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Drums-GHWT Drums-GHM
The drums highway as depicted in Guitar Hero World Tour.
The drums highway in Guitar Hero: Metallica and later games. A bass note was just played, so the Fret Bar appears raised.

GH Drums iconDrums is one of four main instruments available to play in the Guitar Hero series. It, along with the Vocals, debuted in Guitar Hero World Tour. To play Drums, the player must have a drum controller. These can be either a Guitar Hero drum controller (World Tour, Guitar Hero 5, or Logitech), or a Rock Band drum controller.

Description[]

Drums bear similarities to Guitar and Bass with some major differences. The highway consists of five lanes when playing on a Guitar Hero drumkit or when playing on a Rock Band drumkit, and the notes must be matched with the corresponding target. On Guitar and Bass, the default color scheme for is GRYBO. The color scheme for Drums' lanes in 5-lanes is RYBOG while 4-lane version for Rock Band drums is RYBG.

In Band Hero for Nintendo DS, the layout for Drums is the same as Guitar and Bass (GRYB with G being bass drum), and in the Guitar Hero Mobile series (specifically Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile, Guitar Hero 5 Mobile, Guitar Hero 5 Mobile: More Music, and Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile: Backstage Pass), the layout for Drums is GRY lanes along with purple lines for bass drums.

Mechanics[]

Star Power[]

Star Power is gained the same as the guitars, by hitting all the star power notes in a star power sequence. To activate star power on a Guitar Hero drum kit, both the yellow and orange cymbals have to be hit at the same time. For Rock Band drums, both the yellow and blue pads have to be hit at the same time.

Freeform[]

The same in vocals, freeforms are present on Drums. These appear the same; as wavy sections of the song. While in a freeform section, any drum pads can be played for additional points. Depending on the multiplier, that's how many points will be scored in a single hit. Such as a 4x multiplier would score 4 points. In Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, freeforms no longer grant extra points but can raise the Rock Meter. If Star Power is used while in a freeform, the Rock Meter will ascend faster.

In Band Hero on Nintendo DS, Drums have a variation of freeforms called drum fills, which often appear during drum rolls instead of empty spaces.

Drums rolls[]

Drum rolls are a series of repeated notes played on a drum. The speed at which these are hit depends on the quantity of notes in the roll. Slower paced rolls can be hit with one hand. Faster rolls should be hit with both hands. Rolls can also occur on more than one drum.

Notes[]

Main article: Note types

Each drum pad represents one percussion piece. While each drum pad's functionality change depending on the song, the pads generally represent the following on the five-lane Drums gameplay:

In 4-lane Drums gameplay with a Rock Band drum kit, some changes would be made to convert 5-lane inputs to 4-lanes.

Bass drum notes[]

In addition to the five above note types, one more note is introduced with Drums. This is the bass drum note. Bass drum notes appear the same as open notes on Bass in Guitar Hero World Tour-styled games (World Tour, Metallica, Smash Hits, and Van Halen) as purple bars. In Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, bass drum notes are gray bars.

To play a bass drum note, a kick pedal must be pressed when the note crosses the strike line. As with real drums other notes can be hit with the kick pedal. This is similar to playing a chord on guitar. Both the bass drum note, and drum note have to be played, although one can be hit without the other.

Accent notes[]

Drums-GHWT-accentnote

Two RB accent notes.

Another type of new note is the accent note,[n 1] also known as the velocity note.[n 2] These appear as silver crowned notes. In order to hit them, the corresponding pad must be hit harder than normal; not necessarily as hard as physically possible, just harder than normal. Hitting them harder than normal adds 50% more points to the base note's score.

Drum swells[]

There are also sustains that are called swells. These are similar to long notes on Guitar and Bass but are played differently. To hit and maintain swell note(s), the corresponding drum pad must be hit repeatedly. In Guitar Hero World Tour, if the drum swell is hit and then dropped the player will not lose their multiplier but they cannot continue to play that swell. In Guitar Hero 5 and later games if a swell is dropped it can be played again by re-hitting the corresponding drum(s). In Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, swells for kick drums were added. Hitting the kick drum swell is just like the normal swells; keep the swell going by repeatedly hitting the corresponding drum.

Ghost notes[]

Drums-GHWOR-ghostnote

A ghost red note, a regular red note, another a ghost red note, and a yellow accent note.

Ghost notes are a type of note which appear on Expert+ difficulty in Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. Ghost notes are notes which are too soft to be heard in a song. Ghost notes are transparent in color much like a slider note.

Scoring System[]

Note Type Base Points
Basic Note 50 points
Kick Note 75 points
Accent 25 points

Expert+[]

Drums-GHM-doublebass

An example of a double bass section.

Introduced in Guitar Hero: Metallica, Drums have an additional difficulty level: Expert+. Expert+ (also written as "Expert +") has the same standard notes as regular Expert but includes double bass. Songs with Expert+ will have an icon of some sort with crossing drum sticks in the World Tour-styled games. The icon for Expert+ Drums in Guitar Hero 5 and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock resemble more like {{#if:.

Game Expert+ Icon
Guitar Hero: Metallica Skull with two crossed drumsticks.
Guitar Hero: Smash Hits Skull with two crossbones.
Guitar Hero 5 Two black diamonds with gold inlay.
Band Hero Two gold diamonds.
Guitar Hero: Van Halen Guitar pick with two drumsticks.
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock Two copper or gold diamonds.

In Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, ghost notes are featured in Expert+ difficulty as well.

References[]

Footnotes[]

  1. Accent note in Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock's game manual.
  2. Velocity note in Guitar Hero 5's and Band Hero's game manual.
v · t · eGameplay features of the Guitar Hero series
Difficulty levels
Beginner/Basic · Easy/Casual · Medium/Regular · Hard/Advanced · Expert · Expert+
In-game features
Achievements/Trophies/Awards · Calibration · Cheat Codes · Lefty Flip · Multiplier · Notes · Rock Meter · Scoring · Star Power (meter · phrases · paths explained) · Star Rating · Whammy
Instruments
GH Guitar iconGuitar · GH Bass iconBass · GH Lead alt iconLead · GH Rhythm alt iconRhythm · GH Drums iconDrums · GH Vocals iconVocals
Cheats
Hyperspeed · Large Gems · No Fail · Performance Mode · Precision Mode
Note types
Guitar/Bass Chords · Hammer-ons and Pull-offs · Long notes / Sustains (extended sustains · reverse extended sustains) · Open notes · Slider notes / Tap notes
Drums Accent notes · Bass drum notes · Drum swells · Ghost notes
Vocals Vocal notes · Spoken notes · Freeforms
Game Modes
General Career (Quest) · GHTV (songs) · Mii Freestyle · Quickplay(+) (Gig Challenges · Star Challenges) · Party Play · Practice · Rock Star Creator / Rocker Creator · Tutorial
Multiplayer Band · Battle · Cooperative · Face-Off · Pro Face-Off · Roadie Play (Roadie Battle · Roadie Quickplay+ · Roadie Setlist Manager) · RockFest (Do-or-Die · Elimination · Momentum · Momentum+ · Perfectionist · Streakers)
Music Studio / GHStudio GHTunes / GHTracks · Recording Studio / GHJam · GHMix / GHMix 2.0
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