Rock Band 3

Rock Band 3
Developers: Harmonix, Backbone Entertainment (Wii) Publishers: MTV Games, Mad Catz Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii Released in US: October 26, 2010 Released in EU: October 29, 2010 Released in AU: October 28, 2010 This game has unused graphics. This game has unused music. This game has unused text.

Cut Song List

The game released with 83 on-disc songs. However, several songs were cut before release. These names are taken from the file table list from the game's files.

Burning Down The House *
Black Magic Woman *
Can't Get Enough *
Cities In Dust *
Crying
Dammit - Real Guitar *
Don't Stop Believin' - Keys
Do You Feel Like We Do *
Feelin Alright
For What It's Worth *
Hold On Loosely *
Let There Be Rock +
Love Is a Battlefield *
My Own Summer *
Proud Mary +
Rock And Roll All Nite (Big Rock Ending) *
Shining Stars - Keys
Somebody To Love *
So Whatcha Want? +
Spinning Wheel *
The Final Countdown - Keys
The Thrill is Gone *
The Weight *
Through The Fire and Flames *

Songs with a * mean it was later released as DLC. Songs with a + mean it was available either as DLC before this game was released or on a previous game's setlist. All other songs have not been released. Additionally, all the songs that didn't make it into the final setlist still have all their album artwork in the game. The following songs were already released before, but had some planned on-disc update which was cut:

Dammit
Don't Stop Believin'
Shining Stars
The Final Countdown

"Dammit" eventually got its Pro Guitar/Bass upgrade.

Don't Stop Believin' was used as a test song for the Pro Keys instrument in development. The unused audio contains a mix that has the keys audio separate from the backing, and notably amplified, unlike the DLC version. However, the harmony vocals were not mixed into the vocal track, implying they were not charted, which would be unusual for a song authored for Rock Band 3.

A brief section of the Keys audio that would normally never be heard isolated in the DLC version.

Test Songs Info

Also among the songs list are testing songs used to test out features in the game. These songs also have hidden song info.

File: _budget_test
Name: HUD Budget Test
Artist: Huddy Hudbourne
Genre: Metal
Year Released: 1980
Album: Blizzard of Ozz

File: _invalid_version_test
Artist: T. Wrecks the Build
Genre: Classic Rock

File: runs_16s
Name: Runs 16ths Notes
Artist: HUD Zeppelin
Genre: Rock

File: sustains
Name: Sustains
Artist: HUD Zeppelin
Genre: Rock

File: _bre_test
Name: Crosstown Traffic BRE TEST
Artist: Jimi and the Hendrices

File: framerate
Name: Frame Rate Test
Artist: EricB
Year Released: 1968
Album Name: Frame Rate Test Album

File: vocaltrainertest
Name: Vocal Trainer Test)
Artist: Janis Joplin
Year Released: 1969
Album: Janis Joplin's Greatest Hits

Crosstown Traffic has a Big Rock Ending test here. However, the version of the song playable in the game does not have a Big Rock Ending on any instruments.
The test song "runs_16s" has its audio and midi in working condition. It is a mess of random notes on all instruments, "Crazy Train"'s lyrics, and higher quality audio for Roundabout on the Wii. It is in ui/framerate.

Beatmatch Test 2

Also unused in the songs folder is a test song simply called beatmatchtest2. Only the audio file exists. It appears to be a short, original instrumental song to test beat matching.

beatmatchtest2.bik

The mix appears to be: Stereo Drums, Mono Bass, Stereo Guitar, Stereo Vocals (silence), Stereo Backing. Unusual details about the audio include putting the count-in audio on the drums track instead of backing and leaving blank audio for parts that don't exist.

Strumtest Real Guitar

Like Beatmatch, this short song appears to have been made to test the Pro Guitar and Pro Bass modes. There is no associated midi with this test song either.

strumtest_real_guitar.bik

This mix is simply: Stereo Drums, Stereo Bass, Stereo Guitar. This test song also mixes the count-in onto the drum track.

