Rock Band 3

I took some of the song recommendations I've seen for this ach and made a quick table that shows their HOPO efficiency (e.g., why play a 10 minute song for 1000 HOPOs when a 4 minute song will give you the same number?). I'd call myself an intermediate-to-advanced guitarist when it comes to RB. I played all of these on Expert and averaged between 97% and 100%. So your mileage may vary - I missed a good number of HOPOs in some of the trickier solos (e.g., GGaHT, Freebird, Guitar Sounds), so you may be able to squeeze out another hundred or two for some of these.

In the table at the bottom of this post, the first figure shown is the average number of HOPOs per minute (based on the length of the song). The second number is the total HOPOs. The list starts with the most efficient songs and works down.

A couple additional notes to consider:

1) Only HOPOs played on Guitar count toward this achievement. Sorry, bassists.

2) You can always view the exact number of HOPOs you've accumulated during gameplay. Contributor Senor Slurpee has this to say on the matter:
"You can track [your total number of HOPOs] by going to Career>My Goals>Guitar>Epic Guitar Goals>Hopo-cidal Maniac. Also by going there you can push the Green button and then select the song and it will add a counter up in the corner as you play the song so you can keep track of how many HoPo's you get in the song."

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* Updated 2011-04-13: Thanks for the recent suggestions, everyone (and for bringing some awesome new downloads to my attention). First off, thanks to Senor Slurpee and MadMaxx42 for reminding me of a couple details I should have included in the guide in the first place (>_<) (see numbered list above). Second, we've got a batch of terrific new songs - two of which are serious contenders. JoCo hasn't been dethroned yet, but Landslide (thanks, Hans jv) and She's Always a Woman (thanks, AquaFalc) give him a serious run for his money. Both songs are ridiculously accessible on Expert when considering how many HOPOs they throw at you (not to mention it's nice to get some decent slow-paced songs into the mix). Then, commenters Stiffytiffy23 and EvoHero give us Blue Sky and Satellite Radio, respectively. Blue Sky is something of a spiritual sibling to China Cat Sunflower, and the HOPO-heavy solo is a lot of fun to play, especially when your gnarled fingers need a break from Betty and Me. Satellite Radio has roughly the same HOPOs/minute as Blue Sky and is considerably easier to play. Thanks for giving me a reason to pop RB3 back in, guys.

* Updated 2010-12-06: We've got a new winner. Jonathan Coulton's Betty and Me (on RBN) is only 3:10 and is good for at least 1000 HOPOs (I got 987, but missed around 20). It's a bit of a finger-buster, and requires vigilant sight-reading for the uninitiated, but it's a blast to play.

* Updated 2010-12-06: I also added Outside, Grace, and Panic Attack. BTW, am I the only one who hears the intro on that last one and thinks of Super Metroid (and then Castlevania as the song goes on)?

* Updated 2010-12-06: Added Dig and Alabama Getaway to the list - thanks for the suggestions. The other recommendations also look good, but most of those are a little out of my league for expert HOPO-ing. :-) I'm also not a huge metal guy, so this list skews toward songs that are more broadly accessible.

* Updated 2010-12-05: Thanks for the comments, everyone. Added Red Barchetta and Something Bigger, Something Brighter to the list.

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(HOPOS/min) | (Total HOPOs) | Song Name
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312 | 0987 | Betty and Me (Jonathan Coulton, RBN)
233 | 0777 | She's Always a Woman
232 | 0794 | Landslide
216 | 1093 | Less Talk More Rokk
209 | 0796 | China Cat Sunflower
156 | 1552 | Green Grass and High Tides
153 | 1297 | Guitar Sound
135 | 0550 | Satellite Radio
134 | 0713 | Blue Sky
134 | 0714 | Something Bigger, Something Brighter
124 | 0476 | Alabama Getaway
121 | 0891 | Panic Attack
110 | 0423 | Hysteria
102 | 0449 | Dig
094 | 0910 | Freebird
082 | 0401 | Franklin's Tower
075 | 0318 | Everybody Wants to Rule the World
074 | 0370 | Outside
067 | 0164 | Crosstown Traffic
066 | 0438 | Red Barchetta
054 | 0138 | Grace
023 | 0132 | Red Tandy

my favorite songs for Hammer-ons and Pull-offs are from the rockband-network:

Guitar Sound (Ronald Jenkees)
about 1200 HOPOs on hard and 1600 on expert
on hard its very easy to play

for the experienced players:
Deliver Us (Andy Timmons)
The Great Planes (Scale The Summit)
600 to 1000 HOPOS i think (i'm not so good at this both songs)

you can download a demo of the songs to see what you get. each song cost 160 msp.

and of course better activate the no-fail modus.

sorry about my bad english.

