Kevin plays the drums way more than just on Rock Band, he’s always showing off his ’skillz’ on the ’show’. I’d like to see someone who’s never played on a drum kit do that well.

Wow, super awesome!

Love the idea for this site and great name.

@codinghorror++

Honey, quit correcting the other children or you won’t have any playmates. :)

Hello webmaster! Found your blog on yahoo – thanks for the article but i still don’t get it.

This actually makes alot of sense. I’ve been playing drums for about 12 years and after taking the first few lessons I started learning on my own through listening and playing along to my favorite songs. Almost the same thing but if it encourages anyone to pick up the sticks and start playing thats great.

CWEAWY THERE IS AN issue with the Drum Stix and with ignorant poster commantators!!

Total bullsh*t.

Playing drums is a world of its own with way more variables and parts to learn.

There are so many things to do that these ‘expert’ gamers have no idea about. No doubt they can play beats on a drum, and no doubt they will have an idea of what goes on, but unfortunately for them, they will have to go through years of practice to even get to an ‘intermediate’ level of quality REAL drumming.

Coming from a Drum Corps background I’d like to see some sticking that one would expect on the quads or snares as said already worlds apart when compared to real world drumming. There is just no way you can learn that stuff on those plastic things.

Oh, and by the way… THAT GUY IN THE VIDEO IS A PROFESSIONALLY TRAINED DRUMMER!!!! LOL

Yeah I thought this video was pretty cool. He seems like he has probably played the real drums alot. I cant believe he was talking smack to the ex-drummer of The Dillinger Escape Plan. Chris probably just wanted to smack that guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AbxI41AJEU

Entropy did u watch the vid I posted. You can play real drums with RB. And I also use my module sounds with or without the in game drummer. Just did 89% on welcome Home :)

Ok ok, for those guys saying that it will take years fo practice to play real drums i got one thing for you, they are not claiming that RB drums are the real thing, its a close thing but not the real thing, what THEY are claiming is that if you get to master Hard mode you can actually START practicing on real drums, not that you will become the next Lars Ulrich in just 2 months!

As for me, same as Salviati I dont have enough space for a real drum kit, so i enyoy having a game where i can play the drums and later put it away.
RB drums may not be the real thing but they closely resemble it far more than other instrument based games (such as Guitar Hero), after all its just a game! enjoy it and keep on rocking!

This is my second month of drumming. Expert, Welcome home Coheed and Cambria is not that hard once you get the base down.

Just to add my 2 cents: I’ve fiddled with music for years and last year tried to take up the guitar, acoustic, more seriously, but gave it up…just not built for playing….big hands, thick fingers etc. I can play and am sure if I kept at it I could get good..but the drive was just no there. Enter RockBand. Roomie did the guitar and I took up the drums and found a new addiction :)

I now have a Yamaha DTXplorer electronic drumset and started lessons a few weeks ago with well known drummer Frank Worrel. Frank was amazed as how quickly I picked up on things and had some advanced concepts down without ever touching a real drumset. I give credit entirely to RockBand.

HOWEVER, RockBand is only a PRIMER. It’s great for developing coordination and some very basic drumming. I’ve actually stopped playing RockBand because, while a good primer, it also teaches some bad habits and has limitations. For one you only have 4 pads, so some of the pads do double duty as HiHat, cymbal, and crash cymbal. The position of the pads makes it pretty much impossible to drum in the typical cross armed fashion (Not sure what they call that…Right hand hits the hihat, left his snare etc..)

There are some other uses for RockBand outside of the game itself. It’s great to play along with! In practice mode you can play along with a song with the drum track removed! You can also learn a song as well as on Hard mode (Don’t use Expert….I think expert level puts in crazy stuff that should not be there… I.E. Dani California is a good example) The shows you the beats and it’s easy to recognize and translate the cymbals and open hihat beats in the game to real drum counterparts. The one draw back to watching the screen is, at last for me, is you don’t ‘learn’ the song when you’re relying on the game to tell you when and what beat to hit. The way I compensate for this is to practice by looking away and not relying on the game…plus you can put in your own fills and fiddle around with the song however you like.

I actually have 2 rockband kits, don’t ask why, and after looking at how Buzz modded the real drum kit I plan to rip them both apart and attach the sensors to my drum pads, they’re so sensative that I should be able to just tape them to the bottom of the pads. By wiring in together two sensors for the same input I can use the extra sensors on the hihat and cymbals….so, if it all works I should be able to play rockband but have the entire range of drums/cymbals to use. :)

Yeah, I don’t buy it. I’m a drummer with over ten years experience under my belt at the age of 17 and given the fact that rock band gives you four pads and a kick, it doesnt actually prepare you for a real kit.

You know that bit in the video where he says “I might need some help with it” (or words to that effect)? I would argue that he got quite alot of help and has previous training as his technique was pretty flawless. Holding the sticks in the right place, using his arms in such a manner that only drummers do and managing to have a realistic feel for the force of the kick-work. The likelyhood of gaining this experience from four ruber pads (completely different rebound behaviour to drums) and a plastic kick pedal (again feels so different.) is practically impossible.

