[FujiSkunk]

Welcome to FujiSkunk’s Works in Progress!

 

Below is the list of customs I plan to do or am in the middle of doing. They’re even color-coded for your convenience! Here’s the color legend:

• Black – Little if any work done. If you want to chart one of these songs, go for it! Just let me know so I can pull the song from this list.
• Red – Tempo mapped, charts in progress.
• Amber – At least one instrument chart fully completed.
• Green – Almost done!

Some of these WiPs have playable sneak-peeks. Don’t expect perfection or even a complete package, but feel free to have a go and let me know what you think of the work so far. Thanks, and stay tuned!

 

Allman Brothers Band 3-Pack

• “Crazy Love” from Enlightened Rogues
• “One Way Out” from Eat A Peach
• “Revival” from Idlewild South

Audio Adrenaline 3-Pack

• “Big House” from Don’t Censor Me
• “Get Down” from Underdog
• “Hands and Feet” from Underdog

Dire Straits 3-Pack

• “Industrial Disease” from Love over Gold
• “The Man’s Too Strong” from Brothers in Arms
• “One World” from Brothers in Arms

Eagles The Long Run Pack

• “I Can’t Tell You Why”
• “In the City”
• “The Sad Cafe”

Billy Joel 3-Pack

• “And So It Goes” from Storm Front
• “Just the Way You Are” from The Stranger
• “She’s Got a Way (live)” from Songs in the Attic

Elton John 3-Pack

• “Candle in the Wind” from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
• “Daniel” from Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player
• “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” from Honky Château

Newsboys Go Pack

• “Wherever We Go”
• “Something Beautiful”
• “I Am Free”

The Alan Parsons Project 3-Pack

• “Damned If I Do” from Eve
• “Don’t Answer Me” from Vulture Culture
• “Time” from The Turn of a Friendly Card

James Taylor 6-Pack

• “Carolina on My Mind” from his self-titled debut (or maybe the 1976 rerecord from Greatest Hits)
• “Country Road” from Sweet Baby James
• “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight” from One Man Dog
• “Fire and Rain” from Sweet Baby james
• “Something in the Way She Moves” from his self-titled debut (or maybe the 1976 rerecord from Greatest Hits)
• “You’ve Got a Friend” from Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon

Traffic 3-Pack

• “Dear Mr. Fantasy” from Mr. Fantasy
• “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” from The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
• “Smiling Phases” from Mr. Fantasy

