The loving relationship with EOF and Phase Shift

[vandorb12]

SPOILER: Click to show

This could be classified as a rant, fair warning to you!
And I love Phase Shift and it's community! Yes I understand it's still in beta development...
I'm just trying get some ground on creating a chart converter so we can get a true one to one charts of post GH:WT songs. I'm sure you'll thank me later.

I see that the developers of Phase Shift and EOF are very close when making programs, but there seems to be something lacking...

Phase Shift has special Sysex Notation for open bass notes, slides (classic and pro), rim shots, and hi-hat pedals. (I left out Expert+ because that's an actual MIDI note) EOF has the ability to chart those with ease now. Yet I find both of them are missing a few key features for total chart feature completion.

If you haven't read the spoiler at the top of the page, now's a good time to do so.

Phase Shift currently does not support Pull Off (the latter half of a HO/PO) for open bass notes. I find this as a serious feature blunder, especially since Phase Shift supports open bass notes. I've played through many Guitar Hero bass charts, and quite a few of them have open bass notes that you do not need to strum for.
I might as well throw out that there needs to be support for a force strum/pull off open bass note.

I've lurked around enough on this forum and the Phase Shift page on FOFFF to also understand that we currently do not have a notation standard for drum accent notes, ghost notes, and drum tails (as I say it without backing up my claim). Accents and ghost notes appear to be purely cosmetic to the devs at this time, but I find that they may play some use in the future.
I remember some sort of discussion about drum accents and drum tails, but I don't believe there was any work done with it.
Ghost notes are the most cosmetic of all these features. I don't expect the developers to fully implement it (graphics and other logic features), but I think they should code it in so Phase Shift and EOF can handle them properly.

These final thoughts have been on my mind for a while. This regards trills and tremolos for the button instruments, and drum rolls fro drums. Does Phase Shift really support these features yet? I don't see any graphical notation when playing a chart with those features put in.

Finally, a feature request.
Since the developers of Phase Shift decided that they did not want to have BRE's, I've believe I've come up with a viable solution so that a BRE is not unused in Phase Shift.

According to RBN documentation, a BRE must have the Expert Guitar chart charted for animation purposes (it may be for all of the instruments, but I'm not 100% sure about it).
Since it's only used for animation, the end of the chart can be potentially sloppy. When we reach a BRE, Phase Shift would display some sort of graphic stating that the player is in BRE mode, and Phase Shift opens up the note hit window nice and wide.
From here, it's up to the developers on how they want to score this. I'll be happy (and maybe a few other people) just as long as they don't let a BRE go to waste.

Since stating that the BRE animation is only on Expert difficulty, what would happen to the other difficulties? I propose that Phase Shift could automatically transpose the Expert chart to lower difficulties with some hard coded logic and charting guidelines from RBN... such as this (assuming guitar/bass):

• Easy will not have chords, use only GRY, the notes should only be on strong beats (starts of measures for an example)
  
• Medium can have up to 2 note chords, use only GRYB, but no GB chords. The notes should be spaced a quarter note away from other notes.
  
• Hard can have up to 2 note chords, use all 5 frets, but no GO chords. The notes should be spaced an eighth note away from other notes.
  
• Expert is expert. =P
  

It's either that, or copy the expert chart down to the lower difficulties without modifying the MIDI file, and really open up the hit-window.

[raynebc]

There was a discussion about pull off open bass in the past, and it came down to it getting added to EOF if Phase Shift adopted support for it. Conceptually though, it doesn't make sense to me, because a pull off cannot be performed on a string that was played open. Hammer on for an open note makes sense though.

[asskickulater]

I would rather features like that not exist, just like a sustained open bass note, makes no sense at all.. and wish said feature didnt exist >_>

[knapman [FD]]

i don't have strong feelings about the sustained open note in general, its there, its not going anywhere as charters aren't forced to use anything, but just briefly thinking about the subject my take would probably be

i can see why a song would want to be able to represent open sustained open notes, when you play for real you can effect how long an open note goes for so this enables the game to acknowledge it has been played in a specific way and it can follow the music closer

the problem is the limitations of the basic controller obviously many things can't be played in a realistic mannor due to its feature limitations, idealy u'd want velocity on the strum bar and muting support but they aren't made with either of these so it has to be represented in the next best way

just briefly thinking about the situations that would cover a sustained open note i guess you'd have 2 main ways this would come up, strum hard for a louder / longer note, or they use a sustain effect and then mute

if the note was just supposed to be played harder so it sustains for longer holding the strum is probably the only way you can really represent a hard hit so to me that follows some logic and works reasonabily well to show some force was put behind that strum, its not realistic but it makes sense

but the second situation with open sustains where the sustain might be due to a sustain effect and is stopped by muting i guess for that situation we'd want is a mute note, that could effectively be charted with a slide note, a tap to represent the muting so a charter could already use an alternative to sustained open strums if they wanted to be more accurate in the right situation

the legacy modes really aren't that realistic in many ways so to me this doesn't cross any lines that haven't already been crossed while compressing a full guitar experience down to 5 buttons and a padel, to me sustained open strum serves some purpose and does seem to follow some logic. The more important part is if it doesn't make sence for the song then charters don't have to use it

this is all off the top of my head so maybe there are situations and factors i haven't considered, feel free to add some points, while i don't think we'd ever get rid of the feature im sure we'd be open to improving it if someone had some legitimate ideas that were a noticable improvement over the current implimentation

[vandorb12]

I find open sustains "epic". It's cool to see such a wide tail on a fret board!

