ryanpanties:
As far as keyboard (the instrument) support goes, should you (or anyone) choose to implement it...
Advantages Of Ten Notes:
If you want to in some way equate what we do on guitar parts, why not think about running with ten buttons... the same five we're used to, but a set under each hand, since you don't strum a piano. This might enable you to fit it reasonably easily into the space occupied by any two previously-supported instruments, effectively accommodating keyboard while still allowing you to run three players (keys+guitar<or>drums<or>bass+vocals). You're basically just running the two five-key parts that you've always been running through the program in that space, but designating them as one player for scoring and streak purposes. Even star power could stay independent by hand (effecting the over-all score, but only requiring you to hit the streak on one hand), rather than combining across. Ten keys also avoids the need for hunting down off-shade colors, as you can clearly tell the difference between right-hand-green and left-hand-green.
In Regards To Charting:
This would leave charters fairly close to the format they are already used to (and within the program they are used to charting in), making one hand first, then the other. I suppose the midi parts would read from parts "keys-left" and "keys-right", or some such designation.
In Regards To Difficulty:
Perhaps the lowest difficulty could be designed to run five-note-only and allow for 4-players, but i know nothing about the coding for any of this, so i'm just talking. Though the two-handedness would be hard at first, you would no longer have any finger-shifts to worry about, playing with five fingers on five buttons, so that might help maintain some level of possibility as people start trying to play a new instrument(controller), and the easiest difficulty could remain a one-handed introduction to playing with five-fingers on five-buttons. Alternately, you could leave it occupying two slots on all difficulties, but I would think charting standards would still come to rest something like this.
1 -Supaeasy- one hand playing, 5 buttons active
2 -Easy- two hands playing ten active buttons, but alternating hands only, never overlapping
3 -Med- two hands playing ten active buttons, at points simultaneously, but with chords kept simple (think fof-guitar-easy level charting but on 10 buttons)
4 -Amaz- anything goes, do what the song does within reason
Relative Pitch:
I know that 10 buttons does not make any musical sense, but neither does 5, and we're all used to thinking in relative pitches anyway. It would be a shame to leave relative pitch behind this early in the game and implement a mod (or program) that acts like it's trying to teach piano instead of expand the GH/FoF/RB experience. This format would allow you to hold relative pitch chords with one hand while doing relative pitch fills with the other, and i think that would replicate the piano/keyboard experience about as well as we could hope for while maintaining gameplay that doesn't feel completely foreign.
Controllers:
Playing on a computer keyboard gives you plenty of button options, but it's worth noting that your standard 'homekey" hand placement would accommodate perfectly with "v" and "n" as thumb keys. Beyond that, keeping this in 5-button increments might allow for increased freedom in a controller-mod direction, should anyone prefer to use guitar controllers (which are getting cheap!) as a two-plug basis for a DIY-keyboard controller.
Just my two cents.
Edit:
Charted Example:
I found a chart I did that demonstrates the concept. Doing intro tracks for the sake of the Coheed Discog thread at the time, i charted to expert and hard in the guitar tracks, but it would make a good 1-player keyboard part if you put the notes in an appropriate place in a midi. Run this song in two player FoF (P1 on hard, P2 on expert), ignore the fact that the first note or two are in duplicate, and you'll see what I mean. -
Second Stage Turbine Blade @ mediafire