Drum Review Process

Checklist

The raw list of things you should look out for while reviewing drums. All of this is explained in detail in the next section.

• On all difficulties, are the specific drums authored to the correct pads?
• Are all drum hits (other than exceptions listed below) authored on expert?
• Are flams authored as two gems on expert?
• Are disco beats authored correctly, so that the red pad has less of an effect on the crowd meter?
• Does all of the pad movement feel correct? Is it reasonably playable?
• Is hard properly scaled back from expert?
• Are there any kicks during drum fills on hard? There should not be. (NOTE: this does not refer to an authored drum fill SECTION, it refers to drum fills heard in the music recording in the original drummer performance.)
• Are any disco beats on expert reverted back to a standard setting on hard?
• Is there enough space between the previous notes and any double crash hits on hard?
• Does medium contain the crucial parts of the song, while still being easy to play?
• Are there any kicks or snares in between time-keeping notes on medium? There should not be.
• Are there any times where you need to use all three limbs on medium? There should not be.
• Are all rolls playable with one hand on medium?
• Is there enough space after crashes on medium for the player to reset his positioning?
• Are there any gems paired with kicks on easy? There should not be.
• Do all sections on easy only require two limbs?
• Are there enough drum fills?
• Are the drum fills an acceptable length?
• Are there drum fills too close to gems before or after the fill?
• If applicable, are drum solos authored properly?
• Do the drum animations look acceptable?
• If applicable, is the Big Rock Ending functioning properly? Is there at least one gem after the Big Rock Ending lanes?

Explanations

It doesn't matter what order of difficulty you view a song in, and there's plenty of ways to go about it that all make sense. For instance, I personally like to play the song on expert myself, and then bump down to easy, and autoplay each difficulty going in order from easy to expert.

It's important to note that you should not be playing along at all times, nor should you be autoplaying at all times, either. There are quite a few things you'll likely miss while you are playing along, but if you autoplay everything, you might not get a feel for the song. Even if the gems look right, you might notice something is wrong when you go to actually play it. However, if you're not capable of playing every song on expert, that's okay, too! Work in a setting that you're comfortable with. It is by no means crucial to be amazing at Rock Band in order to be able to tell if a song in Rock Band is playing right.

After you have played through and/or watched the song a couple times, you may notice that you can't clearly hear a part as well as you want to. If only you could solo the track like you can in Reaper! Fortunately, you can get pretty close to isolating an instrument with the in-game options.

At the Main Menu go to Options -> Audio/Video Settings -> Adjust Audio. From there turn all the sliders to the minimum level except for "Instruments," which controls the volume of the part you are playing. Don't forget to set them back, though, since you shouldn't be playtesting with this audio setup at all times.

For more in-depth information about drum authoring standards, check out the Drum Authoring page.

Difficulty specific issues

For this section, we'll start with expert and work all the way down to easy.

Expert

For the most part, every drum hit on expert should be represented with a gem. However, there are a few exceptions to this.

• Kicks that are too fast to be hit with one foot - If a drummer is using a double bass pedal, that's going to be too fast for our game. We don't support fully authored double bass in most cases (if it's slow enough, we may sometimes author it, like we have in certain Disturbed songs), so usually we just author what the drummer is playing with their right foot. This isn't set in stone, so if the author can think of a more creative way to handle this, he's more than welcome to do so. Just make sure that the kicks don't feel awkward.

• Accent emphasis - When possible, we like to put emphasis on accented notes during a roll that remains on one gem. Dropping a gem prior to the accented note to bring out the accent that follows it is the acceptable way of doing this. Sometimes this can lead to awkward playing, but we usually feel that it's more important to bring out the major emphasis of the song rather than author every single minor note. If you'd like to see a good example of this, Excuse Me Mr. by No Doubt features this style of authoring.

• Drum rolls need to be playable - Certain types of rolls (like buzz rolls) don't lend themselves well to Rock Band. Because of this, we will scale back the authoring to a point where it still feels right, but everything is going to be playable. If it looks too fast, it probably is.

• The feel of the song takes precedence over the nuances - It's more important to feel like you're playing the song than it is to play every minor hit. The easiest way to look for this is to listen to the song and see if there are gems that aren't tied to anything that's really audible. If you can't hear it in the game mix, it's probably not important to have it authored. Make sure you feel like you're playing the song.

Flams are authored in a specific way for Rock Band. We want to emphasize that the drummer is using both hands on these hits, so we author them with two adjacent gems. One of the gems won't be tied to any specific audio, but it's important to have both gems there. This may be a bit difficult to check if you don't have a good ear for them, but if you can hear them, it's an important little touch that makes the song better.

Also, make sure that each part of the drum kit is authored to its correctly corresponding color pad. There are a lot of rules in place for this, and many scenarios where exceptions are made. There is too much to list here, so please see the Drum Authoring documentation for more information.

In Rock Band, missing a snare hit affects the crowd meter more than missing a hi-hat or cymbal. This can lead to a complication with disco beats. If the author puts a disco beat in the song, but forgets the text event to reverse the streams that control the hi-hat and the cymbal, the disco beat is going to be very punishing. Make sure that the red gems during the disco beat aren't killing the crowd meter quickly. This is pretty easy to check; the difference between the snare and hi-hat penalty if the streams aren't reversed for a disco beat is very noticeable.

