The Vocal Harmonies Discussion Thread

[diablocon]

Anyone who has been paying the slightest attention to The Beatles: Rock Band will of course know that the biggest feature to be added are the vocal harmonies.

However, there's obviously a lot we need to learn about these strange beasts other than the fact it's great for getting some friends over to wail into those extra mics you've been collecting from Lips, Singstar or several RB/GH bundles (seriously, I have like 6 mics now @_@).

So I thought I'd make this thread to store information that's gathered initially, and just so there's some place to discuss them.

First off, if you want to get a feeling for how Harmonies work but don't have friends who can sing, then pick I've Got a Feeling. This song is really good for understanding how vocal harmonies work on your own, since there are several phrases where both singers sing, but not over each other, so you can get some Double Fabs on your own.

The absolute best song that testing can be done on is Paperback Writer. It's opening phrase is a triple harmony with easy to recognize pitches, so lots of restarting can be done on it (assuming your two friends want to consistently sing the same thing over and over again).

Anyway, here are the findings so far:

Fab bonuses are both affected by difficulty and multiplier.
The base points for Double Fab bonuses are equal to 10% of the base points for that difficulty
The base points for Triple Fab bonuses are equal to 20% of the base points for that difficulty

Easy Double Fab Bonuses: Base 20, 80 at x4
Easy Triple Fab Bonuses: Base 40, 160 at x4
Medium Double Fab Bonuses: Base 40, 160 at x4
Medium Triple Fab Bonuses: Base 80, 320 at x4
Hard Double Fab Bonuses: Base 80, 320 at x4
Hard Triple Fab Bonuses: Base 160, 640 at x4
Expert Double Fab Bonuses: Base 100, 400 at x4
Expert Triple Fab Bonuses: Base 200, 800 at x4

Thanks to Jerrith for giving us a general idea of what Triple Fab bonuses are. It hasn't been as thoroughly tested as the Double Fab bonuses, but ti should be right.

Beatlemania can be activated by any singer who doesn't have anything to sing whenever they want.

Oh boy, the big one in terms of pathing. I've still to do this, but rastabot1 was kind enough to provide me video evidence of it here.

As far as I can tell, there must be nothing for the other singer to sing in order to activate BM mid phrase. So say you have 3 singers, the third singer can only active BM mid-phrase assuming the other two are currently hitting their pitches and there isn't a third pitch line in the current phrase.

The pitch lines are like magnets in Harmony Mode
This is more obvious on your own. If you are even near one of the required pitches, that pitch's specific pitch line will go "Ok, you're trying to sing THIS part" and immediately grab your pitch arrow and drag it towards that pitch. This can be slightly annoying if you're trying to sing Ringo's section but it thinks you're trying to be Paul. For the first second or two you'll be filling up the wrong pitch bar until you can veer off and get to the correct pitch. This has given me many Greats instead of Fabs.

Harmonies have tics too
Yeah, should seem obvious, but just add this here. If you don't fully fill up a second or third bar, you won't get a Double Fab, but you'll still get some points. These bonuses aren't All or Nothing. So if I fill up only half my pitch bar (assuming one of my friend's filled up theirs fully), we only got 50 bonus points (assuming we're at x1 multiplier).

Overdrive can be activated mid phrase.
There are two ways of doing this:
The Easy Way - When you have enough OD, whoever is not singing simply has to make a pitch not found in the phrase to activate OD.
The Hard Way- This is also known as the solo way. In between words, if you can make the sound fast enough, you should be able to activate OD on your own.

Both Singstar mics are considered different mics
Yes PS3 owners, if you have the singstar mics you've already got two mics to use. Both are counted as seperate mics.

Thanks go to
Thanks to these guys for helping with the findings:
Heimlich17
bclare
Jerrith
Icemage

So yeah, please post any findings you find about harmonies, and just discuss them too (they're dead fun).

[diablocon]

Anyone who has been paying the slightest attention to The Beatles: Rock Band will of course know that the biggest feature to be added are the vocal harmonies.

However, there's obviously a lot we need to learn about these strange beasts other than the fact it's great for getting some friends over to wail into those extra mics you've been collecting from Lips, Singstar or several RB/GH bundles (seriously, I have like 6 mics now @_@).

So I thought I'd make this thread to store information that's gathered initially, and just so there's some place to discuss them.

First off, if you want to get a feeling for how Harmonies work but don't have friends who can sing, then pick I've Got a Feeling. This song is really good for understanding how vocal harmonies work on your own, since there are several phrases where both singers sing, but not over each other, so you can get some Double Fabs on your own.

