It turns out our 3X Power-Up for Rock Band and then the special video 3X Power-Up with singing advice straight from Harmonix simply weren’t enough. The more we play Rock Band here in the office, the more we think, “Hey, people ought to know this and this and this.” So as you get ready to rock, we thought you’d find these tidbits worth knowing:

1. You can use the headset to sing.
We’ve recommended getting a microphone stand to sing and play guitar at the same time – but you can sing and play any instrument with your Xbox 360 voice chat headset, too. You will look more like Britney Spears than Blood, Sweat, and Tears, but it might be easier, especially if you’re using a wireless guitar with the wireless headset. (We plugged in a standard chat headset into a standard wireless 360 controller and had no trouble.)

2. You might not need the USB hub after all.
The Rock Band microphone needs a powered USB port, whether that’s straight from the console or via the included powered USB hub. That doesn’t mean you have to put all the instruments into the hub, though. If you’re using GH2 guitars, they don’t suck juice, so they’ll work on an unpowered hub, too. We’ve run the game with the microphone plugged straight into the console and with two GH2 X-plorers and the drum kit connected to an unpowered hub. And of course, if you’re using two GH3 guitars, you don’t need any hub at all, as they’re wireless, and they work fine with Rock Band. So if you’re not using most of the Rock Band hardware to play Rock Band…well, that’s potentially a few less cables in your setup.

3. All your guitars can have the same custom artwork.
If you spend time building a custom guitar graphic, you can use it on any of your guitars – just hit the yellow button and Apply Art to see your stored designs. You can change the color of the guitar underneath and still keep your “signature look” without having to rebuild the overlay for every guitar you buy.

Same graphic, two totally different guitars. Why waste time and effort?

4. You may have to play cowbell with your foot.  
When you get fancy and try to play an instrument and sing at the same time, there’s only one complication: the tambourine and cowbell. You’re supposed to shake the microphone in the air or tap it with your hands to trigger the singer’s little rhythm mini-game, but if you’ve got a hand full of plastic frets, what can you do? You have two options: you can either sing/blow into the microphone or you can tap the mic stand with your foot. Either will activate the mic enough to register. We don’t recommend hitting the mic with your forehead, but we tried that too, out of desperation.

5. For vocal Overdrive, just keep singing.
Vocalists should trigger Overdrive simply by extending the notes they are already singing, rather than trying to shout “Star power!” into the microphone. The transition into your next phrase will be much smoother simply by “over-singing.”

When you see the gold texture in the vocal path, just hold your last note.

6. You don’t have to play the unlockable tracks until the bitter end.
If you play multiplayer first, none of the unlockable tracks will open until you get to the Endless Setlist. If you play Solo, all the unlockable tracks are in the “bonus tour” segment, and playing them is optional. Many of them are really fun, but it’s arguably easier to make it through the game without them unlocked – you’ll be thrown less curveballs since you will already know the songs from the big-name artists.

7. The Endless Setlist can give you multiple Achievements.
If you finish the Endless Setlist on Medium, you get the Vinyl Artist Achievement for 10 Gamerscore. Do it on Hard and you're a Gold Artist for 20G. And if you can tackle it on Expert, you're a Platinum Artist and you'll get 25G. The best news: If you finish it on a higher difficulty, you also automatically get the lower Endless Setlist Achievements. When our band, Dogs of the A.M.S, finished the Endless Setlist on Expert, we got 55 points.