2M points and two RB2 #1 scores!

This week we reached our main goal by gaining more than 2M points! On top of that we got our first #1 scores for RB2! We played 30 songs, so that gives an average increase of 68K per song.

We are now only 1.3M points away from the 2nd best local band "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" (they also increased a bit tonight). There are 6 bands ahead of us that are within about 3M points so it should make for a neat climb in the next few weeks.

Highlights:
- We have our first RB2 session with some decent paths and it pays off, with two #1 ranked full band FCs ("Today" and "Nine in the Afternoon", pictures to come soon)
- Our best increases were for "Chop Suey" (356K), "American Woman" (252K), "Rob the Prez-O-Dent" (231K), "Bodhisattva" (212K) and "Today" (210K)
- We all get 100% on "My Own Worst Enemy" but it's not a #1 score (need better path and no overstrum)
- We pass "Jesus Christ Pose" on Expert at the end of the session in a random DLC set but it's a pretty tough sightread

Happy New Year everyone!

Goal for tomorrow: pass the Happy People

This week our optimal goal will be to gain 3.2M points to beat "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" for 17th place. It is a longer session so it is possible. Once we pass them, the last local band to beat in both RB1 and RB2 will be "3 on a Match".

We are currently in 18th place but there are still four bands with inflated scores (in positions 1, 2, 4 and 9).

To reach our optimal goal, we will need an average increase of 133K per song if we play for two hours (24 songs), 89K per song if we play for three hours (36 songs) and 67K per song if we play for four hours (48 songs).

Minimum: Gain 1M points, a decent increase
Main: Gain 2M points, a good increase
Optimal: Gain 3.2M points, to beat "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" for 17th place
Bonus: Play some random DLC on our breaks

Here is the setlist for tomorrow (worst all-Expert songs by spread to #1, all songs with more than 250K difference):
1. "Lazy Eye"
2. "American Woman"
3. "Alabama Getaway"
4. "Spoonman"
5. "Welcome to the Neighborhood"
6. "Bad Reputation"
7. "Carry On Wayward Son"
8. "One Way or Another"
9. "You Oughta Know"
10. "Where'd You Go?"
11. "Tangled Up in Blue"
12. "Go Your Own Way"
13. "Spirit in the Sky"
14. "One Step Closer"
15. "Lump"
16. "Mountain Song"
17. "Round and Round"
18. "Uncontrollable Urge"
19. "Pretend We're Dead"
20. "Our Truth"
21. "I Was Wrong"
22. "Alive"
23. "Feel the Pain"
24. "Night Lies"
25. "Rebel Girl"
26. "Come Out and Play (Keep 'Em Separated)"
27. "The Trees (Vault Edition)"
28. "Pinball Wizard"
29. "Cool for Cats"
30. "Psycho Killer"

A merry increase!

We almost managed to reach our main goal by gaining more than 1.3M points! We are now ahead of "Forgotten Nightmare" at 111M for 18th place. We played 16 songs, so that gives an average increase of 83K per song.

This leaves us 3M away from "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND", a point gain we can most likely accomplish within 2 sessions.

Highlights:
- Our best increases were for "Supreme Girl" (292K), "Tangled Up in Blue" (291K) and "Lazy Eye" (282K)
- "Supreme Girl" is now our best ranked song in RB2 (4th)
- Phoenix has a great note streak for "Lazy Eye" (1802)
- Sylvie is added as an honorary Maca in the "Band Info" section, thanks again for filling in for Raikan!
- We have a special Perkins after-session outing, gotta love the improvised food costumes...

Happy Holidays to one and all!

Score Reader 2.3 released!

Download Here


New features:
- We support Wii, but if you select DLC, be aware that the scores are not up yet
- The tool is now twice as fast as in version 2.2
- Fixed bug caused by the latest Leaderboard changes

(Original Post)

Beer of the week

Hi there, to celebrate the holiday season, let's start a new tradion for 2009!

Since Phoenix and Bongoo have a taste of 1 or 2 new beers every week, we decided to share what we try with you and give you our feedback.

This week's beer was exceptionaly strong: Aventinus Weizen Eisbock.

Since this ale has 12% alcohol, it is the only one we tried tonight (we have to keep a minimal level of mental awareness for our sessions ;) ). It is a dark colored beer with a very complex taste.

As strong as it may seem, this beer was esceptionally smooth and somewhat sweet. One of our groupies (the Trapper) describes it as a "strong alchoolic rootbeer". I personally would compare this beer to a white wine...

Try it out and let us know. :)

"phoenix5096@gmail.com"

Top Vocalist - A Jagged Gorgeous Winter

Yesterday, while attempting to up my overall vocalist score (something that has become tedious, seeing as how most of my spreads are below 20k), something wonderful happened:



That's right! The Reject has the top vocalist score for the worst named song in Rock Band 2!

Woot!

Goal for tomorrow: halfway to Happy People

Score Reader update: a fixed version with Wii support is being tested and will soon be released. Thank you for your patience.

This is the 100th post! It's neat to see how this blog has expanded (Score Reader, online shop) and how we've progressed since it launched (2nd place for RB1 PS3)!

This week our minimum goal will be to gain 1M points to beat "Forgotten Nightmare". Our optimal goal will be to gain 2M to be halfway to catching up to "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND". Once we pass them, the last local band to beat in both RB1 and RB2 will be "3 on a Match".

We are currently in 18th place but there are still three bands with inflated scores (in positions 1, 2 and 4). It is also interesting to note that "Mach 6" dropped back down, so they are out of our radar for now.

To reach our optimal goal, we will need an average increase of 166K per song if we play for one hour (12 songs), 84K per song if we play for two hours (24 songs) and 56K per song if we play for three hours (36 songs).

Minimum: Gain 1M points, to beat "Forgotten Nightmare" for 17th place
Main: Gain 1.5M points, a good increase
Optimal: Gain 2M points, halfway to catching up to "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND"
Bonus: Play some random DLC on our breaks

Here is the setlist for tomorrow (worst all-Expert songs by spread to #1, all songs with more than 350K difference):
1. "Tangled Up in Blue"
2. "Lazy Eye"
3. "Where'd You Go?"
4. "Let There Be Rock"
5. "Aqualung"
6. "Supreme Girl"
7. "Welcome to the Neighborhood"
8. "American Woman"
9. "Alive"
10. "Alabama Getaway"
11. "Spoonman"
12. "Bad Reputation"
13. "Testify"
14. "Carry On Wayward Son"
15. "Night Lies"
16. "One Way or Another"
17. "You Oughta Know"
18. "One Step Closer"

Fanmail #3 - Christmas Shopping!

Today's Fanmail comes from Steve:

From: Steve in a Panic!
Sent: Thursday, December 18th, 2009
Subject: Present Ideas

Hello Macas,

I was wondering if you had any ideas for presents during this year's holiday season. I tried to go shopping yesterday, but couldn't find anything for my wife.

Any suggestions would help!

Thanks - Stevo

Ok, first off, the name of the band is 3 Macas and a Reject!

Second, this sounds like the perfect opportunity to launch the New Online Store foreshadowed in Fanmail #1!

---

Are you currently at home sitting in front of the computer? Are you surfing the web in your underwear, searching for last minute gift ideas, all the while eating a lukewarm burrito you could have probably left in the microwave a couple of minutes longer?

If so, please seak professional help...

Otherwise, visit the 3 Macas and a Reject Online Shop! where you'll find everything you'll need to please the family this holiday season!

Need something for the kids? Check out our "I Heart 3 MaaR" buttons! Great for children of all shapes and sizes, your toddlers will choke on their small sizes, while your emo teenager will take advantage of the sharp pin to cut himself! Buy one for your son or daughter today! Have many kids? Then Buy our 10 pack and Save!

Have a bratty teenager that won't shut up about how uncool they are? Get them the Ginormous 3 Macas and a Reject Poster. Its actual size of 35" x 23", along with some badass poses from each of the 3MaaR members (and fake autographs!!), will make your teen the coolest kid in school! Don't have big enough walls for our ginormous poster? Then get our Not So Ginormous 3 Macas and a Reject Poster today!

Want to get your wife something that shows how much you care? Get her the "I Heart 3 MaaR" String Thong! That way she can feel sexy, all the while reminding you of your favorite band!

PS: All proceeds will go to help a Maca in need.

PPS: Merry Christmas Everyone! :D

---

Have Fanmail you want to send us? Then open up your email and write to: "rejected.fans@live.com"!

We beat you n00bs, now it's your turn...

Even with a shortened session due to Phoenix's Pizza Hut indigestion, we managed to reach our minimum goal by gaining close to 1.1M points! We are now ahead of "Forgotten Nightmare" and "n00bs 'R' Uz" at 110M for 17th place. We played 14 songs so that gives an average increase of 77K per song.

As usual, we expect "n00bs 'R' Uz" to pass us during the week so we can start the cycle once again next week... :)

Reminder: The next two sessions are on Tuesdays, with Sylvie replacing Raikan next week.

Highlights:
- DMan provided us with some neat vocals paths from his cellphone, which helped us do some very good score increases on certain songs. We'll eventually transition to some better full band paths for optimal scoring instead of relying on instinct and tactics as we usually do now
- Our best increases were for "Down with the Sickness" (352K), "Kids in America" (261K), "Hungry Like the Wolf" (150K) and "Float On" (107K)
- "Down with the Sickness" is now the song with our highest score in RB2 (more than 2.4M, ranked 6th)
- We decided that once we manage to be the #1 local band on PS3 for both RB1 and RB2 (missing 2M in RB1 and 5M in RB2), we'll try do be in the top 25 for every song in the game, including DLC
- Bongoo tried and passed a random song playing both Guitar and Bass at the same time (it ended up being "Dammit")! It was on Easy difficulty but it was still neat
- Koji (DMan's dog) makes some neat poses throughout the night (Koji of Nazareth and Koji the Nun)

Goal for tomorrow: no more nightmares about n00bs passing us...

