Rock Band the Fourth releases tomorrow, the 6th, yet here I am staring at my Amazon order screen which claims my band-in-a-box is on its way to my home, to be delivered a day early. Whether or not this truly comes to pass, I figured I'd throw together a thread for all of us to talk about this long-awaited return to band rhythm gaming. I'll be sure to weigh in as soon as I have the game (and all of that plastic) in my hands. Hopefully you guys will do the same. I'd love to see what everyone thinks.

Also please enjoy some Brad:

Mine is still "preparing for shipment" :'( so no early game for me. Super bummed that the official FAQ was incorrect about the new cymbal kit hitting on the same day. I have the old cymbals, but man the new ones sound sweeeeet. Just spent like an hour and a half struggling through the PSN interface trying to download 118 DLC songs. Hopefully there's something in the game interface that makes this easier once they fix the remainder of the DLC. Still so hyped. DRUMS!

@starvinggamer: I'm pretty excited about doing some drumming as well. It's been a long time! What's the deal with the new cymbals? I haven't heard anything about those.

Also should I be re-downloading my DLC early? Is it all on the Xbox One/PS4 stores? I just assumed the game would pull all of that stuff in and download via the in-game store or something.

@jjweatherman: A good lot of the songs have been downloadable on PSN for the past couple of days, and I assume it's the same with Xbox, so if you have time to kill I would suggest downloading some of your songs.

Unfortunately, some songs I've bought are listed as "unavailable" but they're on PSN as downloadables for Rock Band 4 so I hope that tonight when I start playing the game, in the in-game store this problem will be fixed. Absolutely cannot wait for 11pm tonight to start playing this!

I miiiiight have a copy sitting at home for Xbox One right now. Here's what I can say: The song import isn't quite as bad as it's been made out to be. (1000+ pieces of DLC...ugh). The in-game store makes it better than just going through the Xbox Store. It still isn't quite accurate though, as there are a lot of songs I have from RB1/2/Green Day/Lego that it says I don't have the rights for (even after exports...haven't tried RB3 yet). Also, some of the RB3 preorder DLC like Blue Monday and Burning Down the House it says I don't have, either. Also, some packs are marked "purchased" but I have to download the individual songs (which some are marked "purchased" some are marked with their price, but when you go to download it, it just says you already own it, and to hit download).

While that will take a while, it's at least doable. I could really use an "easy" button for it all, though TBH. That said, my only other minor gripe is that the Xbox goes into a TV-power-saving mode if there is no input after like 4-5 minutes, and the guitars and drum controllers don't recognize on the xbox dashboard or in the xbox store, and this causes my screen to go dark after 4-5 minutes, until i hit a thumbstick. I'm hoping this is something MS is aware of though, it seems like more of their issue than Harmonix's.

I'll probably stream some later tonight (I don't think there's a Twitch embargo?)

edit: Uptown Funk's Bassline is the best.

Nice, I figured some of that out. Downloaded a few essentials, though it seems like only a smattering of songs are on there right now.

In other news:

Kitty is excited, too.

Had to cancel my band in a box set because I just couldn't afford it right now and opted for the $80 Xbone set with the adapter. Ordered it on September 14 and Amazon doesn't even have a delivery estimate for me right now so it's all up in the air on when I may even get the game.

@jjweatherman: They just reduced the input lag, probably barely noticeable but hey I'm the guy who buys TVs based on ms delay.

Couldn't be more excited. I've easily spent over $1000 on Rock Band stuff since 1. Bummed that my Ion kit won't work with RB4 (fingers crossed they make that work eventually), and having to go through the Xbox One store and download all of my 1000+ songs one by one is UNGODLY frustrating, but despite all that I'm happy to finally bust out the plastic instruments again.

Is there a way to buy Rock Band 4 with the drums only? My RB1 drums work pretty well but they're loud and sometimes the yellow pad cuts out. Other than that I'm really excited for Rock Band 4. Can't wait to play all my favourite songs again.

@killroycantkill: No way to buy the game + drums as far as I'm aware, unfortunately.

I've been playing some guitar and drums, and it seems cool. Not sure how I feel about the freestyle solos and dynamic drum fills, though. Some of the dynamic fills are just plain tricky, so I've turned that off for now, but I'll switch it back on and try it some more soon.

I think my main issue is how the freestyle solos (as well as general gameplay) are affected by input lag. I calibrated hoping for the best, but unfortunately it's not quite where it needs to be yet. This scares me because this has been a lingering issue for me. Despite having spent probably hours over the years trying to calibrate my setup properly, it simply never feels right. The best days of Rock Band were back when the original released and I still owned a CRT. Good god, the accuracy. I miss it. We'll see if I can make the calibration work for me this time around, though.

