Other Uses for Rock Band Instruments

Intro: Other Uses for Rock Band Instruments

So ever thought, man I want to be like these guys. I want to play my Rock Band drums like real drums. I want to sing to more of my favourite songs! Well, now you can. Today, you will find out about some freeware programs that you may not have known about. Just configure your Rock Band instruments for your PC and you're set.

*Please comment if you know of any programs that I may have missed.

STEP 1: Microphone

UltraStar is a clone of SingStar, a music video game. Ultrastar lets one or several players score points by singing along to a song or music video and match the pitch of the original song well. Ultrastar displays lyrics as well as the correct notes similar to a piano roll. On top of the correct notes Ultrastar displays the pitch recorded from the players. Ultrastar allows several people to play simultaneously by connecting several microphones possibly to several sound cards. To add a song to Ultrastar, a file with notes and lyrics is required, together with an audio file. Optionally a cover image, a backdrop image and a video may be added to each song. - Wikipedia

Download here.

STEP 2: Guitar

Guitar synthesizer!

Download [http://dodownload.filefront.com/12087935//55f559c3584a5236428fd640ba9a8394194766fd4a2c83da3704f751b1f04324d1f63691e94690fc here].

In this package, you get JoyToKey and Electronic Piano. Electronic Piano is just a keyboard sound maker. Instruments on your keyboard (like GarageBand's Keyboard synth). Now, what JoyToKey does is it takes joystick buttons (Rock Band guitar fret buttons) and turns them into keyboard shortcuts. For example, the green fret becomes the letter Q. When you go to Wordpad and hold the green fret, you see Qs. So open up Electronic Piano and JoyToKey simultaneously and you'll get a Rock Band guitar synth. I've included a file that's already configured the Rock Band guitar for JoyToKey, but if it doesn't work, you'll have to configure the buttons yourselves.

STEP 3: Drums

"Drum Machine 1.34" download

Drum Machine is a Windows freeware application developed by Andrew Rudson that lets users play a virtual drumset on their computer using a drum controller from the Rock Band video games.

The program allows the user to set a different sound for each virtual drum, and a collection of default samples are included. Users can add additional samples in .WAV format and can also record their drum performances.

As of version 1.33 Beta, the program supports controllers from the Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3 and Playstation 2 versions of Rock Band with dual drum set support. The in-game virtual drums can be heard by keyboard buttons representing different drum pads. This program is mostly incompatible with Windows Vista. - Wikipedia

Comments

[ressoneca]

Hello, I have a Rock Band 3 Keyboard for Wii. It uses a dongle on Wii to connect by wifi and use it on game. I have lost this dongle, does anyone have an idea on how to connect the keyboard to the Wii?

[NickE59]

for anyone looking to use rockband drums as a midi instrument use rb2midi, its free!

https://rb2midi.apponic.com/

[MariaS82]

Hi! I have the Rock Band drums for ps2, i connect them via USB to my laptot but it doesn't recognize them. Any help?

[ingostan]

Doesnt work for me windows 7 64 - It sees the kit but cant find any drivers :-(

[wulfzden]

I've actually used the rock band mic to get live music recordings when my digital recorder crapped out... Sound quality was suprizing considering i only paid $3 for it at a good will..

[Cr4zy_Dud3_0n_F1r3]

Awesome!!! I'm trying to build an electronic drum kit and this is exactly what I need for sounds!!!

[Kindhamster]

does anyone know if this works with the cymbal kit for RB 2?

[just13]

i'd like to try it but the link doesn't work

[tubajoey1]

I got this program about a week before seeing this, and it works fairly ok. 
My only complaint is that the time between hitting a head and hearing the sound is too large. Its just not instant. It makes playing along with a song, or even recording, entirely too difficult. 

[daniel05]

awsome

[nickelbackfan]

can u put ur own music on it

[bounty1012]

Joy2key doesnt work for me.

[Sam the Wizer]

Are you using Linux?

[bounty1012]

No, but I recently got my guitar to work with my computer so I dont need this anymore...

[2cool4u_0]

dose it work wit ps2 drums & how do you connect your ps2 drums to the computer plz answers

[SanjayMaru1994]

Umm....you plug it in via USB. And then.....you're......done.

[cacktuss]

i downloaded it and it doesn't work

[snarfnugget]

Worked great for me too!! This is awesome. I love that you can change the .wav sound for each drum pad. Thanx for the link.

[ranger_steve]

worked for me?!?!?!?

[rogueleadr]

chek ur direct x