The difference between the original (Rock Band) and it's sequel (Rock Band 2)....
- Rock Band 2 improve on their original Fender Stratocaster guitar, including the new sunburst pattern, self-timing calibration, softer fret button, and an easier strum bar (not to mention that the XBox 360 version goes wireless). As an owner of the original Rock Band guitar, it's not easy playing on that piece of junk because of the chunky fret button and an ill-design strum bar so it's a sign that they learn there lesson to improve on the guitar.
- The drum kit also had a makeover, adding cymbal pads to replicate the yellow, blue and green pad on the original drum set. It's more softer to hit on the drum pad and velocity-sensitive (hard drum noise mean louder notes). The all important piece of the drum, the bass pedal, will be metal-enforced to reduce or completely eliminate the damage as found on the original drum set. The bass pedal on the original can easily break if it's step too hard.
- Players will be able to customize one character which can then be used on any of the instruments in the game, unlike in Rock Band where a character was fixed to one specific instrument.
- Both the Solo Tour and Band World Tour mode of Rock Band will be replaced by a "Tour Challenge", following a set of non-linear progression and challenges in a manner similar to Band World Tour mode, though allowing for both solo completion as well as with up to 3 others, online or offline.
- A new mode, "Battle of the Bands", will be composed of online tournaments created by Harmonix with daily unique challenges, with each band attempting to outscore other bands.
- Band World Tour mode will be playable with a single band, even if members of the band change during its progression. The World Tour in the original had to stick to the original members from beginning to end. Players will be able to create custom set lists to select from for Quick play modes.
- A "Drum Trainer" mode will allow players to acclimate and improve on the drums. The original only had practice mode on songs for drums.
- Players will also be able to free play drums over MP3 songs on their console.The phoneme detection system used for atonal vocal parts has been completely replaced with a new, more accurate engine, and songs imported from Rock Band and pre-existing download content will be converted to use the new phoneme system.
- Backward compatibility was one of the most requested features of the game, and thus existing and future download content will be entirely compatible with both Rock Band titles.
- Harmonix confirmed that Rock Band 2 will contain a Disc Export feature that will allow most of the original Rock Band tracks to be converted to work in Rock Band 2, storing the songs on the console's hard drive. Basically, you can rock out both games in one disc.