2010 Roadmap

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aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

DC64 wrote:you should show the full picture instead of the half left side of the "played by you L, R, or both" image
See here if you arent able to.
Kasper wrote:If you could make even some shortcuts, like I don´t know:
[ is left hand
] is both
\ is right hand
- is wacht and listen
I think this is more efficient:
[ Left Hand
] Right Hand
\ Both Hands
= Watch and Listen
Kasper
Posts: 149

Post by Kasper »

Regarding the suggestion, changing track settings right there on the play screen is still a little tricky in the code. Unless you meant that was just a choice you would get to make before the song started only, and then after that you couldn't change it again?
I meant every time you hit the pause button.
That would be a big improvement I think.
English was my worst subject on school, so my language could be a bit awkward sometimes...
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

I guess doing it in either of the practice modes might not be so bad. It would reset your score. It would also only be available where the "simplified" settings were possible. I could probably overcome some of the more brittle technical challenges behind the scenes. That's also getting closer a jimhenry-style interface where more is available on the same screen.
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DC64
Posts: 830

Post by DC64 »

It's odd that is says that in the info video but not doing that direcly.
"And now for something completely different."
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

Nicholas wrote:...in about three months (October-26), Rock Band 3 is going to be released. It will have a small 25-key MIDI keyboard peripheral.

I'm kind of making a wager here, but my guess is that a lot of the people that buy Rock Band 3 are going to enjoy playing the piano parts. (Who wouldn't? ;) ) There is a good chance they'll be interested in playing more -- whether they keep using the same keyboard or upgrade to a full-size one.

Hopefully they'll find their way to Synthesia and I want to be ready for that surge of new players.
:
:
...these new players are going to be a little less forgiving than all of you in the forums. There are some major things that are still missing if I'm interested in "hooking" them.
:
:
I hope I am jumping the gun, but having now played Pro Keys in Rock Band 3 on a regular basis for about a month I have to say that Synthesia as it stands today is still missing some major things if it is to "hook" any significant segment of the Rock Band keyboard players. As much as I'd like to have a two handed compliment to Rock Band Pro Keys that lets me use my own music, playing Rock Band Pro Keys has made me less interested in Synthesia than I was to begin with. Hopefully I am in the minority with this view.

Are there any others here who regularly play Rock Band Pro Keys? Do you think Synthesia is an attractive supplement for a Rock Band Pro Key Player?
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
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stephenhazel
Posts: 223

Post by stephenhazel »

Huh? You're not sayin you prefer RB3 to Synthesia are ya?
Now, I've not played RB3 yet.
But if it limits me to one hand and a fixed set of songs...
How can that compare to actually learning a real song?
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Well, you are playing the notes accurately (at least all the way up on Expert difficulty). They even have a pretty comprehensive suite of practice tools.

And, as it would turn out, a multi-million dollar budget and a team of 50+ people are apparently able to make something more polished and flashier than Synthesia. Who knew. ;)
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stephenhazel
Posts: 223

Post by stephenhazel »

well sure a for profit company will probably make somethin a little more polished.

but if you're practicing with one hand, mmm, you're not playing a real song.
i'm no pro, and i've not yet played rb3, but i've found the balance between right and left hand is pretttty important.
After you've got the notes right, and the rhythm right, and the rubato and all that (so it's pretty much memorized)...

THENNN you try different expressions out on the different phrases, throw the balance over here, make a wierd note
really sing, stuff like that. Playing piano with one hand is for newbs.

But I told my neighbor I'd get one of those 2 octave keyboards and try rb3 with him.
So I'll be tryin out rb3 in a week or 2. THEN i'll pronounce judgement :mrgreen:
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jimhenry
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Post by jimhenry »

Stephen,

I would suggest that you don't think of the RB3 keyboard as a sawed off piano but rather as a small keytar. Play it standing up with the strap keytar style. That way it may be different enough that you can approach it and RB3 on their own terms. If you compare the RB3 keytar to a piano keyboard as an apples to apples comparison, the RB3 keyboard will lose because it isn't an apple. You can no more compare the RB3 keytar to a piano keyboard than you can Synthesia to RB3. In both cases one doesn't replace the other. The goal is for their to be an easy path between the two.

The discussion I am trying to start is has Nicholas achieved what he set out to do when he drew up the 2010 road map? As I understand his goal it was to make Synthesia a program that could be something someone who started on the keyboard in RB3 would embrace as a way of going further with the keyboard than they could in RB3. For all that RB3 has going for it, it does still have some significant limitations on what you can do with it in the keyboard department.

The most obvious limitation is that they have very consciously chosen to focus solely on the right hand. Of course that is only a limitation if you think the keyboard is supposed to be a piano or a full-sized synth. If you accept that the instrument that they added was the keytar, then right hand only is largely realistic.

