Friday, August 28, 2009

Jammin' with the Sebs

This week Raikan was away, but we had help from the two Sebs that Phoenix knows, one his roommate (sometimes referred here as the band's cheerleader) and the other his friend from the rock climbing gym.

We mostly played 2 song sets consisting of the easiest unranked songs, with regular instrument swaps. Because this was more of an informal session, we only tracked the number of Fcs, with Bongoo getting 11.

We gained about 10M points, enough to move past "Brass Knuckles" for 23rd place in the "All Songs" Leaderboards. The only possible obstacle to this point gain is that we played offline due to Phoenix's problems with his ISP. It will be a good test to see if offline scores are uploaded the next time we connect.

Highlights:
- Bongoo did some voxtar (vocals and guitar at the same time) at the end, using Sylvie's hoodie as the mic stand while she was drumming. :) He got more than 80% of the notes with both instruments on Expert for "Sex on Fire" and "I Predict a Riot".

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Goal for tomorrow: move up a few ranks with the new line-up

This is our first session with the new line-up. DMan is starting at his new job in Montreal on Thursday.

We are currently ranked 24th with 567M points in the "All Songs" Leaderboards. Tonight our goal should be to play 24 to 32 unranked songs and gain at least 24M points. This would move us up to 21st place.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Pub Italia for DMan's last session

This week we met our goal by having a great time at Pub Italia. :)

DMan, Phoenix, Sylvie and Bongoo ate some nachos, drank some great beers (ex: the amazing Rochefort 10), and had very interesting conversations to celebrate the last 16 months of the band with DMan on vocals.

Topics ranged from the history of "3 Macas and a Reject", to the survival of our species, and even of the the ethics of friendship.

We wish DMan well on his journey to Montreal. As I said in the comments for the last post, we will certainly miss his talents as singer, video editor and writer. We look forward to his guest appearance in a future session. Farewell!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Goal for tomorrow: DMan's last session

Tomorrow is my last RB session and, to be bluntly honest, I would rather not spend the night sitting in a hot leather chair humming songs that I don't know.

So instead, I say let's all go out to our favorite pub (Pub Italia?), have a drink or two and reminisce of the good times we've had with both RB 1 and 2. We could all meet up at Phoenix's house around 8ish (sorry for volunteering your house man, but its the usual gathering point) and take a car from there down to the pub.

Let me know what you guys think. :D

Friday, August 14, 2009

"Oh Shitson!" says DMan in his 2nd last session

Tonight was DMan's 2nd last session as singer for the band. The proposed line-up changes starting next week are as follows:
- Raikan will move from Bass to Vocals
- Sylvie graduates from "Honorary Maca" to "Permanent Maca" on Bass

We played 24 songs with the optimal line-up, moving up a few ranks in the "All Songs" Leaderboards. Raikan and Bongoo also played a few songs with 2 players.

Highlights
- Stars breakdown for the 24 songs: Gold stars (4), 5 stars (16), 4 stars (3), 3 stars (1)
- Raikan was the "Top Performer" for the most songs (12), followed by Bongoo (11), DMan (3), and Phoenix (2)
- Bongoo had the most FCs (6), followed by Raikan (3), and Phoneix (2)
- We finished two songs with 3 FCs (all except vocals for "Cups and Cakes" and "Geraldine")
- DMan told us to wait after the solo to activate overdrive during "Wilson (Live)". He misses his own activation, resulting in him saying "Oh Shitson!" instead of "Oh Wilson!" right after (you had to be there...)

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Goal for tonight: continue playing unranked songs

We are currently ranked 22nd with 541M points in the "All Songs" Leaderboards. Tonight our goal should be to play 32 unranked songs and gain at least 30M points. This would move us up to 19th place.

We have a little over 150 unranked songs left to play. Taking into consideration the average number of DLC released each week, we should have a basic score for each song by the end of September.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

3 Macas and a... Montréaler?

Though this has been in the works for some time, I havn't said anything because:

a) Nothing was official; and
b) I didn't want to jinx anything

I've received an offer for a job in Montréal and I'll be starting on August 27th. So, I'm not too sure what that means for Rock Band, seeing as how I won't be in town, nor have the internet for a while. Right now I'm more preocupied with the logistics of moving to Montréal and what not, so we'll see what we can do in the long term.

In the short term, next week will be my last official RB night in Ottawa, so we'll have to make sure it doesn't go to waste.

See you guys tomorrow!

DMan...

Friday, August 7, 2009

Roland + Instrumentals

This week we played 22 songs, 16 with the optimal line-up. After DMan left, we took the opportunity to play the 6 instrumentals released so far in Rock Band. "Caprici di Diablo" had some tough moments, but we managed to finish it with all of us on Expert. Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Rude Mood" was a bit too tough to pull off though, forcing us to drop to Hard to finish it.

Phoenix bought a Roland electronic drum kit a while back to play with his real band, but we brought it down for tonight's Rock Band session. It was neat to see how quickly he adapted to the pad/button configuration.

We gained 17M points tonight, which is just enough to meet our goal of being in the top 20 in the "All Songs" Leaderboards.

Highlights:
- Stars breakdown for the 22 songs: Gold stars (6), 5 stars (7), 4 stars (6), 3 stars (3)
- Raikan is the "Top Performer" for the most songs (11), followed by Bongoo (9), DMan (4), and Phoenix (1)
- Tonight was the first time that noone gets an FC, possibly due to the difficulty of the songs selected
- It seemed to be a Guitar Hero 3 night at the beginning, with 3 of the first 9 randomly selected songs coming from that game ("Hier Kommt Alex", "Black Sunshine", "Pride and Joy")
- We get two 3-way ties for "Top Performer" in the same session (between DMan, Raikan and Bongoo) . This occured when noone was flagged as "Top Performer" but we all got the same percentage
- Phoenix shows us his special powers, as he correctly predicts his percentage for the song where he is the "Top Performer" (93%)

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Goal for tonight: finally make it in the top 20

We are currently ranked 23rd with 522M points in the "All Songs" Leaderboards. Tonight our goal should be to play 32 unranked songs and gain at least 30M points. We only need 16M points to move up to 19th place so we're pretty much guaranteed to be in the top 20 after tonight.