The Vocal Harmonies Discussion Thread

**Tobias911** · Joined: 07 Nov 2007 Posts: 506 Location: Albany, NY

A few thoughts all!

First off ive been working on harmonies all week now with the gf and we've gotton #1 on SH and XBL yay!

I have noticed a few things i should note.

1) There are some songs where the OD activation lengths are either faster or slower than the harmony OD. Im not sure if they did this purposly but that would really mess up band pathing if someone is trying to figure it out =o

2) In some solo songs, the solo usually has a few melody and harmony parts to it , but when in harmony mode, they split up and what u sang in solo mode may not be the same as u sang on harmony mode so be prepared to change pitch quickly!

3) Ive found activating alot easier when both mics activate at the same time. Alot of times when i activated in harmonies when i had no part it didnt activate so when i just raised my voice while singing the melody to activate at the same time with harmony, i got activations alot easier. !

I need an official confirmation by a SH mod. I know some ppl have been toying around with the idea of recording themselves and then trying to get the double and triple fab achievements done. I think its a great idea to be honest for all the ppl that dont have anyone near them to help them get the achievement but would it be legal to post these scores on SH itself ? i would like an answer from someone if possible asap!!!! =o

Hope this helps!!!
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**internetguy87** · Joined: 27 Mar 2008 Posts: 3505 Location: Pittsburgh, PA

**Tzepish** · Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 6:19 pm Post subject:

**Billtvshow** · Joined: 20 Dec 2007 Posts: 832 Location: NC, USA

**internetguy87** · Joined: 27 Mar 2008 Posts: 3505 Location: Pittsburgh, PA

**PhatTrumpet** · Joined: 15 Oct 2007 Posts: 1565 Location: Maine

Recording oneself and playing it back into the microphone is not allowed in any shape or form, be it for vocals harmonies, voxtar, or anything else. Being able to duplicate a 100% run (that may have taken several tries) at the press of a button removes much of the performance aspect that's such a big part of the game.
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Bass: 9,226,503 [58 GS, 57 FC] 13,319,824 [83 GS, 83 FC] 22,546,327 [141GS, 140FC]
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**Tobias911** · Joined: 07 Nov 2007 Posts: 506 Location: Albany, NY

Thank you for the official word! =)
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**pooberry** · Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 3:57 pm Post subject:

Recording oneself for harmonies makes me a sad panda. The wife and I played for a little while last night doing the harmonies and we got a few songs into the XBL top ten. We're a good bit above average on all expert instruments, by non-SH standards, but we've never come close to being properly ranked on a leaderboard before this. I would be irritated to discover that my score was getting bumped down by a lonely dude and his computer.

Also, we need some paths figured out for these harmonies, people! It's way more complicated than the solo ones. Our FCs are still falling a couple thousand short and I'm not sure where to change it up.
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**Yusuke** · Joined: 04 Nov 2006 Posts: 1663

**internetguy87** · Joined: 27 Mar 2008 Posts: 3505 Location: Pittsburgh, PA

**ProffessorJoe** · Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 4:43 am Post subject:

**internetguy87** · Joined: 27 Mar 2008 Posts: 3505 Location: Pittsburgh, PA

**ProffessorJoe** · Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 6:50 am Post subject:

well me and RJ are first on harmonies on SH and from what i saw i was able to make pretty accurate paths after i figured out the OD placement. It wasn't even wrong in all the songs, just some

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**Beez808** · Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 253 Location: XBL (Beez 808)

While pathing harmonies, Ripley and I discovered a very interesting bit of information about how the Rock Band engine assigns scoring for the vocal parts within a phrase.

My apologies in advance, this is going to get lengthy... and technical.

First, let's review some givens:

In every harmony phrase there are 2 or 3 vocal lines, each with its own color.
According to the Rock Band engine:
- The Blue line is Lead.
- The Red line is Harmony 1.
- The Yellow line is Harmony 2.
The Base point value for a phrase on Expert is 1000.
The Base point value for a Harmony part on Expert is 100.
Overdrive doubles the value of the points scored while active.

Ok, that's out of the way.