This week our minimum goal will be to gain 1M points to move up two positions (to beat "Forgotten Nightmare" and "n00bs 'R' Uz"). 1M is a nice increase but we can aim for 2M as an optimal goal. Gaining 2M this week and next week would allow us to reach the next group of bands that starts at 113M (the first being "Mach 6" who moved up since last week).

To reach our minimum goal, we will need an average increase of 83K per song if we play for one hour (12 songs), 42K per song if we play for two hours (24 songs) and 28K per song if we play for three hours (36 songs).

Minimum: Gain 1M points, to beat "Forgotten Nightmare" and "n00bs 'R' Uz" for 17th place
Main: Gain 1.5M points, a good increase
Optimal: Gain 2M points, a great increase
Bonus: Play some random DLC on our breaks

There are still only two bands with inflated scores (the ones at #1 and #3). It's interesting that the "Psychadelic Byrds" are #4 if you remove those two bands, but they still have 7 songs left to play. If they get the #1 score for those songs (they already have 26 #1s), they would be right behind "Interrobang!" with 134M. I checked Score Hero and they are "Average White Guy", but with a better drummer.

Please note that the sessions will be on Tuesdays for the next two weeks (in order not to fall on the 24th and 31st).

Here is the setlist for tomorrow (worst songs by rank, all songs not in the top 35):
1. "Hungry Like the Wolf"
2. "Kids in America"
3. "Go Your Own Way"
4. "Carry On Wayward Son"
5. "The Trees (Vault Edition)"
6. "Float On"
7. "Master Exploder"
8. "You Oughta Know"
9. "Colony of Birchmen"
10. "Everlong"
11. "Round and Round"
12. "Our Truth"
13. "Supreme Girl"
14. "Painkiller"
15. "Souls of Black"
16. "Alive"
17. "Where'd You Go?"
18. "I Was Wrong"
19. "Come Out and Play (Keep 'Em Separated)"
20. "Bodhisattva"

I would still be in my parent's basement

...if I lived at my parents.

That's the realization I came to yesterday when, thanks to help from Phoenix, I was awarded the very last trophy for Rock Band 2, giving me 100% of all Rock Band 2 trophies.

I figure that, at 27 years old, I should be done wasting hours on end playing video games, but its just too darn fun! Heck, right now I'm thinking of which game I want to try and complete next: Mirror's Edge? PixelJunk Monsters? I just bought Linger in Shadows yesterday, maybe I'll try that...

In the end, I guess its not all bad. I may be living in a basement, but at least its MY basement, not my parents.

PS: Thanks to Phoenix and Raikan for your help in getting my last couple of trophies!

Rawring at Mach 7, but still trailing the n00bs

Even with a shortened session due to a work function, we managed to reach our main goal and gained more than 1.3M points! We are now ahead of "rawr." and "Mach 6" but "n00bs 'R' Uz" also played tonight so they are still ahead of us. We played 19 songs so that gives an average increase of 68K per song.

A band on the rise is the "Psychadelic Byrds". They are now just ahead of us, but with 25 #1 scores (2nd behind "Interrobang!" who have 30), I have a feeling they will soon join "Interrobang!" and "Average White Guy" in the top 3.

Highlights:
- Our best increases were for "Almost Easy" (281K), "PDA" (200K), "Night Lies" (132K) and "Feel the Pain" (132K)
- We get a big increase on "Night Lies" even if Phoenix and Bongoo were conversing extensively during the song
- "PDA" is now our 4th RB2 song with more than 2M points, after "Teen Age Riot", "Give It Away" and "Down with the Sickness"
- Bongoo, Phoenix and Sylvie try to master all the Yngwie Malmsteen songs on guitar after the gig, "Caprici di Diablo" is the only one left unpassed, but it was close
- A big thanks to Sylvie who bailed us out on Bass even though she had an exam the next morning!

Endless Setlist 2: Encore

I have to post that I also completed the endless setlist 2. Of course I might as well do it without pausing... ;) I also did vocals but sticked to Medium difficulty so I could skip up to 4 phrases without failing when i needed a break to eat.

We are now 1 Maca and 1 Reject with bladders of steel!
(see: DMan's adventure with the ESL2)

Thanks to my special groupie Sylvie for helping out!

Goal for tomorrow: rawr past 4 bands at mach 7!

This week our optimal goal will be to move past 4 bands by gaining 2.2M points (to beat "rawr.", "n00bs 'R' Uz", "Mach 6" and "Forgotten Nightmare"). Last week we gained 2.8M points so it is definitely possible.

To accomplish that, we will need an average increase of 183K per song if we play for one hour (12 songs), 92K per song if we play for two hours (24 songs) and 61K per song if we play for three hours (36 songs).

Minimum: Gain 0.5M points, to beat "rawr." and "n00bs 'R' Uz" for 17th place
Main: Gain 1.3M points, to beat "Mach 6" for 16th place
Optimal: Gain 2.2M points, to beat "Forgotten Nightmare for 15th place
Bonus: Play some random DLC on our breaks

This week a few of the inflated scores were brought back down so only 2 bands are still ranked too high (the ones at #1 and #2). We are finally getting closer to having some fully representative leadearboards (at least for Band scores).

One of the bands who dropped is the "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s" so we beat them without even trying! :) So for our long-term goal of being the best "local" band, that leaves only "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" and "3 On a Match" to beat.

Here is the setlist for tomorrow (worst songs by rank, all songs not in the top 35):
1. "Hungry Like the Wolf"
2. "Carry On Wayward Son"
3. "So What'cha Want"
4. "The Trees (Vault Edition)"
5. "Kids in America"
6. "Go Your Own Way"
7. "Rock'n Me"
8. "Night Lies"
9. "Feel the Pain"
10. "Float On"
11. "You Oughta Know"
12. "PDA"
13. "Colony of Birchmen"
14. "Panic Attack"
15. "Alive"
16. "Round and Round"
17. "Master Exploder"
18. "My Own Worst Enemy"
19. "Almost Easy"

This one's for Phoenix

Check it out:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/10/1/

This one's for Raikan

Check it out:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/11/3/

Rawring past the n00bs!

Tonight we exceeded our optimal goal by a large margin by gaining more than 2.8M points! We played 26 songs so that gives an average increase of 109K per song.

Tonight's increase was big enough to allow us to pass both "n00bs 'R' Uz" and "rawr." to finish in 18th place! If it wasn't for a few inflated scores in the Band leaderboards, we would currently be ranked 14th.

Highlights:
- Our best increases were for "Give It Away" (299K), "Pinball Wizard" (244K) and "Drain You" (191K)
- One of our long-term goals of being the best PS3 local band in RB2 (which all bands in RB1 were) is getting closer as only three bands remain (the "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s" are next, then we will try to beat "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" and "3 on a Match")
- The great Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar gives us fuel for an extra long session

Fanmail #2 - Your Inbox is full of s...

Back in September, we invited you, our fans, to send us your Fanmail by email at rejected.fans@live.com. Shortly after, we published our first Fanmail response titled Fanmail #1 - ZOMG I LUVZ U ! and, shortly after that, our inbox was flooded by Fanmail from all over the globe!

Unfortunately, this barrage of emails coincided with the launch of the well awaited Rock Band 2, which saw the length and number of our practice sessions sharply go up, removing any social and fanmail-reading time we may have had.

That being said, let's begin going through this Fanmail:

From: BANK OF AMERICA
Sent: Tuesday, September 5th 2008
Subject: Congratulations!

Upon review of your records, 4 lenders have just agreed to pre-approve you for quick-cash refinancing or a new-purchase mortgage in the range of: $216,800.00 - $993,300.00

Woops, looks like we've got some spam. Lets just ignore this and move on to the next...

From: London Lotery Commision
Sent: Saturday, September 27th 2008
Subject: London Lotery Commision

You or your company, attached to ticket number 110-2336-7774-455, with seral number 5458-88 drew the lucky numbers 11-47-33-10-45-89, and conseqently won the 5$ million lotery in category C.

What the... Me or my company won the London Lottery? Which is it? Cause if it's my company, I'll just go ahead an delete this email...

Also, you'd think the London Lotery Commision (which doesn't even exist, for that matter) would award prize values in pounds, not dollars, and would know how to spell Lottery correctly...

From: (none)
Sent: Wednesday, October 15th 2008
Subject: nuclear cheese helmet

zhongguo buttonlamer burly warriors bullet excalibu sugar

I don't event want to know what "nuclear cheese helmets" have to do with "burly warriors"...

From: MR YUSUF ALI
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Subject: TREAT AS URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL.

DEAR FRIEND.

I AM NAIK YUSUF ALI ASSISTANT TO THE BRANCH MANAGER OF BANK OF AFRICA(BOA)OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA FASO I WANT TO INQUIRE FROM YOU IF YOU CAN HANDLE THIS TRANSACTION FOR MUTUAL BENEFITS/LIFE OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU AND ME TO PRESENT YOU AS THE NEXT OF KIN/ BENEFICIARY OF THE US$15MILLION DOLLARS WHO IS A CUSTOMER TO THE BANK WHERE I WORK.

I HAVE RESOLVED TO OFFER YOU 40% OF THE TOTAL FUND,10% FOR SUNDRY EXPENSES THAT MAYBE INCURRED DURING THE PROCESS OF EXECUTING THIS TRANSACTION AND 50% PERCENT FOR ME.