Unused Sounds

The midiinstruments folder in the root of the game directory goes entirely unused. Inside midiinstruments/chamberlin is a single descriptions.txt file which describes the files relating to chamberlin.

The purpose of this file is simply to document the samples.

Neither the game nor milo care about this file. Consider this a "readme" file for the instrument.

ViolinsG1
0,31,33
9980, 37286

ViolinsC2
34, 36, 39
5245, 24793

ViolinsG2
40,43,45
9752, 27213

ViolinsC3
46,48,51
5479, 32878

ViolinsG3
52,55,57
34816, 78592

ViolinsC4
58,60,89
8064, 16304

ViolinsG6
90,91, 127
37641, 78336

These strange violin references refer to sounds in midiinstruments/chamberlin/gen/chamberlin.milo_wii. The samples appear to be a violin sound played at different pitches.

violinscx2_uc.wav_wii

violinscx3_uc.wav_wii

violinscx4_uc.wav_wii

violinsg1_uc.wav_wii

violinsg2_uc.wav_wii

violinsg3_uc.wav_wii

violinsg6_uc.wav_wii

Say it Ain't Clean/Dist

Though this sample exists in Rock Band 2, this is only referenced in sfx/gen/keys_fx.milo_wii as a .cue file. It has seemingly no relation to keys_fx, files which appear to control character animations.

RB3Temp

In the songs folder, there is a folder for rb3temp, a placeholder song folder with no music inside. The cover art for this "song" happens to be the cover for Foo Fighters' album "The Colour and The Shape".

Removed Accomplishments/Goals

The game tracks your goals or achievements. The Wii version had goals removed for various reasons. One such accomplishment is the hard drive filler.

The icon is still at its larger 128x128 size as opposed to the Wii's 64x64 size for accomplishments.

The accomplishment "Just Another Band Out of Boston" also has an alternate icon which isn't normally used.

The version that is used appears twice though, due to a typo.

Don't Mess Around

Since the song "Black Magic Woman" was going to be an on-disc song, there is still description data for the Pro Drum achievement associated with it. Called "Don't Mess Around", if the player got 4 stars or more on the song, the achievement would be unlocked. Since the song was released as DLC later on, this achievement can't be unlocked.

Feelin' Alright

The song "Feelin' Alright", by Traffic, was also a scrapped on-disc song. It has a Keys achievement associated with it. If the player hit 90% of the notes on Keys, the achievement would be unlocked. It is simply called "Feelin' Alright".

O.M.G Full Combo!

This achievement also exists in name only. It would have been awarded if the player hit 100% of the notes in a song on Expert without breaking streak. There is no graphic or unlock condition associated with this achievement and it can never be obtained.

Guitar Goals

Guitar Solos
There exist several achievements relating to percentage of notes hit and difficulties for Guitar Solos. None of these can be unlocked in the game.

Hammer-Ons/Pull-Offs Goals
Hammer it Home is one of the many hopo-related removed goals. For this achievement, the player is to hit all the hammer-ons/pull-offs without strumming on an unknown list of songs.
Like the guitar solos, there also exist various similar goals for HOPOs on all difficulties and various percentages which cannot be obtained.

Another achievement, named Hammer Time, could have been unlocked by simply hitting one HOPO without strumming.

Open Strummer
Possibly relating to Pro Guitar, the achievement Open Strummer was also removed. The player had to hit all the open strums in a song to unlock it.

Form Follows Function
This achievement would have been unlocked by going into overdrive and not missing a single note while on Guitar.

Misnamed Accomplishments

On the Wii version, the following graphic files exist.

acc_prokeys_rb3_shiftmaster_keep.png_wii
acc_prokeys_rb3_shiftmaster-copy_keep.png_wii

The first file is the lever icon and is actually used for the shiftmaster accomplishment. The -copy file was likely left over and contains the following graphic:

This icon seems to be from an old series of accomplishments not present in the game anymore. The style of icon is similar to the "number of stars" accomplishments which are unlocked normally in the game. This icon suggests it would be awarded by percentage of notes hit on a song.

