Guitar Hero 5 Bass Drum Glitch Causes Expert Players to Fail Songs

Expert drummers discover a flaw in GH5 songs with Expert+ drum charts that causes players to completely fail songs they would normally ace.  5Frets.com investigates the details and talks with Expert players offering workarounds.

Shortly after Guitar Hero 5 was released, expert drummers found themselves failing songs during passages with heavy bass pedal action for no good reason.  Even in DLC songs imported from Guitar Hero World Tour, players found themselves suddenly failing songs they were able to pass with no trouble in GHWT.

The Facts: something is broken in certain Guitar Hero 5 Expert Drum Charts, and the company fixed it in Band Hero

Here are the facts that nobody disputes:

• The glitch happens only in Guitar Hero 5
• The glitch happens only on songs that have the Expert+ drum skill level
• The glitch happens only when the player is playing the Expert skill of a song that also features Expert+
• The glitch happens to both GH5 on-disc songs (see link for list of the 9 Expert+ tracks), as well as DLC and disc imports like World Tour and Smash Hits (particularly the free Metal Track Pack DLC)
• The glitch affects all platforms: Xbox 360, PS2 & PS3, and Nintendo Wii,
• The company fixed this problem in Band Hero

UPDATE: January 16th, 2010: Official statement says the GH5 expert drum glitch will not be patched or corrected

See article: Guitar Hero 5 Expert Drum Glitch Will Never Be Fixed.

The Cause of the GH5 Expert Drum Glitch

There is debate among players over what causes the glitch.  Two theories are popular:

1. The glitch is caused because when playing Expert drum charts, the GH5 game engine is actually using the Expert+ drum chart, but the extra white bass kick notes are not shown to the player.
2. The glitch is caused by a strange and unusually short timing window on white bass kick notes of Expert charts.

Activision's Initial Response: Our Resident Expert Drummer Can Pass the Songs, So We See No Problem

A member of the official GuitarHero.com forums contacted Activision to complain about this fault of the game, and posted the response he received from Activision in a thread titled "Huge glitch involving Expert Drums":

Basically, I told them to get a tester to try and play through Children of Bodom on Expert drums using one pedal…. this way their response:

"We had our resident drum master give it a try and while it did take him about four tries he did manage to complete the song with one pedal. He only hit 92% of the notes but he did complete it.

We see no issue if it can be completed."

I really don't know what to say back to that.

Expert Drummers at ScoreHero also notice the Drum Glitch

A topic on popular expert-player hangout ScoreHero.com titled "GH5 Drum Engine Broken?" contained several Expert players voicing their frustrations:

InTheDesert Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:12 pm
Managed to fail All Nightmare Long 2x today after frequently getting 1mil+ on WT. Patch plz

ElementOfZero Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:45 am
these songs are embarrassingly broken [360, NTSC version by the way]

Demon(s) should be a fun/difficult FC but the double bass sections with notes taken out have all been failures. I may get 1 or 2 notes in that section, but then rest are all dropped after the first miss. There may be a way to hit them, but they are broken and need to be fixed. I haven't played too many songs that are E+ compatible, but I've noticed trouble in these two, 21st, and Deadbolt.

sumboxcar182 Sat Sep 19, 2009 11:59 pm

if anyone still doesn't believe there is something wrong, just try overkill. i failed at 2%, a song i almost 100% on wt

One of the most famous Guitar Hero & Rock Band drummers, AzuriteReaction, shared his experience with the GH5 Drum Glitch:

Azurite Sun Sep 27, 2009 9:04 pm

yep, confirmed it on my game too. did Spirit of Radio and the double bass portions i continually couldn't hit a single note on.

Did "Anything" and failed the intro repeatedly because I couldn't get a single bass pedal to connect, on WT i was hitting them and keeping 4x.

Tried the Chimara (sp?) song, couldn't hit any of the bass during the double bass portions, was able to combo them on WT.

Even on normal songs, I notice that the timing window is super weird, I can play a note REALLY late and hit it, but if i'm even more than a little early, miss.

The glitch makes some songs impossible to achieve 100%

From the same ScoreHero thread:

llamaman2 Sun Sep 27, 2009 6:35 pm

Another issue is (at least on the Wii) note counts for any song on expert that also has X+ are wrong. There are scores posted for 5*'s with 65% on DWEDFN and whenever I play a song with X+ I always get a very low percent even when I hit almost everything in the song.

Extremely active player "Daffy87" noticed the same thing, and captured photos of this bug:

daffy87 » Fri Dec 11, 2009 1:08 am
Song: Shout at the devil
Issue: I fc'd it but it shows only 86%
this song has the expert plus option but i played it on regular expert. here is proof of the bug.

so 86 is the new 100%?

have to show both pictures so you can see that all the sections at 100%.

now it shows 39 notes missed.
those are the kicks "left foot" that do not appear in regular expert but count against you…

fix it!!!

Players explain bass note timing workarounds and lag calibration solutions

Some expert players on the ScoreHero topic concluded that the timing window of the bass kicks is responsible, and suggested different ways of dealing with it:

CoalfieldRocker Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:03 pm

certain songs are known to be broken, however a lot of what ppl are complaining about is because GH5 was made to play better on HDTV's, the timing window was moved back considerably.

for example, on overkill on expert i can get over 600k on WT. i played on GH5 and failed the intro. however, if i hit the notes "late", as in after they get past the strike line, i combo everything just fine. it seems to be a major problem for those who play on tv's that dont need calibration (like me) but if you talk to someguy or some other ppl that play on HD for the most part, they'll tell you it looks like they're hitting stuff really late, but if you play it by ear (hit the drums as they sound) you'll do fine.

it just seems to be a big penalty for being even a little bit early, just move the timing window in your head back a little bit and give it a shot and see if it helps you any

Player "ccmoose" responded:

ccmoose Fri Nov 06, 2009 1:47 pm

First of all, before I whine like a little bitch, there isn't a single note in the game that is technically broken/un-hittable. Nevertheless, this asymmetric and varying time window on Expert+ charts is an unacceptable game flaw. If they [Guitar Hero quality control testers] had played Demons even once on Expert, they would have caught it.

Some notes you can hit from (times are approximate) 1/10th a second early to 1/10th a second late, and others you can ONLY hit from on time to 1/10th a second late. There are several patterns, e.g. Scatterbrain stuff, where notes are really tight and it's hard not to play a note a little bit early. I'm okay with the tighter timing window, but it needs to be uniform for every song and section.

Daffy87 offered some lag calibration workarounds:

try this "if you have the legs for it"
use 0:0 lag in expert on dez moines
then use 8:8
then use 13:10

you'll get HUGE differences in what you hit and what it gives you
thats why i think its just a chart/timing issue on the disc songs
there's alot to speculate
but i've tested this over and over
keep in mind if one person has lag set wrong, he's gonna miss more and blame the game

thats why i tested diff lag settings
and came up with diff scores/percentages every time on disc based songs
as far as grave of opp goes, didnt matter what i did: 86%
dez moines: 92% every time
etc etc
thing is, i can get on ex+ and play worse but score/percent higher

Do you have this issue?  What are your thoughts on it?

Let's hear from some of you Expert GH5 drum players.