IF YOU ARE REALLY INTERESTED IN THIS TRANSACTION SEND ME THE BELOW INFORMATIONS SUCH AS.
( 1 YOUR FULL NAMES ....................
( 2 YOUR PRIVATE PHONE NUMBER.............
( 3 YOUR OCCUPATIONS ..............

WHEN I RECEIVE YOUR RESPONSE VIA MY EMAIL ADDRESS, I WILL SEND YOU THE APPLICATION FORM WHICH YOU WILL FILL AND SEND TO THE BANK AS THE NEXT OF KIN.

THANKS AND ALAH BLESS YOU.

MR.YUSUF ALI

Mr. Yusuf Ali, please RELAX ON THE CAPS! Geez...

From: Elvis and Lora sankoh
Sent: Thursday, November 20th 2008
Subject: Help!

My parents were assassinated on the 6Th of May 2006 by the rebels following the political uprising in my country free town on they way coming back from work.

Due to the war in my country i decided to leave free town for the claim of the money here in Ivory coast. am alone in a totally strange country without parents, relatives at my tender ages. I have plans to leave this country and esterblish in your country in a good business vanture which you consider good and you will be the investment trustee and my guidance when i come over to your country. This is the reason why i contacted you for good assistance in recieving the money to your foreign account and the beneficiary.

Please if you are willing to assist me in transferring the money , indicate your interest in replying this mail for more informations.

Thanks and God bless,
Best regards
Elvis sankoh and Sister,Lora

Ok, that's it!

Dear Elvis and Lora,

Find attached the an email from the London Lotery Commission with a winning ticket number. This should provide you with at least $5 million. If you need any more money, please contact Mr. Yusuf Ali (email also attached), he should be able to help you raise the rest of what you need to leave your country.

Good luck in esterblishing your good business vanture in Canada...

DMan...


(I need some Tylenol...)

---

Are you a spammer looking for an email account to spam? Then open up your email and write to: "rejected.fans@live.com"!

Goal for tomorrow: beat the n00bs again...

This week our main goal will be to to catch up to "n00bs 'R' Uz" one more time to go from 19th to 18th. It is the first week we can use the Score Reader to play our worst ranked songs, so I don't expect any problem reaching it.

We will need about 1.5M points to catch up to them. To accomplish that, we will need an average increase of 125K per song if we play for one hour (12 songs), 63K per song if we play for two hours (24 songs) and 42K per song if we play for 3 hours (36 songs).

Minimum: Gain 1M points, a good increase
Main: Gain 1.5M points, would go from 19th to 18th to beat the n00bs
Optimal: Gain 2M, a great increase
Bonus: Play some random DLC on our breaks

This week most of the inflated scores were brought back down, possibly due to the patch that was released last week. I noticed three remaining inflated scores in the top 20, which means that we are likely ranked 16th right now, not 19th.

As for the Score Reader, it's neat to know that some of the top bands are now using it. If you remove the inflated scores, my friend HeroX2012's band "Eternal Apocalypse" has moved to 3rd place behind "Interrobang!" and "Average White Guy", partly due to the Score Reader (and their mad skills of course).

Here is the setlist for tomorrow (worst songs by rank, all songs not in the top 40):
1. "The Trees (Vault Edition)"
2. "Carry On Wayward Son"
3. "Round and Round"
4. "So What'cha Want"
5. "Hungry Like the Wolf"
6. "Drain You"
7. "Master Exploder"
8. "Any Way You Want It"
9. "Go Your Own Way"
10. "Give It Away"
11. "Spoonman"
12. "Today"
13. "Testify"
14. "Psycho Killer"
15. "PDA"
16. "That's What You Get"
17. "Pinball Wizard"

Endless Setlist 2 Anyone?

There's a party going on at my house, and Rock Band 2 is the reason why...

Phoenix, Sylvie (the famous Maca Groupie) and myself (the Reject) are attempting to complete the Endless Setlist 2 on Expert Vocals. Phoenix is currently finishing American Woman, and Sylvie will now start Livin' on a Prayer, followed by One Way or Another. Once these are complete we'll have completed 35 of 84 total songs (and we started at 3pm).

Our goal is to complete all songs on expert without pausing or failing one song. So far so good, but the night is still young, and we hope my PS3 will be able to continue without crashing...

Once complete, my band, The Moustachu, will have Legendary Status, and my PS3 account will have several new trophies, including the Coveted Bladder of Steel Award!

I will keep you all posted with updates as the night continues. Chances are we're going to be here for a while...

Update (by Phoenix): We are now signing Raikan's favorite song: Alex Chilton for the halfway point. Go Macas go!

Update #2 (by Dman3021): It's now 8pm and we're finishing up G&R's Shackler's Revenge, which means we have 24 songs left before the Endless Setlist 2 is over! Go Reject Go!

Update #3 (by Phoenix): 9PM! We are ready to tackle the Impossible song group! This means we are 12 songs away from victory. Go Groupies Go!

Update #4 (By Dman3021): 10pm... Just finished Painkiller and... it's over! We did it! Wooo! Thanks to Phoenix and Sylvie for you help over these 7 hours (84 songs) of play. We got 387 stars and 25,641,000 fans! My throat is a little sore, but it was well worth it. Go Rock Band Go!

Now, we need to do this Endless Setlist 2 with 3MaaR...!

Latest Scores

Woohoo, the leaderboards are finally up to date!

To commemorate this moment, I have made our most recent scores available, courtesy of the Score Reader:

3 Macas and a Reject.xls

There is also a link to the latest scores in the "Band Info" section.

Enjoy!

Optimal goal reached, but we'll have to wait to beat some n00bs...

Tonight was awesome as we managed to reach our optimal goal by gaining 2M points! We played 20 songs so we once again had an average increase of 100K per song.

Before the session, both "n00bs 'R' Uz" and our band had a temporary inflation of points on the Leaderboards but it now seems to be under control. It is evident that the "n00bs" have also been playing recently since they are still about 1.2M points away, even with our 2M point increase. We'll have to wait till next week to pass them...

Highlights:
- Phoenix gets his brand new Roland set, it can't connect to the PS3 yet but it is really fun to try on its own!
- Our best increases were for "Shoulder to the Plow" (480K) and "Rob the Prez-O-Dent" (325K)
- We are now 5th for "Shoulder to the Plow", 1K ahead of Interrobang! It's great that our scores now appear on the Score by Song Leaderboards!
- Bongoo learns that it's not a good idea to click "Yeah Sure" at every message before the start of a set: we play a full song without realizing no energy sections appeared...
- Sylvie helps out by replacing Raikan on Bass
- Trapper makes some nice beer pancakes!

Goal for tomorrow: catch up to the n00bs again!

It seems like our rivalry with the Gods in RB1 ("The Gods of Bands") has now transformed into one with n00bs for RB2 ("n00bs 'R' Uz")! Like in RB1 for a while with the Gods, we keep alternating positions with the n00bs as we passed them last week and they are now ahead of us again.

We will need about 1.5M points to catch up to them, and that will be our main goal. To accomplish that, we will need an average increase of 125K per song if we play for one hour (12 songs), 63K per song if we play for two hours (24 songs) and 42K per song if we play for 3 hours (36 songs).

Minimum: Gain 1M points, a good increase
Main: Gain 1.5M points, would go from 21st to 20th to beat the n00bs
Optimal: Gain 2M, a great increase
Bonus: Play some random DLC on our breaks

One great thing about this session is that our score increases are now supposed to show up on the Band Song leaderboards (this was fixed in a patch this week). Once we increase our score on every song one more time, this will finally allow us to get accurate rank information from the Score Reader.

Now if they could only fix the Band Career leaderboards once and for all so our rank doesn't keep dropping due to a few band's inflated Career scores...

We are no longer n00bs!

Tonight we played 20 songs and gained about 1.2M points (60K average increase per song), enough to move past "n00bs 'R' Uz" for 16th place.

Highlights:
- Our best increases were for "Girl's Not Grey" (327K) and "One Way or Another" (237K)
- DMan gets many FCs on vocals!
- Phoenix falls out of his chair and hurts his ankle, he should get gamer's insurance...

Goal for Thursday: get another 2M in a remote session

On Thursday night we will try to gain 2M points to match last week's output. That would move us up from 17th to 16th, ahead of "n00bs 'R' Uz".

Bongoo's boy was born on Sunday morning! He and his wife will leave the hospital sometime tomorrow.

If Bongoo is available Thursday night, he will play remotely. Sylvie might need to be the guitar backup for part of the session.

Minimum: Gain 1M points, would put us in 16th place ahead of "n00bs 'R' Uz"
Main: Gain 2M, would match our result from last week
Optimal: Gain 3M, would be within reach of our old rivals "3 on a Match" and the "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s"
Bonus: Play some random DLC on our breaks

To reach our main goal of 2M points, we will need an average increase of 167K per song if we play for one hour (12 songs), 83K per song if we play for two hours (24 songs) and 56K per song if we play for 3 hours (36 songs).

Someguy gets gold star for "Good Mourning/Black Friday"

Check out this amazing video!

Out of all the RB1 and DLC songs available before the launch of RB2, there was only four I couldn't pass on Expert drums ("Burn", "Good Mourning/Black Friday", "My Last Words" and "They're Red Hot").

Getting a gold star for arguably the toughest of the 4 is very impressive. Someguy also got an FC for "They're Red Hot"...

Almost 2M more

Tonight we played 20 songs and gained about 1.9M points, which was once again close to an average increase of 100K per song.

