The scoring method for Guitar Hero and Rock Band is fairly similar — from 1 to 5 stars on each song depending on how high your score is. The scoring in Rock Band is more forgiving, however:

1. In Rock Band, it’s possible (barely!) to get a 2-star score and complete the song, which I’ve never seen in all my years of Guitar Hero play. In Guitar Hero, 3 stars is the minimum to pass, so the score range is effectively one to three stars.
2. In Rock Band, playing a chord or triplet counts as 2 or 3 notes respectively toward your streak multiplier, so it’s faster to build streaks up.

But there is something beyond 5 stars, something even more impressive:

Five gold stars!

How can you achieve five gold stars on a song in Rock Band?

1. Everyone playing must be on the “Expert” skill level. It is not possible to get gold stars on any other difficulty even if you play the entire song perfectly.
2. Obtain a score somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 times the 5 star score.

As a general rule of thumb, don’t expect to get 5 gold stars unless everyone in the band scores well above 95 percent on the song and uses overdrive together effectively to maximize their score. Good use of overdrive is essential to achieving the highest possible score and bumping you into 5 gold star territory.

The exact five gold star cutoff value varies by instrument and composition of the band:

1. solo guitar/bass requires approximately 1.52 x the 5 star score. See detailed list.
2. solo drums requires approximately 1.45 x the 5 star score. See detailed list.
3. solo vocals requires approximately 1.52 x the 5 star score. See detailed list.

Combining instruments makes the gold star cutoff even harder to achieve, because the score values increase greatly through simultaneous band overdrive multipliers. For Guitar + Drums, it’s 1.58 x, for Guitar + Bass + Drums, it’s 1.67 x. With a full band, it’s closer to 2 x!

Be careful, though: for a handful of songs, it is mathematically impossible to achieve 5 gold stars.

In Guitar Hero, gold stars are much, much simpler — they simply mean that you hit every note in the song. This is called 100% (hundred percenting) the song and you can do it on any difficulty.

Note that 100% is not the same as a full combo. To achieve a full combo, you must hit every note and avoid playing any extra notes. It is possible to get 3, 4, or 5 gold stars by playing “extra” notes while still not missing any of the notes in the song chart. Strange but true.

Good luck and happy gold-starring!