Guitar Hero Controller Instructions

Basic Controls

• Each fret button corresponds to playing the notes of the same color in game. The buttons can be held down well before the note without any loss of points. The strum bar must be pressed up or down in sync with the note to activate them. Long notes must have the button held for the duration of the note or they will cut off. When notes appear with white circles, they can be played without strumming by pressing the correct fret button in sync with the note. This can only be done if you successfully played the previous note.

  The "lower" fret buttons (lower refers to pitch, these buttons are the closest to the headstock of the controller) can be held down while higher frets are being played, which can be very useful for some songs. This only applies to single note parts, holding any button not in a chord will always count as incorrect, even if it is lower than all the frets actually used by the chord.

Advanced Controls

• The whammy bar can alter the tone of the instrument during long notes. It does not alter the score of those notes. If the long note is part of a star power group, using the whammy bar will give extra star power while it is being used. When the star power gauge is full, tilting the guitar or pressing the Back button will activate star power.

  The slider bar is only used in some of the games of the series. During the parts with the semi-transparent notes that are connected by a line, these parts can be played by sliding up and down the slider bar as the section shows. These parts can also be played with the normal fret buttons. Not all of the guitar controllers have this feature on it.

Extra Controls

• Just like most games, the controller also features the normal variety of functional controls. The Start button is used to pause the game. A Console button may be present, depending on which game system is being used. This button is used to bring up the console menu, just as it would on a regular controller. These controls are quite hard to hit in the middle of a song. Very few songs can be successfully paused and restarted without missing a few notes. In addition to the abrupt restart, exiting the pause menu also requires hitting the green fret button. Pausing during extended sections without notes is usually the only way to pause a song without affecting the final score.