Highlights:
- We started by playing the worst songs by spread to #1, but our manually written spreadsheet was incorrect so we wasted time on a few songs we had played well before
- We increased our score by 538K for "Bodhisattva" right off the bat
- We manage to tie our score for "Rob the Prez-O-Dent" to the thousand
- Our two song set of "Aqualung" and "The Trees (Vault Edition)" conjured up some interesting images...
- Phoenix learned that playing too much Fallout 3 can make these sessions tiring
- DMan does a great job playing two instruments at once (Bass and Vocals), allowing us to unlock the 8 song "Make Your Own Setlist" gig
- Bongoo finds a RB2 bundle for Raikan so we can now have online Maca sessions with all band members!

Goal for tomorrow: move up one rank to 11th

This past week, 4 bands passed us in the leaderboards, including "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" and the "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s". This week our main goal will be to move from 12th to 11th, ahead of "n00bs 'R' Uz". That will require about 3M points.

With our sessions being shorter due to breaks for vocals and drums, that might be a challenge but if we play the worst songs by spread to #1, it might still be possible.

Minimum: Gain 1.4M points, for a total of 101M
Main: Gain 3M, would put us in 11th place ahead of "n00bs 'R' Uz"
Optimal: Gain 4.7M, would put us in 10th place ahead of the "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s"
Bonus: Get one #1 score, but we won't know if it is valid because the song leaderboards are broken

To reach our main goal, we will need an average increase of 250K per song if we play for one hour (12 songs), 125K per song if we play for two hours (24 songs) and 83K per song if we play for 3 hours (36 songs)

Score Reader 2.2 released!

Download Here


New features:
- Optimized code so searching is at least twice as fast as in version 2.1
- More accurate runtime estimates because the tool now analyzes score retrieval time on the fly

(Original Post)

Just under 100M

Tonight we played 37 songs and gained 3.6M points, which is close to an average increase of 100K per song. We ended up only 400K away from our main goal of 100M points.

If it wasn't for the arrival of two new top 10 bands (one whose rank is too good to be true if you look at their Stats page), we would have moved up from 8th to 6th but our final rank was 8th. Nonetheless, we finished ahead of our RB1 rivals the "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s" and "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND".

Highlights:
- A different strategy this time, we played the easiest songs by difficulty and end up getting 6 stars for 35 of 37 songs (only missed getting 6 stars for "Welcome to the Neighbourhood" and "A Jagged Gorgeous Winter")
- We increase our score by at least 300K for two songs ("Conventional Lover" and "New Kid in School")
- Our new benchmark for songs played seems to be around 36 so about 3 hours of play

Goal for tomorrow: get to 100M for 6th

This week our main goal will be to move up to 100M to go from 8th to 6th but our optimal goal will be to have 102.5M to be 5th. To see the latest rankings, please refer to the in-game leaderboards because the RockBand.com leaderboards are still not up-to-date.

Minimum: Gain 2.7M points, would put us in 7th place ahead of the "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s"
Main: Gain 4M, moving to 100M would put us in 6th place ahead of "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND"
Optimal: Gain 6.5M, would put us in 5th place ahead of "n00bs 'R' Uz"
Bonus: Get at least one #1 score, but we won't know if it is valid because the song leaderboards are broken (only shows the first score we did for each song)

With a potential of 40 songs played during the session, we would need a 68K increase on average per song to reach the minimal goal, 100K for the main goal, and 163K for the optimal goal.

Score Reader 2.1 released!

Download Here

New features:
- No need to login anymore, a "Player Name" section has been added to the main page. This fixes some of the browser issues and the mismatch for some between the RockBand.com username and the in-game player name
- The tool is now twice as fast because the time between requests was reduced
- An "Estimated Time Left" indicator was added
- You can now modify the minimum rank that the Score Reader will search for your scores (ex: before you could choose do a search between ranks 1 to 1000 but now you can search between ranks 500 to 1000 if your scores are in that range and you want to save time)

(Original Post)

Score Reader 2.0 released!

Version 2.0 of the Score Reader is finally here!

Download Here

We hope you like it, many hours were put in to make sure everything runs smoothly.

New features:
- Compatibility with the new RockBand.com website (all scores for RB2 and RB1, including RB1 Disk Export)
- Can now decide to "include" only the DLC that you own (in "DLC Options..."). Before there was only an "exclude" option for songs you didn't own (thanks to DKage for the suggestion!)

Note: The "Searching" section on the main page is now needed because the website no longer has a "My Rank" option, which made score retrieval easier.

(Original Post)

96M and 5th place!

Tonight we had a shortened 3 hour session, partly due to Phoenix being injured (too much rock climbing and drumming can be painful...). Nonetheless, we still managed to meet our main goal by gaining 6M points!

We played 27 songs and our average increase was 223K. We played the songs with the worst spread so that usually meant longer songs, which is one reason why we had a lower than expected number of songs played.

If you look at the out of date leaderboards, our new 96M point total would put us in 5th place. Who knows when the leaderboards will finally be updated (we still can't see our point gain from Monday), but when they so our rank might drop a bit. The bug for "Mary go Round" seems to have been fixed so they now seem like a legitimate band.

By moving up, we are now ahead of the RB1 phenoms "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" (they had the most #1 scores if you include DLC) but just behind the "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s". They plus "Mary go Round" will be our next targets but catching up to the new supergroups "Average White Guy" and "Interrobang!" will take longer.

Highlights:
- Sylvie helps us out again on Bass as Raikan is away for the first part of his move. The whole band will help him finish his move on the weekend
- Our biggest increase is for Peace Sells (526K), we end up 2nd and just 42K away from "Average White Guy"
- We increase by more than 400K on four other songs ("Down with the Sickness", "Ramblin' Man", "Teen Age Riot" and "Shooting Star")
- Just before we reach 96M, the system freezes at the song result screen ("One Way or Another") and the score is not saved! Perhaps Bongoo's intense stare and his menacing death metal t-shirt were to blame (that was the final image on the screen)...

Goal for tomorrow: be top 4 for RB2

After our 50M point session last week, our total was about 76M. This past week, Pheonix unlocked all the songs and with some online play without our optimal lineup, we moved up to about 90M (leaderboards not updated yet). A big thank you to the honorary Maca who joined us on Bass last night (we used the "Find Players" option)!

For the following analysis, I don't count "Mary go Round" because their #1 rank seems to be a bug or a hack (similar to "Plastic Metal v3" last week for Xbox 360, which was removed shortly after).

Tomorrow, our main goal will be to be 4th but we have the potential to do more so our optimal goal will be to be 3rd and our bonus goal will be to get to 100M points. That would leave us ahead of our old rivals the "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s" and "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" but behind "Interrobang!" and "Average White Guy".

Because we usually play for around 4 hours, I figure that we'll play around 40 songs. It's usually 12 max per hour so there is a potential of 48 songs, but I remove 8 songs in the estimate for breaks and setup time. Of course in later sessions that will be lower than 40 because of restarts but this week it will only be our second play for most songs so we still have a lot of potential with normal play.

Using the 40 song benchmark, we would need an average increase of 108K per song to pass "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" and be 5th. A 133K average increase would put us in 4th place ahead of "n00bs 'R' Uz". Finally, a 217K average increase would give us 3rd place ahead of the "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s" but gaining 250K per song would be even better, giving us a total of 100M.

Minimum: Gain 4.3M points (108K average increase), would be in 5th place
Main: Gain 5.3M points (133K average increase), would be in 4th place
Optimal: Gain 8.7M points (217K average increase), would be in 3rd place
Bonus: Gain 10M points (250K average increase), would have 100M

The Macas have their first online tour session!

We played our first online tour session tonight and it was great! We unlocked lots of new venues and gained 5M points in the process! That gives us about 81M points so we are less than 12M away from the #1 "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s" with lots of songs yet to be played.

Highlights:
- We get our first #1 score while playing online ("Souls of Black"), with a 200K lead over 2nd place
- It's great that we can now communicate by voice online (new in RB2 for PS3)! It makes it easier for song selection and whoever has a laptop on hand can announce our new rank after we finish a song
- We learn that Expert Random gigs can sometimes be dangerous, we had to say "Our Last Words"...

50M in one session!

This is definitely the last 50M jump in one session that we'll ever do, at least until Rock Band 3... We are now 5th on PS3 with about 76M points. There are still about 18 songs to play so getting to 100M+ will be relatively easy next week. We didn't pass "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" as expected but that is likely to happen very soon.

Highlights:
- We get a 1st place score for 3 songs, including an amazing performance by Phoenix to secure 1st for Aqualung (temporarily though, "Average White Guy" stole it back the same night)
- Raikan pops his shoulder but endures the pain for the band
- Phoenix breaks a pad on his RB1 drumkit, good thing he had a spare!
- The game throws us a surpise gig of "Pinball Wizard", just before we unlock the plane gig, which consists of Random, Random, and "Pinball Wizard"...

Goal for tonight: go from 86th to 1st in one session!

We are currently ranked 86th for less than 2 hours with our optimal lineup and some extra play by Phoenix. We have the potential to be ahead of "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND" in one session. They currently have 83M and we are 57M away.

Since we'll likely play for about 5 hours, that means that with an average of 1M per song that's about 60M points more.

Our points per song average for Rock Band 1 was about 1.4M. With the same average for Rock Band 2, that would give us about 118M, enough to be 5th for Xbox 360 right now. But even a 1.2M point average per song would give us 100M points, so we can aim for that in the short term (1 or 2 sessions).

Top 20 in less than 2 hours!