Streak is also awarded for Keys. The following files exist for 100, 350, and 500 streak respectively.

acc_keystreak_keep.png_wii
acc_keystreakmedium_keep.png_wii
acc_keystreaklong_keep.png_wii

These are the normal accomplishments which carry over to Pro Keys. There is also an unused file called acc_keystreammedium_keep.png_wii which is likely a typo but also suggests a different structure to the streak accomplishments since it uses the 100-streak icon instead of 350 as the properly-named file reads.

The graphic for the Band Elitist DLC accomplishment appears twice due to a spelling error. It appears once as acc_band_dlc_elitist_keep.png_wii and again as acc_band_dlc_etilist_keep.png_wii.
The same happens for acc_dlc_appelemoimoncheri_keep.png_wii which also appears as acc_dlc_applemoimoncheri_keep.png_wii.
Also for acc_dlc_robbinbankswithasixgun_keep.png_wii which also appears as acc_dlc_robbinbankswithaxisgun_keep.png_wii.

Wii Speak Support

On the disc, ui\global\gen contains files relating to Wii Speak support. However, when the game released, support for the hardware had disappeared and the feature was cut.

Dummy File

In the wiikeyboard folder, a file called zzzzzzz.zzz can be found. It contains the following message.

This is a dummy file to work around a bug in the disk emulator software
in which it sometimes doesn't output the last 32K of the disk partition
data.  This file needs to be exactly 32K in size
This file should be removed once the bug is fixed.

Placeholder Awards

The text for 3 test awards can still be found in ui/locale/eng/gen/locale_keep.dtb. These humorous awards only exist in this file and can't really be unlocked.

(award_test1 "Placeholder Award 1")
(award_test1_desc "You earned some instruments, I guess?")
(award_test2 "Placeholder Award #2")
(award_test2_desc "You won a pony! A PONY I SAY!")
(award_test3 "Placeholder Award 3")
(award_test3_desc "You won a date with Dan Teasdale!")

Excluded Post-Process Effects

Inside the dotdot/dotdot/system/run/band/gen/band_objects.dtb file, excluded Post-processing effects are defined.

#define EXCLUDED_SONG_POSTPROCS ((all_deploy.pp
		failed.pp
		failing.pp
		intro_contrast_flame.pp
		intro_contrast_grey.pp
		intro_contrast_ice.pp
		intro_posterize_a.pp
		intro_test.pp
		override_blender.pp
		placeholder.pp
		savior.pp
		world.pp))

They're set to not be used in milo or midi venues in songs. If the list is bypassed, some effects still function. The intro effects could have possibly been intended to be used, since most of them function. Some of the other effects might only be used in certain cases like when failing or rescuing a player.

• 

  intro_contrast_flame.pp, a high-contrast effect that clips to black and light teal.

• 

  intro_contrast_ice.pp, a high-contrast effect that clips to black and light orange.

• 

  intro_posterize_a.pp, a posterized effect that clips to black and gray.

The effect placeholder.pp also appears to function as a subtle flicker, similar to a pre-existing and allowed effect.

Unused Song

Download Worstcase .mid file File: Worstcase.mid (280 KB) (info)

There is an unused song on the Xbox 360 version on a folder called "framerate" and all files are called "worstcase." The song is "The Who - Behind Blue Eyes." The song has multitracks on all parts, but the .mid file is just a mess of random notes on every instrument except for vocals, which is ripped entirely from Run to the Hills. The song was originally released as DLC for the first Rock Band a few years prior to Rock Band 3's release. The files also exist on the disc for the original Rock Band, along with a cover of the song by WaveGroup, the company responsible for the covers of songs on the early Guitar Hero games. This suggests it was also going to be a cover originally, rather than the master that was later used.