What we've discovered is the Rock Band engine assigns points to the different colored lines based on a priority system. The priorities work as follows:

If Blue is full then...
- Blue is Lead and is worth 1000 pts.
- Red is a Harmony worth 100 pts.
- Yellow is a Harmony worth 100 pts.
If Blue is NOT full then...
- Blue counts as a Harmony worth 100 pts. - points missed.
- Red counts as Lead and is worth 1000 pts.
- Yellow is a Harmony worth 100 pts.
If Blue AND Red are NOT full then...
- Blue counts as a Harmony worth 100 pts. - points missed.
- Red counts as a Harmony worth 100 pts. - points missed.
- Yellow counts as Lead and is worth 1000 pts.

This tiered priority system is used regardless of what order the line appears in the phrase, how long it is in relation to the other lines, and whether or not it is filled before the other lines. The only way to test the evidence of this is through the use of Overdrive.

So, what does this all mean? It means you, as a vocalist, have control over how many points you get on start and end phrases for Overdrive activations. It also means “miss” paths are viable for harmony charts.

I'm going to give some examples of how you readers at home can test this for yourselves. For these examples, let's assume that all parts fill evenly across the phrase.

This first example is simply a generic 3 part Harmony phrase with all parts spanning the full phrase. The green highlight represents the Overdrive running out exactly halfway through the phrase.
* With all colors full, the phrase will be worth 1800 points (1200 base points + 600 for the half during OD), or 7200 at 4x.
* Any colors not filled will simply result in lost points, as expected (e.g. Walk of Life, measure 87).

In this second example, Blue covers the entire phrase, while Red and Yellow cover only the half under OD.
* With all colors full, the phrase will be worth 1900 points (1200 base points + 500 half of Blue + 100 all of Red + 100 all of Yellow), or 7600 at 4x.
* However, if Blue is completely missed, it will be worth 2200 (1100 base points + 1000 all of Red + 100 all of Yellow), or 8800 at 4x.
That's a difference of 1200 points at 4x multiplier. Filling part of Blue will add even more points to the total as long as it's not filled completely (e.g. Here Comes the Sun, measure 35).

In the third example, Blue and Red span the entire phrase and Yellow covers only the half under OD.
* With all colors full, the phrase will be worth 1850 (1200 base + 500 half of Blue + 50 half of Red + 100 all of Yellow), or 7400 at 4x.
* If Blue is completely missed the phrase will be worth 1700 (1100 base + 500 half of Red + 100 all of Yellow), or 6800 at 4x.
* If Blue AND Red are completely missed the phrase will be worth 2000 (1000 base + 1000 all of Yellow), or 8000 at 4x, a difference of 600 points.
So, clearly in this instance it would be best to fill Yellow while almost filling Blue and Red (e.g. Before the Lobotomy, measure 91).

This prioritizing can be witnessed on the front end of an Overdrive activation as well. If you apply the same examples as above but mirror the colors and OD, the effect is the same.

While we've tested this effect in RB3, GD:RB, and TB:RB, we haven't tested it in a full band setting but my assumption is that it works exactly the same.

If you'd like to look up the phrases I mentioned in the examples, please find the solo charts on ajanata's site here.
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**Icemage** · Joined: 11 May 2008 Posts: 3200

I wasn't aware of the priority in selection of which line is lead, but it does make sense. By the by, given what is posted above, the exact determination for how points are calculated goes something like this:

Harmony meter with the most pie filled by end of phrase = primary, with 1000 base points on vocals.
All other lines = secondary, worth 100 base points.

The tiebreaks indicate Blue > Red > Orange in order of preference if for some reason two meters tie first most (usually because you've got all 1000 ticks on more than 1 line).

For instance, if you're at a party, and you get 50% on Blue, 90% on Red, and 20% on Orange, you're going to break combo, and assuming you had a x4 multiplier going in with no overdrive, you'd get:

Red will be considered primary, so...

900 base points for 90% of the red meter
50 base points for 80% of the blue meter
20 base points for 20% of the orange meter

970 points total x 4 multipler = 3880 points for the phrase.

These rules also apply to harmonies in full band scoring as well, as far as I can tell.

Also note that you can only score overlapping harmonies with more than 1 microphone. So on songs like I Love Rock and Roll, it's not possible to score those double awesome with a single mic since you can only get credit for one line at a time with one input.
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