We had less than 2 hours to play Rock Band 2 on release day but we still managed to finish in the top 20 (approx 20M for about 16 songs). We ended up being ranked 1st or 2nd for most of the songs that we played. Of course we dropped in the leaderboards soon after but it was a great start!

Our goal Wednesday night will be to catch up to the #1 band "Happy People Playing ROCK BAND", who currently have 62M but will likely have much more by then.

Rock Band 2 tomorrow!

The wait is finally over for us PS3 owners! To celebrate the release of Rock Band 2, the Macas will have a short 3 hour gig tomorrow afternoon to get the band going.

After this special session and our regular weekly session, we should have a decent amount of points to kick start our new Leaderboard quest!

Exercising the drumming muscles - part 2

A few weeks ago I mentioned that rock climbing was a great complimentary workout to drumming (since it works out your forearms). Well today I found another sport that will exercise the other muscles we use a lot, the dreaded foot-pedal muscle group!

What could it be? Well, it is none other than curling!

I started curling the day before our Rock Band session this week. And let me tell you that I really felt it while drumming... My leg and ankle were killing me during the whole session. Usually I am fine to play for a good 4 or 5 hours before I feel something, but not this time...

For those who think curling is a relaxing sport for your body, think again! Talk to me after you have played a game... I didn't even finish one game and I felt the effects.

For those of you who are having problems with leg muscles when playing Rock Band, try it out and it might help your endurance!

The Macas are now 2nd!

Great session tonight as we improved on 13 songs and gained 1.45M to become 2nd! That is sweet revenge in a sense as now 3rd place "Slagathor" was the band that took away our first 1st place song a few months back... We also help bring respect for the PS3 by having all top 3 bands above 80M.

Highlights:
- We got a new #1 song for the 58 originals, this time for "Should I Stay or Should I Go"
- We almost got a few more #1 scores as we are now 2nd for many of the songs we improved on
- Reaching exactly 1M (to the thousand) for Vasoline right at the Big Rock Ending, talk about close!
- It's amazing to think we have only 5 #1 songs for the 58 originals, yet we are 2nd overall (that is due to us being in the top 10 for all songs and top 5 for most)
- We ended up about 50K away from our ultimate goal tonight. Phoenix's Nut Brown Ale emissions were probably partly to blame for distracting us from this goal... ;)

The next weeknight session will be for RB2 so this was a very fitting end to our RB1 career (unless we do a special RB1 session sometime in the future to aim for 1st as we are only about 2.3M away). We will play for a few hours on Sunday when RB2 is released for the PS3 and then longer on our regular night. Bring on the new songs!

Goal for tomorrow: get a good lead at 2nd

This week we will definitely pass "Slagathor" to become 2nd. Compared to last week we'll have more than double the time (at least 4 hours) to do half the points (560K) so it should be possible to get a good lead.

Minimum: Gain 560K points, would put us in 2nd place ahead of "Slagathor"
Main: Gain 1M points
Optimal: Get 1.5M points, could even be more if we keep the same points\hour as last week
Bonus: Get at least 2 more #1 songs for the 58 originals (we already have 4)

Here is the setlist for tomorrow (worst songs by spread to #1, all songs that have more than 150K spread):
1. "Green Grass and High Tides"
2. "Outside"
3. "Are You Gonna Be My Girl"
4. "Highway Star"
5. "Won't Get Fooled Again"
6. "Sabotage"
7. "Flirtin' with Disaster"
8. "Cherub Rock"
9. "Vasoline"
10. "Can't Let Go"
11. "Epic"
12. "Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld"
13. "Suffragette City"
14. "Next to You"
15. "Day Late, Dollar Short"
16. "Nightmare"

Another 1.1M points in 2 hours!

We had another shortened 2 hour sessions due to DMan having an interview the next day (not at Macadamian, he is forever rejected... jk ;) ). Nonetheless, that was probably our best 2 hours yet as we surpassed our optimal goal by improving on 9 songs and gaining 1.1M points!

With this increase, 2nd place is pretty much guaranteed in next week's Wednesday session. Today's relatively easy 1M+ point gain also shows that we have the potential to be 1st on the PS3, which we would likely have achieved before RB2 comes out on the PS3 if we started playing a month or two earlier...

Highlights:
- Our strategy to play the worst songs by spread where we have a rough band path seemed to pay off
- We met our bonus goal and more by having our second week with two new original 58 #1 scores (for "Electric Version" and "29 Fingers")
- We finally rank "Gimme Shelter" in the top 10 (go from 12th to 3rd), so now all of the original 58 scores are in the top 10
- Phoenix fights through a hand injury to get us one of our best recent score increases
- When we played "Here It Goes Again", it really meant "Here We Go Again, and Again, and Again..." until we didn't mess up something

DMan now a top 50 singer!

Congrats to DMan for now being a top 50 PS3 singer!

I made it to the top 100 for every instrument (but didn't necessarily stay there), but I never made the top 50.

That is very impressive, I'm sure Lynn from Oklahoma will be proud!

Goal for tomorrow: get 79M and move halfway to 2nd

This week we have our 2nd last session playing RB1. Let's aim to get more than 79M and be halfway to 2nd place "Slagathor".

Minimum: Gain 470K points, would give us 79M points
Main: Gain 830K points, would be halfway to 2nd place
Optimal: Get 1M points, always the optimal goal at this stage
Bonus: Get a 3rd #1 song for the 58 originals ("3 On a Match" stole "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" from us last week to move up to 83M points)

We will play a mix of worst ranked songs ("Gimme Shelter" comes to mind), short songs (can you say "Next to Timmy's Brain"), songs with big spreads to the #1 score ("Outside" and "Electric Version") and songs where we have rough band paths (various) to maximize our point gain.

Score Reader on break: new website

The Rock Band Score Reader will not work until a new version is released. That is because the RockBand.com website has been revamped for RB2. Keep an eye on this page for any updates.

Drumming techniques

Hi all, today I will share with you a technique that has helped me get good scores for fast songs.

The basic drum pattern in the game: hi-hat with alternating bass pedal + snare on every 2nd note. Pretty easy, right? How about keeping it up at 200BPM for 3 minutes (ex: any Ramones song...)

Well it all depends on how you play it. Most poeple I see playing keep the same technique whether the song is 70 PBM or 200 BMP: hit all hi-hat notes (yellow pad) with the right hand. Although I do recommend this method to build up endurance, when you just want to have fun and play, this will kill your right arm pretty quickly.

Therefore I say why not use both hands to hit the high hat? We do it in the rolls so why not in that beat? Sure it could be a bit confusing at first but I urge you to try it out.

You can start with the drum trainer in Rock Band 2 at the lowest speed and concentrate on using both hands to hit the hi-hat notes (yellow pad). Keep increasing the speed and you'll pick it up in no time. Plus your style points will increase! :)

I started doing this a few months ago and I berely ever get tired now. I use this trick on almost every beat now.

I wonder if the real drummers do this too?

Score Reader 1.4 released!

Download Here

New feature:
- Ability to exclude DLC that you don't own to make score retrieval faster (see "DLC Options..." in "Tools" menu). Thanks to Alitar13 for the suggestion!

Keep an eye out for version 2.0 which will include Rock Band 2 support. This will be available shortly after the new RockBand.com website is ready (should be very soon).

(Original Post)

The Macas are now 3rd!

Considering that we had a shortened 2 hour session due to DMan going to a hockey game (our sessions usually last 3 to 4 hours), the fact that we improved on 9 songs and gained 729K is great. That moved us ahead of "The Nati Four" for 3rd (and 16th overall) and was close to our main goal of 800K.

We moved up to 3rd just in time to be listed in the "Community" page at RockBand.com (top 3 for Xbox 360 or PS3). Who knows what the format of the new website will be once it is updated for RB2 (should be very soon).

With two sessions remaining before RB2 comes out on PS3, our main goal will be to attempt to get 80M+ and be 2nd. We will need two sessions of 800K+. If we succeed, we will give the PS3 some respect for having all top 3 bands with at least 80M.

Highlights:
- We get some interesting paths online and it pays off
- We improve on "Timmy" by more than 200K
- We improve on "Brainpower" and "Paranoid" by more than 100K (now in 2nd place for "Brainpower")
- Sylvie once again does a great job on Bass (Raikan was sick)

Goal for tomorrow: move up to 3rd and make progress towards 2nd

This week we will definitely pass "The Nati Four" to become 3rd but we will try to gain at least 800K. If we can do that 3 weeks in a row, we will be 2nd before Rock Band 2 comes out on the PS3.

This will also be DMan's first gig as a top 100 PS3 singer, congratulations! Your skills will help us continue to gain lots of points. We now have a top 100 guitarist (Bongoo) and singer (DMan) and a former top 1000 drummer (Phoenix, staying high in the leaderboards as a drummer is tough to do, but he has potential to be top 100 as well). Our bassist (Raikan) would rank pretty high but there is no way to know since he has no PS3 and there is no separate Bass Career Leaderboard (that should have been fixed in RB2).

Minimum: Gain 450K points, would put us in 3rd place ahead of "The Nati Four"
Main: Gain 800K points, main goal for the next three weeks (to be 2nd before RB2)
Optimal: Get 1M points, to match the last 2 weeks
Bonus: Get a 4th #1 song for the 58 originals

Here is the setlist for tomorrow (worst songs by rank, all songs past rank #6):
1. "Gimme Shelter"
2. "Flirtin' with Disaster"
3. "Outside"
4. "Brainpower"
5. "Green Grass and High Tides"
6. "Mississippi Queen"
7. "Are You Gonna Be My Girl"
8. "Enter Sandman"
9. "Epic"
10. "Foreplay/Long Time"
11. "Next to You"
12. "Paranoid"
13. "Pleasure (Pleasure)"
14. "Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld"
15. "When You Were Young"
16. "Won't Get Fooled Again"

Infinite Setlist Drumming Marathon

See this page for a live stream of "Someguy913", one of the best Rock Band drummers (member of #1 superband "Here Comes a New Challenger"), doing all 373 Rock Band songs in a row (RB1, RB2 and DLC)!