Singles

• “Against the Wind” by Bob Seger, from Against the Wind
• “All by Myself” by Eric Carmen, from his self-titled debut
• “Always on My Mind” by Willie Nelson, from Always on My Mind
• “Amie” by Pure Prairie League, from Bustin’ Out
• “Angel of Harlem” by U2, from Rattle and Hum
• “At Seventeen” by Janis Ian, from Between the Lines
• “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” (original version) by T. Rex, from Electric Warrior
• “The Best of Times” by Styx, from Paradise Theatre
• “Brick House” by the Commodores, from their self-titled album
• “But It’s Alright” by J.J. Jackson, from But It’s Alright
• “Call Me the Breeze” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, from Second Helping
• “(They Long to Be) Close to You” by the Carpenters, from Close to You
• “Cold Shot” by Stevie Ray Vaughan, from Couldn’t Stand the Weather
• “Cry Out to Jesus” by Third Day, from Wherever You Are
• “Demon’s Eye” by Deep Purple, from Fireball
• “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” by Whitney Houston, from Whitney
• “Dive” by Steven Curtis Chapman, from Speechless
• “Don’t Know Much” by Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville, from Cry like a Rainstorm, Howl like the Wind
• “Everything Glorious” by David Crowder*Band, from Remedy
• “Flood” by Jars of Clay, from their self-titled debut
• “From a Distance” by Bette Midler, form Some People’s Lives
• “Gloria” by Them
• “The Hardway” by dC Talk, from Free at Last
• “He Reigns” by the Newsboys, from Adoration: The Worship Album
• “Hold Me Now” by the Thompson Twins, from Into the Gap
• “I Can Only Imagine” by MercyMe, from Almost There
• “I Second That Emotion” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
• “I Will Follow” by Chris Tomlin, from And If Our God Is for Us…
• “I’m for You” by TobyMac, from (portable sounds)
• “I’m Not in Love” by 10cc, from The Original Soundtrack
• “Indescribable” by Chris Tomlin, from Arriving
• “It’s Too Late” by Carole King, from Tapestry
• “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley, from Jailhouse Rock
• “Jesus Is Just Alright” by the Doobie Brothers, from Toulouse Street
• “Jim Dandy” by Black Oak Arkansas, from High on the Hog
• “Just like Paradise” by David Lee Roth, from Skyscraper
• “Keep Talking” by Pink Floyd, from The Division Bell
• “Lady Madonna” by The Beatles
• “Lay Down Sally” by Eric Clapton, from Slowhand
• “Lay Down, Stay Down” by Deep Purple, from Burn
• “Leader of the Band” by Dan Fogelberg, from Phoenix
• “Leather and Lace” by Stevie Nicks and Don Henley, from Bella Donna
• “Leaving on a Jet Plane” by Peter, Paul and Mary, from Album 1700
• “Lifesong” by Casting Crowns, from Lifesong
• “Love the World Away” by Kenny Rogers, from Urban Cowboy
• “Made to Love” by TobyMac, from (portable sounds)
• “Mandolin Rain” by Bruce Hornsby and the Range, from The Way It Is
• “Mandy” by Barry Manilow, from Barry Manilow II
• “Magic Bus” (original verson) by the Who
• “Mississippi Queen” (original version) by Mountain, from Climbing!
• “My Heart Goes Out” by Warren Barfield, from his self-titled debut
• “No One like You” (original version) by the Scorpions, from Blackout
• “Perfect Day” by Josh Bates, from Perfect Day
• “Pipeline” by the Chantays
• “Please Come Home for Christmas” by the Eagles
• “Point of Know Return” (original version) by Kansas, from Point of Know Return
• “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” by the Four Tops, by Reach Out
• “Refugee” (original version) by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, from Damn the Torpedoes
• “Sara” by Fleetwood Mac, from Tusk
• “Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac
• “So into You” by Atlanta Rhythm Section, from A Rock and Roll Alternative
• “Something to Talk About” by Bonnie Raitt, from Luck of the Draw
• “Spirits in the Material World” by the Police, from Ghost in the Machine
• “Suite Madame Blue” by Styx, from Equinox
• “Take You Back” by Jeremy Camp, from Restored
• “There You Go” by Caedmon’s Call, from 40 Acres
• “Train Leaves Here This Morning” by the Eagles, from their self-titled debut
• “Try and Love Again” by the Eagles, from Hotel California
• “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker, from I Can Stand a Little Rain

(For historical purposes: The original original post of this thread was a request for opinions on what to author next. Since then this has become my WiP thread, with the first post spotlighting whatever project I have active at the time.)

[Farottone]

Atlanta Rhythm Section

 

If you ever do Alien I’m instadoing tempomapping, vocals and drums, reductions.

[samjjones]

So by this weekend (July 18th or so) I hope to have one, possibly two new full-band customs to show off. Everything’s pretty much done but I still need to polish the audio so that each song has a hard ending, or at least something closer to one.

 

Meantime, I’m looking for feedback on what to set my sites on next. Without spoiling the surprise too much, there are an ’80s Heart song, an ’80s Billy Joel song, a late ’70s Billy Joel song, a late ’70s Eagles song, and possibly an Atlanta Rhythm Section song on my list. I’ve already picked out the particular songs, so I’m good there.

 

Thoughts?

 

Your queue sounds great.

[Spindoctor]

Some more full band Eagles or Heart would be fantastic & yes Atlanta Rhythm Section as well.

For the Eagles song be sure to check Oscarj08’s pro drum thread to see if he did drums for the eagles tunes. He does some good mapping/charting

[Hetz]

I enjoy all those bands….so any of them would be awesome, though I would really love the 80’s Billy Joel or late 70’s Eagles. ” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_smile.gif” />

[Dahnlee]

As everyone else has indicated, this is a great list and I’m gonna want whatever you end up doing.