The absolute best song that testing can be done on is Paperback Writer. It's opening phrase is a triple harmony with easy to recognize pitches, so lots of restarting can be done on it (assuming your two friends want to consistently sing the same thing over and over again).

Anyway, here are the findings so far:

Fab bonuses are both affected by difficulty and multiplier.
The base points for Double Fab bonuses are equal to 10% of the base points for that difficulty
The base points for Triple Fab bonuses are equal to 20% of the base points for that difficulty

Easy Double Fab Bonuses: Base 20, 80 at x4
Easy Triple Fab Bonuses: Base 40, 160 at x4
Medium Double Fab Bonuses: Base 40, 160 at x4
Medium Triple Fab Bonuses: Base 80, 320 at x4
Hard Double Fab Bonuses: Base 80, 320 at x4
Hard Triple Fab Bonuses: Base 160, 640 at x4
Expert Double Fab Bonuses: Base 100, 400 at x4
Expert Triple Fab Bonuses: Base 200, 800 at x4

Thanks to Jerrith for giving us a general idea of what Triple Fab bonuses are. It hasn't been as thoroughly tested as the Double Fab bonuses, but ti should be right.

Beatlemania can be activated by any singer who doesn't have anything to sing whenever they want.

Oh boy, the big one in terms of pathing. I've still to do this, but rastabot1 was kind enough to provide me video evidence of it here.

As far as I can tell, there must be nothing for the other singer to sing in order to activate BM mid phrase. So say you have 3 singers, the third singer can only active BM mid-phrase assuming the other two are currently hitting their pitches and there isn't a third pitch line in the current phrase.

The pitch lines are like magnets in Harmony Mode
This is more obvious on your own. If you are even near one of the required pitches, that pitch's specific pitch line will go "Ok, you're trying to sing THIS part" and immediately grab your pitch arrow and drag it towards that pitch. This can be slightly annoying if you're trying to sing Ringo's section but it thinks you're trying to be Paul. For the first second or two you'll be filling up the wrong pitch bar until you can veer off and get to the correct pitch. This has given me many Greats instead of Fabs.

Harmonies have tics too
Yeah, should seem obvious, but just add this here. If you don't fully fill up a second or third bar, you won't get a Double Fab, but you'll still get some points. These bonuses aren't All or Nothing. So if I fill up only half my pitch bar (assuming one of my friend's filled up theirs fully), we only got 50 bonus points (assuming we're at x1 multiplier).

Overdrive can be activated mid phrase.
There are two ways of doing this:
The Easy Way - When you have enough OD, whoever is not singing simply has to make a pitch not found in the phrase to activate OD.
The Hard Way- This is also known as the solo way. In between words, if you can make the sound fast enough, you should be able to activate OD on your own.

Both Singstar mics are considered different mics
Yes PS3 owners, if you have the singstar mics you've already got two mics to use. Both are counted as seperate mics.

Thanks go to
Thanks to these guys for helping with the findings:
Heimlich17
bclare
Jerrith
Icemage

So yeah, please post any findings you find about harmonies, and just discuss them too (they're dead fun).

[Koenn]

I haven't gotten to try out harmonies with more than one person yet, but I do think it's cool that you can sing any given part in a phrase and still get credit for that phrase. Going down to the harmony part for the chorus of "Eight Days A Week" is fun.
_________________

360 Gamertag: k0enn
RB1/2/3/GD/Lego/Beatles, 600+ DLC, 250+ Vocal FCs.

[Koenn]

I haven't gotten to try out harmonies with more than one person yet, but I do think it's cool that you can sing any given part in a phrase and still get credit for that phrase. Going down to the harmony part for the chorus of "Eight Days A Week" is fun.
_________________

360 Gamertag: k0enn
RB1/2/3/GD/Lego/Beatles, 600+ DLC, 250+ Vocal FCs.

[heety9]

Wow, great guide man, really informative.

[heety9]

Wow, great guide man, really informative.

[Smeddy24]

Any idea on how the overall song percentage is calculated for simple display? I thought it was percentage of lead hit, and it could be, but I'm doubting that. I hit 99% of a song's lead, and my friend hit 1% of the lead, in addition to something, not 100% of the harmony. I doubt he hit the 1% I missed, though it's possible.
_________________

My YouTube show. Try it. You might like it.

