth and have most of their earlier albums but haven’t heard the latest one yet so this was another song i was unfamiliar with. This song was very hard for me and had me flailing for the entire 30% of the song I lasted. I will possibly come back to this one later but am not sure I am good enough for this one yet, which is a shame because it sounds good. i cold play it on medium but since I have moved to hard the slow scroll speed messes me up and I find it difficult to switch back and forth, so I would rather jsut play what I can on hard and expert.

Finally I got to Aesthetics of Hate by Machine Head. I have this album but don’t listen to it that much (see my earlier dislike of growling vocals) so i wasn’t completely familiar but I knew what was coming. i still wasn’t even close to ready. I completely suck at the types of patterns in this song and i really can’t so them at the speed of this song. i failed at 10% and will not even come back any time soon, if ever. I put this in the same category of Blinded by Fear (songs I know I can’t pass and don’t really care to).

Maybe tomorrow I will get to these songs on Guitar, which looks to be a ridiculous challenge as well.

Keep on Rocking,

Elvis Lawson