 

As far as ranking a preference, it is hard for me to do so without figuring in a couple of song possibilities:

 

1. Heart – Who Will You Run To

2. Eagles – Heartache Tonight

3. Heart – Any other 80s song

4. Billy Joel – Matter of Trust or Tell Her About It

5. Eagles – Any other late 70s song

6. ARS – So Into You

7. Billy Joel – 80s song

8. Billy Joel – 70s song

9. ARS – Any other song

 

Doc already pointed out Oscarj08’s excellent Eagles charts (not to mention Doc’s RB3 conversions), but CrazyCanuck has also made a great drums-only custom of Heartache Tonight. ” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_wink.gif” />

[samjjones]

I’ll guess that the late 70’s Eagles song is “I Can’t Tell You Why”, although I’d be thrilled if it was actually “Heartache Tonight”.

 

My guess for late 70’s Billy Joel will be something off of “52nd Street”…I’ll guess “Honesty”.

 

My guess for 80’s Billy Joel…”Allentown”.

 

My guess for 80’s Heart…”What Above Love”.

 

Unlike The Dude…I loved the Eagles and listened to their albums constantly when I was in high school. I’d be happy with anything from them.

[FujiSkunk]

I’m sensing a consensus, or at least a majority opinion. And now those other customs are out to door, so it’s time to get started on the next. This time around I’ll post some WIPs as I have them. Stay tuned!

[FujiSkunk]

SamJJones, are you a wizard? You guessed three songs correctly!

 

So there’s only one thing to do when someone thoroughly spoils the surprise: chart all the songs! And then some! I’m waiting on a reply about one song, but in the meantime here is a sneak peek at seven others. Hopefully this will be a treat for drummers and keyboard players, while I work to make them all full-band, complete with vocals and harmonies.

 

(All download links are now in the OP.)

---

First up is Heart’s “What about Love”, from their self-titled 1985 comeback album. Drums only at the moment, keys and other parts to come. This song is this close to needing a 2x-bass alternate, but I think the tempo is just slow enough to get away with all those beats in the outro. It certainly wears my leg out, but I am able to play it all the way through. Let me know if anyone things there is too much bass. This could very easily turn into the easiest 2x-bass song in the game!

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Next is Billy Joel’s “Honesty”, the last of the three big hits off of 52nd Street to get the RB3 treatment. Pro keys and drums here; no regular keys yet, just a few scattered notes to keep Magma from complaining.

 

I think pro-keys players will like this very faithful chart. Only the final chord actually had to be fudged, though I also shifted one note and dropped another to avoid a two-measure range shift. Even the animations are pretty authentic. Some left-hand notes had to be shifted, but otherwise what you see is what’s actually being played.

 

I’m tempted to bump the pro-keys difficulty up to five dots. The rhythm isn’t hard, but some of the chords sure are. But, four dots is probably sufficient, unless enough people tell me otherwise.

---

Time for the Eagles! This isn’t the late-’70s Eagles song on my agenda, but one from their self-titled first album. I noticed another author had also worked on this song, but I couldn’t find a link to download his track, so I went ahead and worked on mine. I’ll willingly pull this one if there are any objections.

 

Working on this song in particular made me realize how you have to find a balance between realism and “fun” when creating a video game. I’m pretty certain the toms are not consistently colored across the whole song. I was doing what Harmonix recommends, generally making sure to change colors when going between cymbals and toms, so that even non-pro drummers can tell when something different is played. As a result, I think I created what is my favorite drum track so far. Consistent or not, this thing is a blast to play! Hopefully the other instruments will be just as fun when I finish them. I know the vocals certainly will be.

---

Back to New York, with a stop in Pennsylvania along the way. Here’s “Allentown” by Billy Joel.

 

The reference MIDI for this one was originally a collaboration between myself and Dale Aston, who MIDI enthusiasts might know as “OnNTwo”. Dale did some excellent MIDI tunes back in the day, and I enjoyed working on this one with him. Actually the MIDI for “Witchy Woman” was also a collaboration between us, but we never did quite finish that one, and it was around that time that other hobbies pulled me away from sequencing. Thanks to RB3 and customs, I’m back in again!

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Here’s one I hope to have finished before Halloween: “Spooky” by the Atlanta Rhythm Section. This is a cover of the Classics IV song, which is no surprise given several ARS members were originally in the Classics IV!