Nobody, least of all Harmonix, is saying that RB3 is now real instruments playing real music. What they are saying is that playing the game with the Pro controllers is much closer to playing real music with real instruments than it was. And it is scary close. What this means for the music world is that people playing the Pro side of RB3 are going to be more likely than ever to be curious about taking the next step and learning to play real music with real instruments and they are going to be better prepared than ever to take that step because it isn't such a big step now.

The challenge for the music world is that RB3 players are going to come with a different background and different expectations than beginning music students did in the past. An RB3 keyboard player who has gone through the learn an instrument tutorials will have been exposed to quite a bit of musical theory and fundamentals. Teachers who want to tap into this new pool of potential students will need to take the time to understand what RB3 is and isn't teaching a Pro player and be prepared to make the most of what these students have already learned.

Looking specifically at Synthesia as a companion to RB3 for the Pro keyboard player, first I think you have to accept that an RB3 Pro keyboard player is not going to walk away from RB3 in favor of Synthesia. I think goal is just that they will use Synthesia as a supplement to RB3 to learn to play with both hands and to learn to play for real, where they are playing the music rather than triggering the performance of a snippet of sound. That means that it needs to be easy to move back and forth between Synthesia and RB3. Synthesia should require as little adjustment as possible for someone who is playing the same thing on the same keyboard in both Synthesia and RB3. In other words, there is an area of overlap between Synthesia and RB3. Within that overlap things should be as similar as possible if Synthesia is to have broad appeal to the RB3 Pro keys player. That might require that there be an option to do some things either RB3 style or classic Synthesia style.

When Nicholas set the goal of making Synthesia more appealing to an RB3 Pro keys player, information about what Pro keys would look like was sketchy. Nicholas had to make a lot of guesses about what Pro keys would look like and what expectations this would create in a Pro keys player. Now that we have had a bit over 2 months to see and absorb what Pro keys is, Nicholas probably has refined or changed more than few ideas he held initially. Maybe he has decided that the RB3 Pro key players aren't the source of new Synthesia players he was originally hoping. Maybe he has decided Synthesia is right where he wants it to be to attract RB3 Pro players. All I am saying is that as one single data point, trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who either got started with keyboards in RB3 or came back to keyboards because of RB3, I think I would find the difference in playing between RB3 and Synthesia to be great enough that I would require a lot of motivation to use Synthesia along with RB3.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

Stephen,

Let me make a suggestion about how to analyze your experience when you try RB3 with a 2 octave keyboard. You can play a keyboard with two hands. You are used to falling note notation from Synthesia. By all rights, the transition to RB3 ought to be nearly painless. Maybe it will be. But my guess is that there will be at least a little pain. Make note of what you find hard in going from Synthesia to RB3. I think that will pretty much be what RB3 players find hard coming the other way. If in fact you do find it easy to move back and forth between Synthesia and RB3 then I'm full of it and Nicholas has successfully done what he set out to do.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
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stephenhazel
Posts: 223

Post by stephenhazel »

Ooooooook. I get yer point now I think.

They're different beasts, but the transition should be easier than it is.

Well, maybe they ain't so "compatible" with each other.
But Nicholas can change that should he choose to.
Of course, he has a dev team of 1 and test team of about 7 ;)
He'll get there, should he choose to, but, eh, whattayagonnado?

I could be wrong having never touched rb3, but I'm pretty sure that'll be
just a bit of fun while "us old dads" have some beers.
Not art.

Real keyboard players tend to have a dim view of keytars ;)
Here's some fun readin'...
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/sho ... eytar+suck
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

stephenhazel wrote:They're different beasts, but the transition should be easier than it is.
Nicely summarized.

I'm sure classical guitarists look down on rock guitarists too but who is filling arenas and making the big bucks? I think the merits of the keytar lie not in the music it can produce, it is obviously more limited than a conventional keyboard, but in the greater possibilities with regard to showmanship. One thing Rock Band can make you more aware of, is how much rock musicians do that has absolutely nothing to do with making music. Since you aren't really making music in Rock Band but just mimicking the motions that could produce the music with greater and greater precision, having the opportunity to also mimic the showmanship stuff is a lot of what makes the game fun. A keytar may be a lesser musical instrument but it offers more possibilities for having fun while "playing" or even playing for real. It is one of those musical instruments where you get better after a few beers. ;) Musicians who want to be commercially successful need to focus on entertaining the audience. The music is only a means to the end. Check out these videos of keytarists in action:
http://audio.tutsplus.com/articles/gene ... tar-solos/
I think #7 Elena Shemankova of the Red Elvises should have been #1 but that probably has nothing to do with her musicianship. Also notice in #9 how the keytarist looks cooler than the other keyboardists, relatively speaking.

Rock Band is about 1) having fun and 2) teaching you a little bit about music. 2 used to run a distant second. Pro mode pushes 2 closer to 1, but it is still second. In Synthesia 2 probably moves into first place.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

In terms of your question about having reached my 2010 goal -- the last lingering bits that I'm squeezing into 0.8.1 aside -- I would claim a resounding success. You came around after that period had already begun. Things were moving nearly 10x as fast as they ever had. It was the best I could have ever hoped for.