His amazing journey started yesterday afternoon and will end sometime tomorrow...

Current Songs by Rank

For the curious folk out there, here are statistics to keep you happy. This is the distribution of ranks for the original 58 RB1 songs:
1st - 3 songs
2nd - 6 songs
3rd - 7 songs
4th - 5 songs
5th - 7 songs
6th - 14 songs
7th - 10 songs
8th - 3 songs
9th - 2 songs
12th - 1 song

1M+ point gain two weeks in a row!

Great session again this week as we met our main goal! We improved on 17 songs for a gain of 1.1M points. This gives us a total score of 77.8M, only 445K behind "The Nati Four".

Highlights:
- A third #1 song for the 58 original Rock Band songs ("(Don't Fear) The Reaper")
- We now have only one song that is not in the top 10 ("Gimme Shelter" at 12)
- We play a DLC song for fun and manage to be ranked 3rd on our first try ("Wonderwall")
- Great performance by Sylvie on Bass!

Getting 3rd next week in a special Wednesday session will be awesome but it's neat to think that we are only 2.4M away from 2nd place band "Slagathor"! That might be difficult to gain before Rock Band 2 comes out on PS3 (only 3 sessions left) but you never know!

Goal for tomorrow: put "The Nati Four" in fourth

It might be ambitious to want to pass "The Nati Four" tomorrow to become 3rd so let's put that as an optimal goal. Because Raikan is away, Sylvie will bail us out and be the honorary Maca on Bass.

Minimum: Gain 0.4M points, would give us a total of 77M
Main: Gain 1M points, would match last week's increase
Optimal: Get 1.6M points, moving us up to 3rd place
Bonus: Because we lost one #1 ranked song to the #1 supergroup "3 On a Match" (for "I Get By"), regain a 3rd #1 song (we currently hold "Seven" and "Ballroom Blitz")

Here is the setlist for tomorrow (worst songs by rank):
1. "Gimme Shelter"
2. "Dani California"
3. "Wave of Mutilation"
4. "Suffragette City"
5. "(Don't Fear) The Reaper"
6. "Won't Get Fooled Again"
7. "Time We Had"
8. "Outside"
9. "Orange Crush"
10. "Mississippi Queen"
11. "Main Offender"
12. "Flirtin' with Disaster"

I want to dedicate tomorrow's gig to Lynn from Oklahoma. You seem to be quite unstable but thanks for supporting us!

Fanmail #1 - ZOMG I LUVZ U !

From: Lynn from Oklahoma
Date: Monday, September 22nd 2008
Subject: ZOMG I LUVZ U !

dman even though i did not create any fan club or those things but in my heart i treat myself as yoour biggest fan . and many people keep telling me that you are not hot not cute not handsome but i told them as long as i love you i dont care what ever they said so i ignore them. i love you d man . and guess wat my friends keeps saying that i should like raikan or bongoo better than you but i dont care i will still like you . i have all the posters about you juat waitin for new magaxines to come out and more of your posters will come to me and i also have all the posters of you and raikan and bongoo and phoenix together and i just want to tell you that i love you but i havent seen you sing once cos my mum did not allow me and you and raikan and bongoo and phoenix have not come to oklahoma alot of times i just hope that you can come to oklahoma more often as wat you said you like oklahoma so i beg you pls come to oklahoma and perform i love you Dman!

For future reference, and to avoid giving me anymore unnecessary headaches, please review the definition of a sentence and apply any gained knowledge in all future correspondence.

Also, its a known fact that there are no girls in Oklahoma named "Lynn". In fact, any scientist will confirm that all Oklahomaian girl names fall into three distinct categories:

1. Names ending with an "een" sound
   Examples: Amaleen, Brandine, Claudine, Earlene, Faylene, Jaylene, Jean, Larlene, Pristine, Raylene, Shirlene
   


2. The three Bs - Where the parents randomly choose one of the three B names (Betty, Billie or Bobby) and add a two to four letter nickname at the end
   Examples: Betty Lou, Billie Jean, Bobby Jo
   


3. Reba - All other girls in Oklahoma are named Reba, although they're surprisingly not named after Oklahoma Country Queen Reba McEntire:
   

(Help!! Her eyes are trying to burn a hole through my head!!!)

Now, I don't know what category you're in, so to be safe, I'm going to call you Betty-Reba-Jean.

So Betty-Reba-Jean, thank you for your very intense fanmail.

All four of us are currently gearing up for the release of Rock Band 2 on PlayStation 3, and will therefore not be able to visit Oklahoma any time soon (though keep an eye out for us in winter of 2009!)

Also, I'm glad to see you have all our posters. Remember that merchandise is what keeps a band alive, so you should do your best to make your parents buy you everything with 3 Macas and A Reject on it, such as our band T-Shirts, Baseball Caps and G-Strings, all available through our Online Store. Even better: if you steal their credit card you can buy all this crap yourself!

Finally, I'm attaching to this letter a copy of our latest poster that will come out later this year. Please add it to your collection and show it off to all your friends!

Dman...

PS: Please send me the name and address of your friends who say that I'm not hot, cute or handsome. I have a bone to pick with them...

PPS: There is no 3 Macas and A Reject Online Store... yet...

(edit Jan 21/09: There now is a 3 Macas and a Reject Online Store)

---

Have Fan Mail you want to send us? Then open up your email and write to: "rejected.fans@live.com"!

Rock Band 2 Day Recap

Yesterday's special RB2 session was great, most of the songs were fun to play.

Highlights:
- We play for fun without the optimal lineup and still manage to be around rank 250 after playing about 70+ songs!
- Passing Visions by Abnormality on Expert (all instruments) at the end of the Harmonix 9 song set (+ encore), took us about 4-5 tries but it was neat to finish it!
- Disappointed that there doesn't appear to be "DLC" leaderboards with the total of all DLC songs. That would have made it interesting to compare with others who have most of the DLC
- Watching the Spike TV RB2 countdown show with some of the best bands competing (Xbox 360). Congrats to "Here Comes a New Challenger!" for an amazing performance! Why not have a competition with the best PS3 bands one day?
- We try to imitate "f4phantom2500"'s overhand playing style (guitarist of "Here Comes a New Challenger!") on a relatively easy song but do a very poor job of it...
- "Panic Attack" is probably the most difficult song to pass on Expert drums. It was late when we unlocked it but Phoenix and I still had trouble passing the intro. Whoever said "Painkiller" is the toughest is mistaken...
- We noticed that the "Nati Four" have moved on to the Xbox 360. They are the band we want to beat for 3rd for RB1 PS3 but they are already near the top of the RB2 Xbox 360 Career Score Leaderboards

Rock Band 2 on Xbox 360

At last it is here in my hands. I rented the game in preperation for this weekend's special jamming session.

I do own an Xbox 360 but the only compatible instrument was the microphone. After singing a few tunes with my fellow groupies, we decided to take the game to a home with actual Xbox 360 instruments so I could play some drums!

I only played a dozen tracks and so far so good! There already are some interesting patterns. I look forward to this weekend and the PS3 version next month.

I did not have time to try the drum trainer yet... The day will come, don't worry! :)

Another million points

While we did not reach our main goal, anytime we can get 1M more at this point is great! We improved on 8 songs, bringing us 1M closer to 3rd (now 1.6M away).

Highlights:
- Another #1 score, this time for "Ballroom Blitz" (improved by almost 400K)
- Getting good practice to get near optimal paths for many songs, even if we sometimes don't improve on our old scores it will benefit us in the long run
- A good increase for "Welcome Home" (200K+)

This Saturday will be fun as we will have a special Rock Band 2 day. We will rent the Xbox 360 version to get some practice before the PS3 version comes out.

Beer + Rock Band

I came across this article today: Heath + Beer.

Apparently there are only advantages to drinking the precious liquid in moderation. Since our jamming sessions consist of around 2 delicious refreshments, you could even say our Rock Band nights are healthy!

Now we need to get roadies to keep pouring those ales! :)

Score Reader 1.3 released!

Download Here

New features:

• Touched up graphics
  
• Even more robust login support
  
• Support for advanced cookie options for the exceptional cases
  
  • This lets you manually choose the browser and enter the cookie filename
  
  (Original Post)
  

Goal for tomorrow: get closer to 3rd

Having just become 4th last week, our goal for this week will be to gain enough points to allow us to get to 3rd next week.

Minimum: Get 0.4M points, for a total of 76M.
Main: Get 1.4M points, for a total of 77M.
Optimal: Get 2.6M points, to reach 3rd place.
Bonus: Get a 3rd first place rank for the original 58 RB1 songs.

Here is the setlist for tomorrow (worst songs by rank, up to #8):
1. "Gimme Shelter"
2. "Won't Get Fooled Again"
3. "Welcome Home"
4. "Suffragette City"
5. "Main Offender"
6. "Flirtin' with Disaster"
7. "Wave of Mutilation"
8. "Time We Had"
9. "Orange Crush"
10. "Mississippi Queen"
11. "I Think I'm Paranoid"
12. "Ballroom Blitz"
13."(Don't Fear) The Reaper"

"RedDirt & Bob" needs a new quote

Unless they regain 10th place in the Career Score Leaderboards, "RedDirt & Bob" will need to change their quote. It currently says "The only band in the top 10 for both scores and fans" but "Procyon" just beat them for 10th by score!