 

I had a very good MIDI to work with when putting together the drum and keys tracks, but even then I’m not entirely sure they’re accurate. In the original song, particularly during the guitar and keys solos at the end, there is a lot of subtle play in the cymbals. A standard MIDI file can’t really capture those little nuances that effectively, but the authors definitely tried, which then made it difficult to determine exactly which cymbal is being played at a given time, and whether it’s worth trying to capture that in the game chart. I decided to mix it up at least a little bit, and I think it turned out all right. Opinions and critiques welcome, of course.

 

The keys were another mystery. There is a lot of jazz color in the original chords, and the MIDI chart had that as well. Whether they got all those jazz bits right is anybody’s guess, but I think the resulting game chart does well enough. The solo is another matter. There were definitely some notes missing in the MIDI that I could clearly hear in the original, but putting those notes back in made the solo a lot harder to play! I don’t think it’s impossible to play, but it’s certainly above my current skill level. I’d like to hear from other keys players on whether they think the solo is at least realistic for someone who plays for a living.

 

Oh, and when is a triplet not a triplet? I swear those are supposed to be quarter-note triplets at the very beginning, the very end, and in all those fills through-out, but when I actually charted them that way, they ended up very off. This just goes to show that rock and roll is indeed “sloppy” and sometimes you just have to accept, and chart, a little sloppiness, even in a game like Rock Band that demands precision.

 

Finally, I have to say, ARS is woefully neglected, even within the classic rock community. They’ve got a lot of great songs, but you just don’t hear about them anymore. This neglect is apparent even on the Internet. I actually had to put some effort into finding a decent shot of the album cover for Underdog, and even when I found one I had to do some GIMPing to make it more presentable.

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Trivia question! What is Styx’s most successful song, globally? “Come Sail Away”? “Babe”? “Mr. Roboto”? Nope, it’s “Boat on the River”. The song didn’t even chart in the U.S., Styx’s homeland, but elsewhere the song reached the top five, even #1 in some countries, as it became the band’s highest-selling single. More recently I heard someone suggest this song might not be the best fit for Rock Band 3. My response? “Challenge accepted!”

 

Of course I give permission to anyone who wants to convert “Boat on the River” for play in Phase Shift, Frets on Fire or this game.

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And finally, a tune from another neglected Southern rock band, “Heard It in a Love Song” by the Marshall Tucker Band. So far it’s only drums, and… yeah. As much as I love the song, admittedly this is one of those where the drummer takes one for the team. But even if the chart itself isn’t all that exciting, the song is still fun to play along with, I think. I decided not to chart the constant opening and closing of the hi-hat, given the song is already enough of a workout thanks to its fast tempo, but if anyone thinks I should, speak up!

 

With this tune I finally got to use “[prc_flute_solo]” to describe a practice section!

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Like I said, these will eventually be full-band tracks. I’ll work on them when I can, but if anyone is interested in collaborating, drop me a line and I’ll be happy to send some files along. In the meantime, hope you enjoy!

[Dahnlee]

All great choices!!!

 

I’m particularly excited about “Heard It in a Love Song” – one of my favorite songs from childhood and a real treat to see it show up here

[samjjones]

Part-time wizard!

 

All of these sound great. “Allentown” is one of those songs that I’ve been patiently waiting for since the first Billy Joel pack got announced by HMX. It’s probably my favorite Billy Joel song ever (and I’m a fairly big Billy Joel fan).

 

Marshall Tucker Band…can it really be?

 

The others all sound fantastic, too. Best of luck on these!

[samjjones]

Also, I agree completely about Atlanta Rhythm Section. I’m a 40 year old dude from New Jersey…which means that ARS wasn’t played a whole lot on the radio by me when I was a kid.

 

HOWEVER…I distinctly remember hearing “So Into You” on AM radio when I was probably 3 or 4 years old…and the groove in that song made a very lasting impression. I’m really curious to see how another of their songs would play in RB.

 

Man…”Easy Listening” was all my parents ever listened to, and I probably have more of an appreciation for that style of music than I rightfully should! ” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_smile.gif” />

[Hetz]

Wow, love all these! Cant wait for Allentown, Witchy Women and Honesty to be full band! ” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_smile.gif” />

[mneilan]

can’t wait for heart what about love to be full band

[oscarj08]

nice choices ” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_smile.gif” />

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