Can one person improve something to the point of competing with RB3 in six months in his spare time? Probably not. That would have been a bad goal. Instead, I picked from the list of things I was already planning to do that seemed to resonate with the things RB3 players might also be interested in. A subtle distinction, but I'm not sure I set out to do the thing you think I did. ;)

Was I hoping the feature set would be a little more interesting to people searching around the Internet for more after playing RB3? Yes. Was I planning to create some sort of trap that would draw in and consume all players from everywhere? Probably a little less. I'd love to if I could have, but it was simply too lofty a goal.
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

Nicholas, if you are where you want to be, then that is all that matters.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
David94509
Posts: 3

Post by David94509 »

jimhenry wrote:Are there any others here who regularly play Rock Band Pro Keys? Do you think Synthesia is an attractive supplement for a Rock Band Pro Key Player?
I play Rock Band Pro keys (got it on launch day) and I play it a little bit, but not much really, I tend to stick to drums. I purchased Synthesia years ago and, honestly, I never touch it. As a complete beginner with no training whatsoever, not having fingerings is the biggest obstacle to me playing either one. Fumbling around with no direction just encourages me to play wrong, and with repetition, ingrain the wrong way to do things into my playing which could take significant time to undo in the future. That's not meant to be a knock on Synthesia by the way. It's an excellent program. I'm just offering a point of view from a certain audience (complete beginner).

What Synthesia does have that RB3 doesn't is the ability to grow/change. Hence, the reason why I keep popping in here every few months to check on the progress. Fingerings are on their way someday, and that's all I need to know. I still consider it money well spent. The RB3 keyboard... bit of a waste.

Drums are still awesome though, ha!
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DC64
Posts: 830

Post by DC64 »

You will find synthesia more interesting if you find your own midi's with all notes that the REAL bands use.
like: http://www.mididb.com
"And now for something completely different."
David94509
Posts: 3

Post by David94509 »

DC64 wrote:You will find synthesia more interesting if you find your own midi's with all notes that the REAL bands use.
like: http://www.mididb.com
Thanks man, but I know where to get midis, that's not the issue for me. It's exactly what I described above. Trust me, I see the amazing utility of Synthesia for other people, and I see the potential for it for people like me. I only posted because I see so much talk about RB3 and felt I had a perspective to offer. I'm a RB3 player, and (currently) not a Synthesia player. I'm not interested in a RB3 clone, I want the different things Synthesia could offer. I support the project wholly and by no means meant to bash.
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jimhenry
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Post by jimhenry »

David94509 wrote:I play Rock Band Pro keys (got it on launch day) and I play it a little bit, but not much really, I tend to stick to drums. I purchased Synthesia years ago and, honestly, I never touch it. As a complete beginner with no training whatsoever, not having fingerings is the biggest obstacle to me playing either one. Fumbling around with no direction just encourages me to play wrong, and with repetition, ingrain the wrong way to do things into my playing which could take significant time to undo in the future.
You make an excellent point about not wanting to play incorrectly and learn bad habits. Just curious, did you not find the same problem in playing the drums on RB?

Also, have you tried Pro Keys Learn an Instrument in Rock Band? What did you think of the help they offered on how to play keys?
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
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DC64
Posts: 830

Post by DC64 »

I'm not interested in a RB3 clone, I want the different things Synthesia could offer. I support the project wholly and by no means meant to bash.
I can support you for learning music in different ways, we all have a talent somewhere.
(if i can say this for allot music lovers) None taken.
"And now for something completely different."
David94509
Posts: 3

Post by David94509 »

jimhenry wrote:
David94509 wrote:I play Rock Band Pro keys (got it on launch day) and I play it a little bit, but not much really, I tend to stick to drums. I purchased Synthesia years ago and, honestly, I never touch it. As a complete beginner with no training whatsoever, not having fingerings is the biggest obstacle to me playing either one. Fumbling around with no direction just encourages me to play wrong, and with repetition, ingrain the wrong way to do things into my playing which could take significant time to undo in the future.
You make an excellent point about not wanting to play incorrectly and learn bad habits. Just curious, did you not find the same problem in playing the drums on RB?

Also, have you tried Pro Keys Learn an Instrument in Rock Band? What did you think of the help they offered on how to play keys?
As far as the drums, probably, I just don't care, haha! I just play the drums on RB when I want to be stupid and hit things to the beat. Actually my experience with learning things the wrong way comes from guitar. I taught myself to play when I was younger and made multiple mistakes in technique that limited me as a player and took years to unlearn.

Pro Keys Learn an Instrument is fairly good, as it is the only section that explains fingerings and technique, but it's remarkably difficult to translate that over to a song that's flying at your face at full speed, or even the 70% speed that RB lets you drop it down to. But it's got nothing on the "learn the melody" or whatever mode that synthesia has, where it stops until you play the right key.
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