Congrats to "RedDirt & Bob" for holding that achievement for so long. They were hanging on to 10th for the longest time, we were wondering how long their quote would remain true...

Top Rock Band Bands on Spike TV tonight!

Check out Spike TV (channel 32 on Rogers in Ottawa) at 11:30 PM Eastern Time tonight to see some of the best bands competing while playing Rock Band 2. The bands ranked #2 to #4 on Xbox 360 will be there as well as some of the best solo players. The show is called "Countdown to Rock Band 2".

The video links are here.

Fans, Fans and more Fans!

Since 3MaaR (3 Macas and a Reject) has reached the top 4 on the RockBand.com Leaderboards, we've begun receiving fan mail at an unprecedented rate. We've therefore created a new email address where you can send your fan mail: "rejected.fans@live.com".

This will allow us to better manage the incoming mail from wherever we may be (on the road, in our cheap motel room before a gig, or backstage, a couple of minutes before the beginning of a show!)

So go ahead and take the time to write us. Who knows, we may actually write you back!

Please note that any questions or comments about the Score Reader should be sent to "phoenix5096@gmail.com" and not the fan email address.

Score Reader 1.2 released!

Download Here

New features:
- Better support for Windows Vista and Firefox 3.0
- Support for older versions of Excel
- Files are now saved to "My Documents" instead of "Program Files"
- A "logs.txt" file is now generated by the tool. This will make it easier to track and fix issues. Please email the file and a description of any problem encountered to "phoenix5096@gmail.com"

Future plans:

- Add support for Rock Band 2 once the RockBand.com RB2 Leaderboards are active

The Macas make the first page

By beating our worst ranked song yesterday ("Mississippi Queen"), we achieved something worth mentioning: All of the original 58 songs are now ranked on the first page of the RockBand.com Leaderboards (need to be top 20)!

The next step will be to reach the first page for every song in the in-game leaderboards (need to be top 11). This will surely happen soon because only "Gimme Shelter" is holding us back. And it's not even that far from 11 (we are rank 13).

I know its DMan's favorite song too ;) so we should have no problems.

The Macas are now 4th!

Tonight was awesome as we jumped from 7th to 4th in one session! The total point gain was 2.1M points, far surpassing our optimal goal. Now the next step will be to gain another 2.6M points to move up to 3rd and be listed on the RockBand.com Leaderboards login page.

Highlights:

- After piledriving the Lesbians by moving up to 5th place, we gained 491K righ away on "In Bloom" to beat the "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s" for 4th!
- Two original 58 #1 scores for "I Get By" and "Seven", the last one gained even after Phoenix dropped a drum stick on the floor and continued playing with his left hand... a groupie became a roadie to save our #1! :)
- Missed getting another #1 score for "Learn to Fly" by only 8K...
- Now the "Top Songs" section in "Band Profile" has five 2M+ songs with today's addition of "In Bloom"
- Starting our session by trying to beat the worst ranked song with a "practice run" seems to be paying off as we improved on "Mississippi Queen" on our first try!

Stay tuned for Rock Band Score Reader version 1.2 sometime in the next 24 hours!

To Play, or To Program

Its the phoenix reporting in.

During the past week, we have officially made the Score Reader application we have been using available to the public. This means I haven't practiced as much as I would want to (but don't worry... we'll still piledrive those lesbians tonight!)

I usually come home at night and now face a conflict...
- Do I play Rock Band?
- Do I keep working on the Score Reader?

If programming is what I now do at home half the time, I guess that means I am working in the right field as a programmer ;)

(Can anyone say NERD!)

Goal for tomorrow: move up to 4th

Tomorrow is a great opportunity as we have the potential to pass "Pants on head!?!", "Lesbian Piledriver" and the "Killa C,o,m,m,a,s" in the same night!

- Minimum: Gain 0.8M points, would allow us to piledrive some Lesbians and be 5th!
- Main: Gain 1.2M points, would move us to 4th, ahead of the old #1 "C,o,m,m,a,s"
- Optimal: Gain 1.6M points, would give us a bigger lead at 4th
- Bonus: Get a 1st place for one of the original 58 Rock Band 1 songs

As for the Score Reader, look for the release of version 1.2 soon after our post about the result of tomorrow's Rock Band night. Thanks for trying out our tool, we appreciate the feedback!

Score Reader ".csv" Formatting Tips

This only applies for versions before 1.2.

The Rock Band Score Reader is currently optimized for Excel 2007. With earlier versions of Excel it might open a raw ".csv" file (with no formatting, sorting and stats) instead of a formatted ".xls" file (even if "Excel" is selected in "Advanced Options").

If you have this issue, keep an eye on this page as a new version should be coming soon.

In the meantime, if you want to transform your ".csv" files into a readable sorted scores list, please do the following:

1. Select the first column

2. Click the "Data" menu, then "Text to Columns..."

3. Select "Delimited" and "Next"

4. Only select "Semicolon" then "Next"

5. Click "Finish"

6. Select all cells by clicking in the top left corner

7. Click the "Format" menu, then "Column" and "AutoFit Selection"

8. Click the "Data" menu, then "Sort..."

9. Select to "Sort by": "Format", "Descending"

10. Select "Then by": "Rank", "Ascending"

11. Select "Then by": "Title", "Ascending"

12. Click "OK" and you have a decent scoresheet!

Bonus: For columns with scores, you can add "1000 Separator" formatting by right-clicking on the column letter at the top and selecting "Format Cells...". Change the "Category" to "Number" and you can then put "Decimal places" to 0 and check "Use 1000 Separator (,)".

Score Reader 1.1 released!

Download Here

New features:
- Support for the latest ".Net Framework" versions
- Support for HTTP proxies
- Support for Firefox 3.0 (basic framework, needs further testing, IE still recommended)
- Patriotic branding (in "About Us" page)

Planned for next version:
- Full Vista compatibility (will do more testing to fix any remaining issues)
- Full Firefox 3.0 support

Future plans:
- Support all instrument and band selection for all scores in one spreadsheet

Download Here

".Net Framework" info:

With version 1.1 of the Score Reader, all you need is the latest version of the ".Net Framework" (version 2.0 SP1 on XP or 3.5 on Vista). You can also get version 2.0 SP1 directly here if you still have issues with Vista.

See Windows Update (under the Tools menu in IE) to get the latest version. If you want to see which ".Net Framework" version you have installed, see the Control Panel and "Add\Remove Programs".

(See original Rock Band Score Reader post here)

Rock Band Score Reader

Note: The evolution of this tool is now the RockBandStats.com website!

You can see your scores there and it loads much faster than fetching your own scores with the Rock Band Score Reader. Enjoy!

See this post for more info.

-------------------------

Would you like to see all of your official RockBand.com Leaderboards scores (Solo or Band) in one easy-to-read spreadsheet? Would you like to quickly know which are your best and worst ranked songs? Do you want to see how close you are to the #1 score for any song?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this tool is for you!

Version 2.3 includes:

- Compatibility with the new RockBand.com website (all scores for RB2 and RB1, including RB1 Disk Export)
- Support for all instruments or band on PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii
- Support for DLC, including an option to specify songs you own for faster score retrieval
- Can get #1 scores and calculate spread
- Stats page
- An estimate of the time remaining
- The ability to select the range of ranks that the tool will search for your scores in
- Support for XP, Vista (32-bit) and all Excel versions
- Logging for better issue tracking

Here is a look at the tool in action:

Here is an example of the scores spreadsheet:


Download Here (no longer available, see RockBandStats.com instead)

Brought to you by Phoenix5096 (code master extraordinaire) and Bongoo (usability and QA).

If you have any questions or comments about the Rock Band Score Reader, please send an email to phoenix5096@gmail.com.

This tool has been very useful to 3 Macas and a Reject. We hope that it will also be useful to you and your band!

Useful Rock Band 2 Links

Here are a few useful links to get you prepared for the imminent release of Rock Band 2.

For a list of quick links to all Rock Band 2 songs on Youtube, click here. If you want to see most Rock Band 2 song difficulties (new Tier system goes to 7, not 9), click here. For a high-end Rock Band 2 drum peripheral, click here.

All DLC ranked plus new #1

Tonight was a fun diversion from our usual leaderboard quest as we only played some DLC. It is likely that we can climb up to 4th next week when DMan returns.

Highlights:
- Without using our best instruments, we still managed to gain a new #1 score (for "They Say", only 3 mistakes overall)
- Attaining our main goal of ranking all unranked DLC
- Playing our worst ranked songs, now every song is above rank 2200 and we will soon have all of them in the top 1000, 100 or even 10 one day (slowly improving on all random guest member session rankings)
- Trapper (one of our groupies) and his caustic comments about most non-metal songs (he especially despises "The Pixies", "The Cars" and the "Scene Pack")
- Bongoo finding out that it is not a good idea to sit on top of the La-Z-Boy...

Goal for tomorrow: Rank all DLC

Our quest for 4th is put on hold for one week as DMan is away on training (not singing school). Instead, we will have fun with the numerous DLC. After playing the last remaining unranked songs, we can improve on our worst ranked ones.

Usability request for RB2: Looping song lists!

I played with one of my other bands tonight ("X+Alpha and the Omegaz) and we were playing some unranked DLC alphabetically. Having reached letter 'W', we now had to scroll all the way down after selecting a song in "Make your own setlist" sets.

With over 250 songs in the game now (and plenty more to come), it is an exercise in patience since we don't have the ability to loop through the top of the list to get to the end faster. Hopefully this will make it into Rock Band 2.