[Smeddy24]

Any idea on how the overall song percentage is calculated for simple display? I thought it was percentage of lead hit, and it could be, but I'm doubting that. I hit 99% of a song's lead, and my friend hit 1% of the lead, in addition to something, not 100% of the harmony. I doubt he hit the 1% I missed, though it's possible.
_________________

My YouTube show. Try it. You might like it.

[Heimlich17]

[Heimlich17]

[diablocon]

[diablocon]

[internetguy87]

[internetguy87]

[Smeddy24]

[Smeddy24]

[Heimlich17]

[Heimlich17]

[internetguy87]

[internetguy87]

[Laughingboy69]

Does anybody know if enabling Harmonies on a song effects the cutoff for GS or not? (As opposed to doing just Solo) I only tried harmony on I Wanna Hold your Hand and I did get GS, but only because my friend and I KNEW that song and the harmony that goes with it. I'm sorry if someone explained this and I didn't see it. I did do ctrl+f "Cutoff" and couldn't find anything in this thread. It's something I've been asking myself since I started playing on day 1. -_-

[Laughingboy69]

Does anybody know if enabling Harmonies on a song effects the cutoff for GS or not? (As opposed to doing just Solo) I only tried harmony on I Wanna Hold your Hand and I did get GS, but only because my friend and I KNEW that song and the harmony that goes with it. I'm sorry if someone explained this and I didn't see it. I did do ctrl+f "Cutoff" and couldn't find anything in this thread. It's something I've been asking myself since I started playing on day 1. -_-

[Heimlich17]

A sort-of related issue to my post above, but also kind of its own thing -- playing harmonies as a single player.

First of all, let me stress this is purely for score hunting, and to get a better sense of what harmonies should sound like. If you have ANY means of getting two or three vocalists together, it's a hell of a lot more fun to actually try to sing them. I played last night with three mics at a friend's house and it was awesome. About half the time, it sounded terrible, but the OTHER half of the time, when we'd say "I'm gonna try for the orange line this song; you stick with blue," and we'd actually SEE that reflected in our final scores -- yeah, you feel pretty great.

BUT... if you wanna just see how much you can do on your own, you need to always shift to whatever part has the LEAST going on in a phrase to maximize your score. Remember that ever piece of every part you sing counts in some measure (though to a MUCH lesser degree than actually finishing any ONE part completely).

For example, in Twist and Shout, if playing on harmonies as a solo player, when you get to the three part "build-up" with the long, sustained notes ("Ah...." "Ah...." Ah...."), you should start singing each line when it comes in, but switch to the NEW line when it comes in. You'll score your Fab for the phrase by finishing the LAST "Ah....", the shortest part in the phrase. And you'll also pick up a small fraction of both the other two parts by having started singing them earlier in the phrase.

Always look for the color with the least amount of singing in a phrase and get your Fab there. Then you have the chance to earn tiny fractions of phrases for the other colors, elsewhere in the phrase.

But as I said first, if you can: just get one or two other singers there. It's way fun.

[Heimlich17]

A sort-of related issue to my post above, but also kind of its own thing -- playing harmonies as a single player.

First of all, let me stress this is purely for score hunting, and to get a better sense of what harmonies should sound like. If you have ANY means of getting two or three vocalists together, it's a hell of a lot more fun to actually try to sing them. I played last night with three mics at a friend's house and it was awesome. About half the time, it sounded terrible, but the OTHER half of the time, when we'd say "I'm gonna try for the orange line this song; you stick with blue," and we'd actually SEE that reflected in our final scores -- yeah, you feel pretty great.

BUT... if you wanna just see how much you can do on your own, you need to always shift to whatever part has the LEAST going on in a phrase to maximize your score. Remember that ever piece of every part you sing counts in some measure (though to a MUCH lesser degree than actually finishing any ONE part completely).

For example, in Twist and Shout, if playing on harmonies as a solo player, when you get to the three part "build-up" with the long, sustained notes ("Ah...." "Ah...." Ah...."), you should start singing each line when it comes in, but switch to the NEW line when it comes in. You'll score your Fab for the phrase by finishing the LAST "Ah....", the shortest part in the phrase. And you'll also pick up a small fraction of both the other two parts by having started singing them earlier in the phrase.

Always look for the color with the least amount of singing in a phrase and get your Fab there. Then you have the chance to earn tiny fractions of phrases for the other colors, elsewhere in the phrase.

But as I said first, if you can: just get one or two other singers there. It's way fun.

[Heimlich17]

[Heimlich17]

[internetguy87]

[internetguy87]

[diablocon]

[diablocon]