On top of that a game like this doesnt teach you how to work with a band, and a drummer needs to know what he’s doing without visual cues to hit each drum.

yeah you’re right that did sound like you being an arse

your lucrative 10 year drumming career is not threatened

you’re just like every other elitist “real” musician who completely misses the point of these games

you should be happy that these games are creating a huge interest in music among youth. Not just that it’s motivating some people to pick up the real instruments and try to learn them (why are you trashing people for this? makes no sense), but also it’s opening up interest in artists and genres that would never have happened otherwise. A few years ago, I never thought my 16 year old brother would be talking to me about Deep Purple, or the other way around, me talking to him about Coheed & Cambria

you’re an arse, go learn to have fun.

my friend and i are doing a project for our introduction to world musics course at the University of Florida on rock band to see if those with rock band drumming experience can play real drums and vice versa.
we will be doing a video project and it most likely will end up on youtube.
if you are interested in participating, we would appreciate emails at andrew.dan.ufl@gmail.com
we are looking for participants who could possibly give us AIM interviews, video chats, and if at all possible, raw footage of you playing rock band drums and then real drums.
this is a nonprofit endeavor that will only be shown to memebers of the current introduction to world musics course, and like previously stated, will probably be put up on youtube. there will be a class page that will have all our videos posted. when we find out the account information, we will contact you if you wish to know where it is on youtube.
once again, contact us at:
andrew.dan.ufl@gmail.com
we would appreciate any input from the community!
thanks,
andrew and dan
University of Florida
Summer B 2008

Right, ive read every comment on this page and there is a range of different views from both musicians and not, which is causing a mish-mash of … well .. rubbish both god and bad.
I write this to best inform you people of this topic.

((Personal info)) – Drumming in bands-5yrs
Step-dad = Roger Pope
look him up and you will find he has played with elton john in the 70’s along with many other old musicians. (though he is now a has been sadly) i add this bit just to show to both drummers and gamers alike that my information is not nieve and bias.

oh and before i forget yes that guy in the vid has played drums before, for CERTAIN…

now then, learning the drums goes in leaps and bounds. When you first begin you will be unable to seperate your limbs and develope limb independance this takes practice just to get used to it, like patting your head and rubbing your stomach ‘n visa versa. (though it is considerably harder than that ^_^)

Rock Band DOES help this fact to a great extent, although if you were to play a beat on a real kit like a simple beat from rock band, the lack of notes on a visual display will prove very difficult to you rock band(ers) simply because you will have to memorise what you play rather than read making co-ordination alit bit lagged. (try, you’ll see what i mean)

THE POSITION OF THE PADS: yes this is different to a kit and the toms double as cymbols, but the difference between rockbands kit and the real thing is the spacing between drums and cymbols. The big thing is the “h-hats” sit where a floor tom or ride cymbol would be on a real kit, though this is a game and if it was placed correct it would;
[1.)cost more for the extra part to manufacture.
[2.) difficulty increase (crossing sticks-causing alot of clatter of hitting sticks together) which beginner co-ordinated people would get very hacked off with.

THE FEEL OF THE KIT: is nothing like real, (again this is a game so, who cares? not like one of you 100% players could take on/overtake me??)
The bounce off the surface -think- Pads=rubber & Drums=Skins its going to be different.

FOR WANT TO BE DRUMMERS!!!:If you play rockband and you want to play drums then great, join us! haha but it will take alot of painstaking work. until then you should attempt;
1st-Mastering limb independance.
2nd-Drum rudiments eg paradiddle lrllrlrr or double paradiddle lrlrllrlrlrr (l-left hand, r-right hand practice on snare or h-hat?)
triplets and many more, search the net for more rudiments like on youtube.
the rest i leave to you. Now go out there and beat some skins!

Rockband teaches timing, limb co-ordination and some rudiments, nothing more. want more? search, look & learn!

I got RB2 a couple weeks ago and I thought the drums were impossible and decided to just play guitar. Now I LOVE the drums and don’t bother with guitar. Man, I’m only on medium so far and limb independence is brutally hard. But it’s so much fun when it works! I’ll never be drummer in real life, and I can’t imagine how much harder it would be to actually have to memorize these combinations without all the flashing lights on the screen to guide me, but this game rocks. Now, when I listen to music I try to pick out the drum patterns and it blows my mind how complex they are. RB2 has given me a huge appreciation for drummers.

THATS SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I THOUGHT HE WOULD BLOW IT!

Even assuming someone could develop the timing needed to play on a real drum kit, wouldn’t there be an overwhelming reliance on visual cues? I mean, rock band requires drummers to follow a series of on-screen prompts, whereas many real drummers often do not “read” any sort of pattern.

I’m guessing there would be a real issue with improv. and syncopation. Also, if the feel is different it’s because real musicians can set their own pace, whereas rock band requires that the drummer follow a fixed speed. It’s not always healthy to “go with the gravity” all the time, it becomes habit forming.

I know some guitarists who, because of constant imitation of rhythm patterns, cannot strum without following the drummer (down stroke – bass, up stroke – snare) and get trapped in the pattern.

Kevin Perreria has been playing for years! Kevin Perreria = Kanye West/Amazing http://www.youtube.com/user/kpereira#p/u/23/YWbSkwsCI8g

Rockband “drummers” cant be real drummmers. It takes more that just hitting the note at the right time. Dynamics and technique is everything!

It isn’t a point of if its realistic or not .. Quite frankly I think anyone who bought it realizes that its just a video game. The point is that it lets you enjoy the music yourself if you never played an instrument. Just because a lot of you have real life experience with drums doesn’t mean that you’re better than someone who plays rockband. They are entirely different things. For example everyone cooks at one time or another. I cook professionally im a chef but it doesn’t mean that people who don’t cook for a living can’t cook. There are people who cook better than me and they have never done it professionally or have been trained. I play rockband drums for a few years now and I enjoy it very thoroughly & would like to try the real thing. Does it make me a drummer ? No. Does it mean you have the right to ridicule me for enjoying this game? Absolutely not. Maybe you should focus more on the fact that this game makes people want to learn the art of drumming instead of being a condescending bunch of pricks.

I’ll never be drummer in real life, and I can’t imagine how much harder it would be to actually have to memorize these combinations without all the flashing lights on the screen to guide me, but this game rocks.