If you have DLC and can play HammerOns very well then i recommend playing Less Talk More Rokk over and over cause that has over 1300 HOPOs in it.

Another really great song that is perfect for this one is "Obfuscation" by Between the Buried and Me. I'm not sure of the exact number of HO/POs but it is a very large number. It's a nine and a half minute song but definitely worth it. I also really enjoyed listening to it.
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/offers/800005e5-0000...
^marketplace link

Another good song to play for a crapload of hammer-ons and pull-offs (if you can pass it and do well) is Caprici di Diablo. The songs are about the same length but even on an okay run you can get 1700+ HOPOs on Caprici.

Edit: You can turn on no fail mode and they'll still count; thanks Nefarious Zhen.

THIS SOLUTION IS SPECIFICALLY FOR PEOPLE --WITHOUT-- DLC.
i am only giving advice for earning this achievement. what i write does not apply to playing toward any other goals. (song lengths are approximate.)

the best 4 songs on the rock band 3 disc are: Free Bird (9 min 40 sec), Everybody Wants To Rule The World (4:14), Something Bigger Something Brighter (5:19), and Crosstown Traffic (2:26). i took this information from the walkthrough and also from the other solution that has a chart showing total and average hopos per minute.

i highly recommend using a guitar with the solo buttons. you can ignore star power and the whammy bar and holding notes when unnecessary, as that will be a distraction. putting No Fail mode on helps too and doesn't affect your hopo counter. i find myself to be a fairly good guitar player, and i can pass most songs on expert, however i never became very good at fast "rolls" going back and forth up and down the buttons. i started playing rb/gh games well after the biggest wave of their popularity so i have plenty of songs on the older games i can't pass because i didn't spend hours playing the same songs over and over.

if you are like me, good but not extremely super good, then i suggest Free Bird and Everybody Wants To Rule The World. especially if you have the solo buttons. here is my reasoning for each song:

1. Something Bigger Something Brighter is pretty tough so i only ended up getting 30% of the hopos. the second time playing i focused more on just getting hopos and didn't worry about missing notes. i also switched to my solo button guitar, but i don't believe there are any solos in that song so i still only got 33% which works out to 44 hopos per minute.

2. Free Bird can be tough at the end during the solo, so if you just have the regular guitar you might want to do Crosstown Traffic instead. i went from 58 to 76% when i switched guitars. pretty much the entire second half of the song is a solo so it makes a big difference. that made it 71 hopos per minute.

3. i actually dropped from 75 to 60% when i switched guitars on Crosstown Traffic, it doesn't really have any solos that the extra buttons will help much with. i only ended up getting 40-50 hopos per minute. about the same as Something Bigger Something Brighter.

4. Everybody Wants To Rule The World doesn't have any major solos parts that involve hopos either, but the main hopo section is a very simple pattern that should not be hard to get used to at all. i went from hitting 71 to 87% of the hopos and that was just because i got better the second time around. that equals 65 hopos per minute on my second run.

regardless this achievement will take you quite some time to finish, but hopefully my insights will help you decide what is the best path for you to take. be sure to read the other solutions if you don't mind buying songs or already have a big collection. even if not they have other information that can be helpful. one other thing is to see your total hopo count you can go to Career>My Goals>Guitar>Epic Guitar Goals>Hopo-cidal Maniac. the only disadvantage is you cannot select a playlist when you choose to play this goal. you will have to manually make the playlist of songs over again each time you play through.

If you are not good on expert, this great song for this achievement: James Brown - Super Bad, Pts. 1 & 2
I do 300-500 HOPO despite the fact that I'm rubbish on expert. And this song are pretty fun though =)

UPD: Also, Special Effects - Freezepop is great for this. ~500 HOPO on hard / ~600 HOPO on expert.

Ghost of perdition by opeth is a pretty good song for this too. Not sure of the total number of HOPOs but it's easily over 700 as it is a 10 minute song. Also very fun on drums for expert players

Just liked to add that RUSH's Red Barchetta (DLC) has also tons of HO-PO, and they are somewhat far from each other (which makes a lot easier to play the entire "combo"). It's a six minutes song, but definitely worth buying (the whole Moving Pictures album, in fact).
Anyway, it's a time consuming achievement. I've played Rock Band 3 easily for 200+ hours and I still need 15k HO-PO. Just be patient and you'll be there.