Thankfully, Rock Band 1 allows multiple players to hold the direction buttons to make it scroll faster (the more players hold them the faster it scrolls). Unfortunately, maximum efficiency requires that all players participate, which was not often the case tonight... (I'm looking at you Delta! ;) )

Exercising the drumming muscles

As I play more and more I can notice my endurance increasing at a very good rate. Obviously we can think of the "practice makes perfect" speech but I am sure there is more than that.

What muscles get tired for you when you play real/RB drums? In the usual case there is:
- the ankle
- the forearms

Sure practicing will help develop the muscle you need but what else could help?

Well if you read a bit about my profile you will notice another major activity that interests me: Rock climbing.

What mucles do you need for rock climbing? I'd say pretty much all of them but forearms is a big one. Since I go rock climbing twice a week, pushing myself further and further, these muscles develop at a significantly faster rate than if I just played drums (for the ankle, I have no tips for you :p)

I am certain there are specific exercises that can focus on exacly the right mucle to workout, but why not have fun and try something different instead of just lifting weights? :)

A lot more albums plus crazy RB2 intro

Check out this link for news on upcoming Rock Band albums plus the first look at the stunt-filled Rock Band 2 opening sequence!

2M points and eyeing the top 4

Tonight was a great session as we almost met our optimal goal by gaining close to 2M points. We are still in 7th place but only 1.2M points away from 4th. That is likely to happen in two sessions as the next one is a DLC night.

Highlights:
- We wanted to improve on Maps right away to remove it as worst ranked song (#26). Phoenix proposed doing a "practice run" to warm up, but it turned out that the "practice run" got us more than 1M points and landed us in 11th place for that song!
- There are now only 8 songs out of 58 where we are not in the top 11 (first page on PS3 leaderboards)
- We improved our score for "Train Kept A-Rollin'"... by a whopping 59 points!
- We are the highest ranked band not to have a #1 score. There are three songs tonight where we had an almost optimal path ("Here It Goes Again", "Detroit Rock City" and "Black Hole Sun") and slightly better play would have allowed us to get one
- We seem to have found a great way to communicate when to activate Overdrive, flowing from the singer (optionally to a groupie) to the drummer and eventually to the guitarist and bassist. We'll leave the details for another post

Props to Happy People, Gods and Lesbians!

I want to congratulate the bands "Happy People Playing Rock Band 2", "The Gods of Bands" and "Lesbian Piledriver" on their recent climb up the PS3 Career Score Leaderboards. Together we are making it very hard to reach the top 9! :)

We'll see which band manages to join us in breaking 70M (which "Happy People" will surely do very soon).

Goal for tomorrow: moving up to piledrive some Lesbians

The band "Lesbian Piledriver" has rocketed up in the leaderboards overnight and is now 5th. We'll have to gain some points to eventually get a hold of them.

- Minimum: Gain 0.3M points, if we can't do that we're in trouble...
- Main: Gain 1.3M points, would give us a total of 73M
- Optimal: Gain 2.3M points, would allow us to regain 6th place by beating "Pants on Head!?!" and close in on the Lesbians
- Bonus: Regain a 1st place for one of the original 58 Rock Band 1 songs. The #1 superband "3 On a Match" stole "Creep" from us this weekend

What If Chuck Norris played Rock Band?

As much as I hate to be the first to post about Chuck Norris. I had to perpetuate the cycle!

When Chuck Norris plays rockband, he passes the song without playing any notes:



Yep, Maybe Silver's drum line is a tad too easy? (Sure I WAS "playing" it on "easy" but is that an excuse to let me pass the song without touching the drumkit even once?

At least now we know its possible to get a 1-star rating. :)

Dude Sings Like a Lady...

A groupie made an observation this week that I sing like a girl. Now I should mention that this was while we were playing "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a band who's vocalist is named Karen O and is, you guessed it, a girl!

I should also note that I wasn't trying to impress the groupie in the least since the person wasn't the best looking of the bunch, what with the long hair and beard and all...

That being said, this "sing like a girl" comment made me realize that I really have no idea what I sound like when I "sing". I mean, obviously I can carry a tune, otherwise I wouldn't be able to get high scores while playing Rock Band, but what about the quality of my voice? Is it a beautiful, mature and well-rounded voice that you'd expect from a professional signer? Or is it a high-pitched, nasal sound that just so happens to come out of my mouth at the right tone?

I figure that it has to be somewhere between the two extremes: I can carry a tune, but I'm not the next Canadian Idol (nor would I want to be). And when you really think about it, the simple fact that I can usually hit over 95% of vocals on such a wide variety of songs as the 58 original Rock Band songs is a feat in and of itself.

In the end, however, it doesn't really matter because its all for fun. I enjoy sitting back, a beer in one hand and a mic in the other, and "singing" some good - and some not so good - tunes (I'm looking at you Gimme Shelter). It's not like I'm thinking of quitting my day job to start a full-time singing career...

Or am I?

...

...

No, I'm not...

A unique yet effective Rock Band Mod

Hi folks, Raikan here for my first blog post for the band. This has been a long time in the making, but this is worth it.Many of you recognize the above photo. The bane of most people when you start drumming... the drum pedal. This insidious piece of hardware is used in some interesting beats and some songs are just overzealous in it's use... what happens when you play though?
Yep! Broken pedal. Now you're done, the pedal is physically snapped into 2 pieces and is now unusable. But other than contacting Harmonix directly and getting a new pedal. (Which we've done since we've snapped 2 pedals already). We decided on a different approach after getting one new pedal back. Tracing the shape of the pedal onto a board. 5/8" plywood actually, we spent the time to cut out a piece of wood to make into a new base using a jig saw.Tah-dah! The result. 4 screws later, 2 in each piece of the broken pedal. Just regular wood screws. Carefully placed not to hit the magnet at the top of the pedal. And we have a new very very sturdy pedal. Ok, it's not the most visually pleasing, but it's functional. It's a little rough on bare feet too. I plan on taking the wood off, giving the top edge a pass of the router, and I'm even going to put a tiny counter sink on the screw heads so they don't stick up a little. Sand the whole thing smooth and reinstall it back onto the pedal and we should be good as new with a nice pedal. We could probably paint it if we wanted. Or put the band's logo on it too.

As I said earlier, we have 2 broken pedals. But we're leaving the 2nd one in it's broken state as we wait to see if Harmonix wants us to send back a broken one to replace the new one they sent us. If they say they don't want it. Stay tuned for a second mod that we have planned for that pedal.

Rockband 2 preordered

First of all happy birthday to me :) How old am I? Well I'll have to let you guess.

The highlight of today so far hapenned yesterday night (when I was too tired to post). As I was eating dinner with my familly yesterday night I received a birthday card. Inside this card was a simple piece of paper (and some well appreciated cash :p) What could this be?

Well of course reading the title of the post you can guess what it was. This receipt was just a notification that my parents had preordered RB2 for me :). They always know what to get me hehe.

This means the Macas + The Reject will have a pretty much guaranteed access to the game as soon as it comes out (out here in the cold Canada), And this saved expense is money that can join the ION fund.

Too bad I have to wait to use my present now!

Top bands to be featured on GameTrailers TV

I PVR the show GameTrailers TV on Spike (channel 32 in Ottawa) on Friday nights at 1:00 AM and it's neat to see that the bands ranked #2 to #4 on Xbox 360 will compete on the show playing Rock Band 2 this September. See this post by a member of "Die! In A Fire" (currently ranked #4).

If you include the Xbox 360 bands, we are currently ranked 26th in the world (by now I'm sure that's out of more than 1 million bands). That is very impressive considering that we've had less than two months of serious play with the current lineup (6-8 sessions). Let 's continue our upward climb!

Leaving the Gods behind

Our goals were set too high this week as it is getting more difficult to gain points. Nonetheless, we almost met our minimum goal by increasing our Career Score by 1.4M points (regaining 6th place). It was a respectable performance, allowing us to perhaps eclipse "The Gods of Bands" for good.

We are now 2.3M away from 5th place, which we can hopefully reach within 2 sessions.

Highlights:
- Starting the night with our best songs by spread to #1, allowing us to increase our lead for Creep and almost gaining another #1 ranked song with Reptilia (currently 2nd, only 17K behind "3 On a Match")
- Finding the best venue for a "Make Your Own Setlist" gig allowed us to keep most of our virtual fans. We only lost about 5K fans in our city of origin when we restarted a song (half what we were losing last week)
- Phoenix and Bongoo trying to hit all the unison bonuses on Expert drums for Maps. With a proper drum setup, one of us will get them all next week so that it can finally be removed as worst ranked song (#26)
- DMan with some great overdrive advice for Orange Crush

Great news for PS3 rhythm game enthusiasts!

This is the best PS3 news I've seen in a while. Basically all instruments for Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Revolution will be compatible with each other (see this link)!

Might be worth getting this premium drumkit after all.

Goals for tomorrow: beating Gods and possibly Pants

We are currently ranked 7th, 14K behind "The Gods of Bands" and 3.6M behind "Pants on head!?!".

- Minimum: Gain 1.5M points (rank #6) , would give us a decent lead
- Main: Gain 2.5M points (rank #6), would give us a big lead, perhaps the last time we would need to pass "The Gods of Bands"...
- Optimal: Gain 3.6M points (rank #5), would be great to move up 2 ranks in one session
- Bonus: Obtain at least one more number 1 song (possible if we sometimes play our best songs by rank instead of the worst ones by rank or spread to #1)

Also, I think we should experiment with the venues to find the "Make Your Own Setlist" set with the smallest venue so that we lose the least possible # of fans. That way, we can restart more often if needed and not force Phoenix to regain fans all week.