Hope you like Smashmouth!

For more info on Rock Band 3 for the Nintendo DS, go here for the full setlist.

This week had an eight-track pack from the Doggfather himself, Snoop Dogg! You should definitely check out the samples below this week, as some of the versions of the songs may not be what you would expect…

Check out playthrough videos of the tracks below from Dogmatic2120. Definitely check out and subscribe to his YouTube channel! Links to purchase DLC songs online at Xbox.com are included below for each track. All tracks are 160 MSP ($1.99), or grab the entire pack for 1080 MSP ($13.49).

Videos below…

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• The Acacia Strain – “Dr. Doom”
• Amberian Dawn – “Valkyries”
• Anti-Flag – “We Are the One”*
• Me Talk Pretty – “Wake Up”
• Meshuggah – “Bleed”

Unless otherwise noted, all songs are $1.99.

* Denotes $.99 track.

[Official announcement]

Tiffany AKA ElektraFi was able to steal John Drake away from the madness that is PAX to ask John the questions you guys and gals submitted. Unlike my conversation with him at PAX East, Tiffany got the entire thing on video, and thus I’m including it below.

I’m also including the questions asked and John’s paraphrased responses (with links directly to the instance in the video) after the video, so check that out if that’s your thing!

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Didn’t have a chance to get to PAX and/or make the Rock Band panel? Well, you’re in luck. @ElektraFi was there for the site getting all the goods for you. Below is the video (technically multiple videos) of the panel that she was able to capture. The panel featured (from L to R above): Dan Teasdale, Brian Chan, John Drake, and Aaron Trites.

I’ve transcribed a number of the more enlightening parts, but be sure to watch it, because it is VERY entertaining. Note: There are some naughty words from Potty Mouth Drake.

John on Keys:

“We have the technology to update older songs and DLC for keyboards, pro-guitar, and pro-bass, and maybe harmonies. Two things: 1. Keep in mind, especially any of you familiar with the RBN, there are no keyboard audio streams in those old songs, there’s like actual substantial changes, so if you miss a note with the keyboard, the keyboard goes away, which we think is really important for gameplay. [2.] And it’s a lot of f**king work.”

“We’ve asked people to go on RockBand.com and gives us some information on the forums, what they’d like to see updated with keyboards…”

“We’re eager to hear what you guys have to say. Say it respectfully, say it politely. If you come on to our forums and yell MOAR MUSE 40 times and then at the bottom ask for Boston, we’re just going to delete your post.”

“For right now, we’re focused on launching Rock Band 3, the first slate of DLC (the first DLC going forward with keyboards, will have keyboards), and then I think we’re going to do some selective updating of the back catalog. We don’t have time on our calendar, we don’t have pricing, and we don’t have information on how it’s going to work yet.”

Dan on RBN on PS3:

“Sony and Nintendo don’t have a platform for stuff like that.”

John on RBN on PS3:

“It’s a pipeline issue… It’s about how many songs a week we can submit to Sony… We’re trying to increase that over time… It does take a lot of work on our end to convert those files and resubmit them… Right now there won’t be Audition Mode in Rock Band 3 for the PS3, there won’t be tools for the PS3 that are specific like Magma. We eagerly wait for the day we can bring those tools to the PS3. It’s not just on us, it’s a whole lot of back end stuff with Sony. Boom, answered.”

John on Beatles DLC:

“We would love more songs for the Beatles, and we still have a great relationship with them, and we never wanna say NO, there’s always a chance that we’ll have some great stuff to announce soon.”

“We still have more songs than iTunes. Boom, in your face Apple!”

“To update old Beatles content, similar thing to Rock Band 3… we have the physical capability of doing it, but again there’s no audio streams, reauthorize the gameplay, resubmit it, reprice it… Since that stuff’s not coming in to Rock Band 3… the short answer is no, not right now.”

John on the Fender Squier:

“It’s technically not our product. It’s technically Fender’s product… It’s not going to come out at launch. The hope is that it will come out before the end of the year. We may… spill over a little bit. We’re working with Fender right now.”

“We’ve had some experience making hardware FAST, and we would much rather make hardware RIGHT.”

“It will not be cheaper than the guitar that does not have all the technology built into it, but we’re trying to keep it as close to that price as possible. Fender has been very aggressive about wanting to get this guitar into the hands of people and make them lifelong passionate guitar fans… They’re trying to keep it as cheap as possible. We’re really not trying to gouge people and make a profit off of the instrument. That’s what DLC is for!”

Dan on Mustang/Squier backwards compatibility:

“The Mustang supports it. You can’t play five lane on the Squier because of the way it’s built.”

John on Rock Band 2 export:

“We will be exporting tracks from Rock Band 2. It will be very similar with what we did with Rock Band 1. We will be announcing exactly what’s coming over, you know we had two or three songs that didn’t make it over last time… Pricing and date and stuff will be coming next 2 weeks, 3 weeks.

Brian Chan on social media interaction:

“When you make a setlist, that’s something that you can choose to push to Facebook. You’ll need to link your game to the RockBand.com website. From there you can control the syndication to your Facebook feed, or Twitter feed. And you can throttle it, too. I’m sure you don’t want to spam your friends.”

Rock Band 2 export on the Wii… Listen to the end of part 7, but there was a good non-answer. Interpret as you will.

And finally, Dan on the “6 Epic Rock Band 3 Goals:

“The first five are your standard hard. It’s like five star everything on Expert, gold star everything on Expert, Alex’s Luggage Combination [see Achievement List], and then we have the last one, which is the ultimate ‘F**k you’ to anyone who thought the Bladder of Steel was easy. It’s called ‘Obsessive Compulsive.’ I’m only going to read the text, because there’s … ways to read into it. The text of the description is ‘Hit every note in Rock Band 3.’”

Check out the full videos below. Read the rest of this entry »

So awhile back, I asked people to submit their requests for existing Rock Band DLC that they would like to see updated with Rock Band 3 features. While the poll and submission process was far from scientific, the results were VERY enlightening.

With over 400 “write-in” entries, I did not have the time and/or patience to log every individual song request… especial considering requests ranged from “ALL SONGS” to “DLC packs” to “songs from certain albums” to “songs only by certain artists,” to… well, you get the point. (I’ve included a link to the CSV file so you can see what type of information I was working with from the community.) What I did instead was to record only the artist from each request and then sorted to see who was the most requested artist. Many single requests from people included multiple artists, so I tried to include those as well.

There were just under 100 different artists requested. The most popular being Boston with over 60 different requests for them! Queen and The Who tied for 37 requests each, followed by Dream Theater. Rush came in next at 21, followed by… ahem… ALL OF THEM, with 20 different people making this request. Rounding out artists with more than 10 requests, we have Europe‘s “The Final Countdown” from LEGO Rock Band with 16 requests, and finally Avenged Sevenfold with 12 requests.

What I find interesting is that the TWO most recent acts among the community in this unscientific poll, BOTH have NEW achievements related to them. Could this lend further evidence to the fact that Harmonix may already have plans to upgrade some DLC?

Also, @HMXHenry mentioned earlier today in the PAX panel that, while not promising anything, Harmonix is listening to the community and would consider requests for Rock Band 3 “upgrades.”

I’ve included the full list below, if you care to see it:

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