Also glad to report that Awesomeness Detection is still a setting.

I think they show up as unavailable on browser PS Store if you bought them in a pack but then Harmonix said the way to get them is to download individual tracks on the PS4, so it's a little unclear to me until I actually get the game and figure it out there. Though for some of the pack you can repurchase (that doesn't actually cost anything), and it will give you individual PS4 tracks, but it only for certain ones, like the Black Sabbath covers pack, The Police pack, first Nirvana pack, the Electric Six pack, to name a few.

Correction: It seems like most packs/albums are on browser PS store now. Don't know stuff they aren't selling (Metallica, Spinal Tap, etc) but I'm told that stuff is going to carry over assuming you bought it before they took it down.

Edit: Yeah, if you're on Playstation I would definately getting your packs through the browser PS store. If you bought a pack or album, you can go the page for that pack and will be able to add it to cart at no cost. When you "purchase" the pack again if you go to your download list, you should have the pack download for PS3 and the songs contained in the pack as individual downloads for PS4.

@jjweatherman said:

@redbullet685 said:

@jjweatherman: A good lot of the songs have been downloadable on PSN for the past couple of days, and I assume it's the same with Xbox, so if you have time to kill I would suggest downloading some of your songs.

Unfortunately, some songs I've bought are listed as "unavailable" but they're on PSN as downloadables for Rock Band 4 so I hope that tonight when I start playing the game, in the in-game store this problem will be fixed. Absolutely cannot wait for 11pm tonight to start playing this!

Nice, I figured some of that out. Downloaded a few essentials, though it seems like only a smattering of songs are on there right now.

In other news:

Kitty is excited, too.

Also, all the digital version pre-order songs will be DLC on both consoles tomorrow ($1.99 each). The songs again are:

It's more Rock Band I guess. Exactly what I was looking for. I managed to get all the DLC I can ( No Don't Stop Believing really sucks). The tour seems Ok. I like that they give you a choice between money, fans and gear, but those voting descriptions are lame. "A song from 1984" Just tell us the god damn song choices.

I'd really like all of the exports as soon as possible. At the moment my song selection seems like a serious downgrade. The on disc stuff ranges from being absolutely godawful to kinda inoffensive, That Protomen song is kinda fuckin cool though.

The guitar feels nice, and I'm not super fussed about any of the character creation stuff or online etc, but I would like setlists, or a way to rate songs. The one big feature, the freestyle guitar isn't doing anything for me. I'll probably spend a little time messing with it to try and figure how to do it properly, but I think I prefer the real solos. It's cool that you can toggle it with the D-pad instantly though.

I dunno about other people, but that calibration on the Xbox doesn't work for shit. I feel like I recalibrated the game about 20 times before having to do a fully manual calibration, and now it works totally fine.

Uh, anyone else having problems doing drum rolls and fast kicks on the drum pedal? For the drum rolls it just seems like it can't register the hits fast enough? As for the drum pedal, I feel like I have to lift the pedal all the way up before going back down to register a hit, which makes quick hits to the drum pedal pretty much impossible.

Also, the auto-calibration settings don't feel right. The guitar seemed the most okay, but I totally noticed the latency on the drums though. I guess I'll have to mess around with it.

PS4 version here.

EDIT: Uh, apparently our instruments have firmware and they need to be updated. Ugh...what. I'll get back to you all after I go through this crap. Hopefully, this solves my problems. Here's the link.

http://madcatz.kayako.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/608/217/rock-band-4-wireless-controllers-firmware-updates

Now that you mention it, I did have a hard time with rolls and especially the pedal. I chalked it up to the years off and rust, but mayhaps something else was going on. I'll have to look into the firmware. That's kinda annoying.

I got this for PS4 yesterday. I installed it, and fired it up. I was able to play the game using my legacy PS3 wireless Rock Band guitar. But I had an issue with being able to log-in to my user profile. The guitar worked fine in game, but wouldn't work in the PS4 interface. So my personal profile only registered as being the vocalist, but refused to show up as the guitarist. This meant that when playing the guitar part, I could only play as "guest." This prevents me from playing as the characters I try to create.

@roger_wilco: I had the same problem. What you need to do is boot up RB4 while signed into your profile and then turn off the controller (without signing out) so that only your Guest guitar is left. Press start on the guitar and there should pull up an options menu that includes "Change Profile" or something to that effect.