Movement across the pads is very important. In a situation where a drummer is filling with the snare and toms, we essentially have one snare and three toms to work with. Of course, quite a few drummers work with more than that. For these situations, the movement across the toms is very important. The key thing to check for here is that there are no crossovers across pads that make the song more awkward than it should be. Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made, but for the most part, there should be a natural flow to the fills.

Hard

The hard difficulty has to scale back from expert in a few specific ways. First, it's important that more of the specific nuances of the song are removed, while keeping the overall feel of the song present. Second, the number of kicks should be about halfway between the number of kicks that appear on expert and the number of kicks that appear on medium. This isn't set in stone, as some songs don't have a lot of kick to begin with, but it does need to be scaled back for playability. In relation to that, there shouldn't be any kicks during drum fills (those played in the actual master, not those used to activate Overdrive).

Snare accents are still important on this difficulty, but it should be scaled back to be a bit easier. For the most part, this is just a judgment call. Make sure it doesn't feel too hard or too easy.

For hard, all crash cymbals should be authored to a single color. There shouldn't be any back and forth, and there also shouldn't be any hits with two crash cymbals, unless it is preceded by a lot of space beforehand.

Also, there shouldn't be any quick hand crossovers. While these can be acceptable on expert, they shouldn't be happening on hard.

One of the most important things is to make sure that any gems that are removed from a beat on expert remain consistent throughout the song. If a beat is scaled back a specific way at one point, but a different way at another point, this is bad. Consistency is always very important.

Medium

Medium is where the song becomes more about the crucial parts of the song rather than playing all of the song. Here are a few of the rules that we have in place to make this manageable.

First, there shouldn't be any snares or kicks in between whatever is being used to keep the beat. For example, if the drummer is playing eighth notes on the ride cymbal to keep the beat, there shouldn't be a kick in between any of those eighth notes.

With medium, it's still fine to have a kick gem when a crash is present, assuming that the drummer is playing a crash and kick at the same time. This will be removed for easy, but this is an important emphasis to keep present on medium. However, all three limbs should not be used at once. For example, if the drummer is playing the snare, kick, and crash cymbal at the same time, something should be removed (generally the kick).

On medium, all of the fills should be reasonably playable with one hand. Medium players aren't going to be totally used to using both hands yet, so keeping fills at speeds like this makes it easier to get a feel for how to play the game.

Easy

For the easy difficulty, there can’t be any hand gems paired with kicks. You can have patterns that use both of your hands, and you can have patterns where you alternate the red pad with the kick, but you can’t ever have anything that combines your hands with your leg. The easiest way to remember this is that you can't use more than two limbs at once. You can have a single arm alternating with kicks, or you can use both arms with no kicks.

The less intense sections of the song are generally authored as alternating snares and kicks, and the more intense sections (like the chorus of most songs) of the song are authored with both hands, but no kick. When using both hands, it's important that the right hand is keeping a steady beat at all times.

In addition to that, for faster tempos, there should generally be only one kick in between snare hits. If this makes the song feel too "empty," though, it's acceptable to add a bit more.

Also, make sure there’s enough space between hits. It’s important that drummers on the easier difficulties aren’t being expected to move quickly between pads at any point. It can vary depending on the speed of the song, but generally an eighth note of space is acceptable.

Just about everything else you’ll need to check isn’t tied to any specific difficulty.

Non-difficulty specific issues

One of the most important things to check is drum fills. They will often be too short, but can sometimes be too long. They generally should last the same amount of time, unless there’s a specific reason musically that it could be made longer. Short fills are almost always avoided. Also, make sure there are enough fills in a song. If there are too few, activating overdrive will become more complicated, which has various negative effects on the song.

Additionally, it’s important that the fills aren't too close to other gems. While they might be playable, if they get too close to either end, the drummer might be going crazy free-styling and won’t have time to reset himself back to the actual beat of the song.

Drum solos are really cool. However, much like guitar solos, they have to be in places that "make sense." It's important to make sure that they're in the right places (which is somewhat subjective), they start at the right time, and they end at the right time. Also, a drum solo shouldn't directly transition into a Big Rock Ending. There may be an easy way to cut it off early, and there may not. It's important to check this, though, because the solo bonus will cover the BRE bonus if it doesn't end soon enough.

Unlike guitar and bass, the drum animations tend to be a bit more realistic. While they’re not always perfect (our animations don’t exactly support some crazy prog drummer's kit that has 20 toms, for instance), they should look as accurate as possible. If the drummer is keeping the beat on the hi-hat, he should be hitting the hi-hat appropriately. It’s tough to check every single hit when you’re viewing someone else’s song in audition, but when the camera is focused on the drummer, you can get a decent idea whether or not they look correct.

Similar to guitar, Big Rock Endings need to be checked for drums, as well. All of the lanes (and kick) should be functioning correctly during a BRE. Generally, all of the lanes are going to work or none of them will. There's usually no in-between cases. Also, there should be at least one gem after the freestyle lanes end, otherwise it will be impossible to complete the BRE.