Oct 28, 2011 5:42:52 GMT raynebc said:

There was a discussion about pull off open bass in the past, and it came down to it getting added to EOF if Phase Shift adopted support for it. Conceptually though, it doesn't make sense to me, because a pull off cannot be performed on a string that was played open. Hammer on for an open note makes sense though.

A hammer on for an open bass note? Now that doesn't make sense to me...

After playing many GH bass charts, I've come up with a rules and guidelines for open bass logic. Feel free to discuss about this as well. ;D

• You can NOT have a HO/PO open bass note after a open bass note.
  
• In order to have a HO/PO open bass note, the note before it must be a button note (GRYBO) that was either tapped, strummed, or ho/po'd.
  
• ?
  
• (Did I miss something?)
  

[Inf4mousKid]

asskickulater and knappman
u guyz are crazy and open bass sustain is how u get extra points that's all i expect from them + it make's perfect sense if u chart a song right

[vandorb12]

This is exactly how I feel about points. (start at 20 seconds, end at 40 seconds.)

[asskickulater]

Oct 28, 2011 20:40:47 GMT Inf4mousKid said:

asskickulater and knappman
u guyz are crazy and open bass sustain is how u get extra points that's all i expect from them + it make's perfect sense if u chart a song right

dude... just.. stop... posting...

just for the record, just because you can play guitar hero on expert doesn't mean you know how a guitar/bass works. it makes perfect sense huh? lets see you pick up a bass and just bend the string down and hold it there... does it make perfect sense still? as that's essentially what that feature is implying there. as i said before, don't talk unless you know what your talking about =/

now as a response to the previous posts, yea I do believe that sustained open strums can be made sense of, one of the biggest ones I can think of would be for forced whammy support, I would really like to see something done to validate sustained open strums.

[Oddbrother]

Oct 28, 2011 5:42:52 GMT raynebc said:

Conceptually though, it doesn't make sense to me, because a pull off cannot be performed on a string that was played open. Hammer on for an open note makes sense though.

I disagree. Considering that we have open notes set to be a lower-sounding setting than all the frets, it would make more sense to pull-off a fret to get to it and hammer-on a fret to get away from it. But not the other way around.

Oct 28, 2011 19:07:48 GMT vandorb12 said:

(list of open note HO/PO guidelines)

Perhaps this could be said of ALL notes.

The only thing that has ever worried me about open note is if whether or not it can be used for chords that don't require fretting any string (or button, in this case). And if not, what frets would be used for it instead without making it look too far off-place.

[vandorb12]

Open bass chords are deemed impossible; I have yet to see in GH a chord that included an open bass note.

[Inf4mousKid]

Oct 29, 2011 22:57:23 GMT vandorb12 said:

Open bass chords are deemed impossible; I have yet to see in GH a chord that included an open bass note.

a chord including open bass is funny tho strumming an open strum note while playing a regular one would be a challenge but no challenge if its done in real life

[Oddbrother]

Oct 30, 2011 0:06:26 GMT Inf4mousKid said:

a chord including open bass is funny tho strumming an open strum note while playing a regular one would be a challenge but no challenge if its done in real life

I wouldn't mean to include any frets whatsoever when strumming an open chord.

Oct 29, 2011 22:57:23 GMT vandorb12 said:

Open bass chords are deemed impossible; I have yet to see in GH a chord that included an open bass note.

The thought came from being laid out as a standard open note as it is in GH, but the idea of having it be played as either the lowest note or a non-fretted chord came from the PRO guitar/bass feature in RB3.

But if you still think otherwise, then what could open chords be charted as that's better for all of us?

[vandorb12]

We're all on the same page that this feature discussion is for legacy modes, right?

Now, theoretically, we can have "chords" with open bass notes... but that's not something Guitar Hero has done to their charts.

Chords with open bass notes would look a lot like drum charts: you have your bass drum note and your tom/cymbal note on top of it.
But I disagree with having that, mainly because legacy instruments do not have two strum bars... (unless if we talk about the Fender Precision Bass for RB3... now that's cool stuff... but I'm not going on that tangent.)
The chart would be giving away free points to the player; points that require absolutely no additional skill besides pressing a button (or more), and strumming.

It's up to the charter to decide how to chart open bass chords on legacy instruments. They could set the chord as a single open bass note, or fret a chord with the button frets. It's all up to their discretion.

[Inf4mousKid]

Oct 30, 2011 6:34:06 GMT vandorb12 said:

We're all on the same page that this feature discussion is for legacy modes, right?

Now, theoretically, we can have "chords" with open bass notes... but that's not something Guitar Hero has done to their charts.

Chords with open bass notes would look a lot like drum charts: you have your bass drum note and your tom/cymbal note on top of it.
But I disagree with having that, mainly because legacy instruments do not have two strum bars... (unless if we talk about the Fender Precision Bass for RB3... now that's cool stuff... but I'm not going on that tangent.)
The chart would be giving away free points to the player; points that require absolutely no additional skill besides pressing a button (or more), and strumming.

It's up to the charter to decide how to chart open bass chords on legacy instruments. They could set the chord as a single open bass note, or fret a chord with the button frets. It's all up to their discretion.

i can agree to that