@haywyre: Thank you, HayWyre! I'll try that tonight when I get home. It doesn't affect things too badly as far as local multiplayer goes. My group of friends is always going to have someone willing to pick up the mic. But it is an issue for solo play, especially guitar solo play. And getting some nice, soothing rocking in is part of what I love about music-rhythm games like this. If your suggestion works, it will save me some trouble. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm keen to pick up a copy and the new guitar but here in Australia that costs $250. I can't validate that price so I'll wait for a better deal.

I updated the firmware on the drums and recalibrated using the drums. The pads seem to react better, but sixteenth notes still seem like a problem. The bass pedal is still completely fucked though. I even found an old pedal and it has the same problem. Maybe it's a software issue? I really hope they fix it.

@razzuel: I'm also having the same problems as you. But I'm also having this weird issue where the blue pad is so sensitive that when I hit the bass pedal the blue pad goes off and it makes my combos break. Really not enjoying the drum experience.

Going to call Mad Catz to see if they have anything in line to fix this or at least replace my drums maybe.

I've really been enjoying the game so far. All of the DLC of mine that is available to DL was easy to get, even though it didn't show that I owned it until I began to download it. The new guitar seems pretty nice and the freestyle solo stuff is a lot of fun. I'll probably go back to just having the normal solo at some point but for now the freestyle way is really cool and very intuitive. It only took me the tutorial and three or four songs with it in it to work on it. The only hard part is remembering where my hand goes when I slide back up to get back to playing the song.

@haywyre: Yep, it worked like a charm. I switched off my DualShock4, and then I was able to log-in to my profile from within the game using the PS3 wireless guitar. Played about 45 minutes last night, and had a great time. I'm looking forward to the holidays. I'll break out all of the instruments and have a blast playing with the family.

I'm was pretty much in the same boat as TC with having ION drums not working on the XB1 and being sad the on disc songs aren't available yet. However, I do enjoy playing drums on the new drumset as I find my pedal and pad responsiveness better than my IONs have been these past few years.

An underrated upgrade I've found is that the older DLC (pre-RB3) has harmonies added. Singing harmonies with a full band has been up there with rocking out on the drumset as my favorite part of rock band. So while RB4 plays similar to RB3, my RB4 experience has been great since I get harmonies for however many pre RB3 dlc I own, plus I currently have a drum set that registers every hit. My expectation is that I'll be able to add a tons more songs that I previously owned.

Anyone had any sound issues? The guitar seems to be super quite most of the time, and then sometimes it picks up. That's not talking about solos. The instruments just seem so in the background.

Is there some optimal audio setting? Because default seems bad.

There's new firmware for the drums that changes how the drum pedal is handled. I tried it out. It's slightly better, but it's still not fixed.

It's definitely easier than before to hit those quick notes if you play heel down (which according to a Harmonix person on Reddit is the intended way to use the drum pedal) than if you play heel up. I play heel up though, so that sucks.

Sigh.

@thefriend: Yeah, I was hoping to adjust the mix myself, but there's no option for that as far as I can tell.

Honest question, couldn't think of a better place to ask, but are the 360 Rock Band games backwards compatible on Xbox One, and if so does that controller adapter function for them? When they got to the part in the quick look where they mentioned that song import from those games isn't in yet. I'm one of the few people that owns a Rock Band 3 Keyboard and honestly that might be the version I'd prefer to run.

For some reason sometimes when I hit the green cymbal it triggers the blue drum. I know there's a firmware issue with accidental double hits but I don't have bluetooth on my PC so I can't try to fix it in any case.

Man doesn't that make your leg hurt like crazy?

Trying out the new guitar and all I can think of is "Man, I really wish the Xplorer from the 360 version of Guitar Hero II was compatible..." I'm so used to using it now that using any other guitar just doesn't feel right to me.

@starvinggamer: Yeah, I have to use a lot more energy, especially with having to let the pedal go all the way up before each hit. Playing heel down hurts my ankle though and just feels weird to pivot like that. I dont know. *shrugs*

I was hoping this would be a return to form of my time with Rock Band 1 and 2, but this ain't it. I'm pretty disappointed, but I'm trying not to think about it.

Popping back in for some random bitching. I tested my cymbals on my old drums and they worked 100% OK so it's clearly an issue with the RB4 drum kit itself. I sent a support ticket to MadCatz and they said they had never heard of the problem and couldn't replicate it but that I should just wait for whenever the RB4 cymbals come out because there will probably be a firmware update and maybe it will fix the problem that they don't even know anything about to begin with.

Lol fuuuuuuuuuck you

You know what, nah, I'm done. I've just had way too many issues with this game. The drums being busted are my main problem, but with all this other stuff on top of that, I'm getting my money back. I'm really disappointed in Harmonix and MadCatz.