Achievement Unlocked

Gold Star 20 songs on Expert

Guide
Gold Star means getting 100% on a song, and you will have to 100% 20 different songs on Expert. Your best bet is to try the songs in the earliest setlist tiers. Also, keep in mind that Bonus and DLC songs count!

Check this thread out for a list of songs that are the easier ones to gold star.

Glitch
1. Go to Options
2. Select Cheats
3. Input the Unlock All cheat: [GRBO] [GRYB] [GRYO] [GBYO] [GRYB] [RYBO] [GRYB] [GYBO] [GRYB] [GRYO] [GRYO] [GRYB] [GRYO]
(G = Green, R = Red, Y = Yellow, B = Blue, O = Orange, strum every sequence)
4. Go back into the main menu and Select Career
5. Select any band, but you must play on Expert
6. Select any song, fail it
7. Achievement unlocked.

Complete Career Lefty and Righty

Guide
I would recommend you to complete this when you first start playing with your band. You have to play on a newly created band for this to unlock, meaning if you play through a finished career on lefty, you're just wasting time. Activate Lefty mode in options, and play through the Easy career setlist, then deactive Lefty mode and play through Medium career.

200k on Cult of Personality without Star Power

Guide
You will need to score 200k (200,000) points on Cult of Personality. 200k is only possible on either Hard or Expert. The downside with playing on Hard is that you have to hit close to 100% to get 200k, but if you can't do it on Hard, you will most likely not be able to do it on Expert either. If you are struggling and only lack a few points, you can actually use Star Power late in the song, and it will still count as long as Star Power does not end before the song ends.

Use the Whammy Bar on every held note on Number of the Beast

Guide
Play through Number of the Beast on Easy with the whammy bar held down. You are allowed to miss any notes except the held notes. If you have problems playing while holding the whammy bar down, try taping it down.

Activate Star Power 3 times on Through The Fire and Flames on Expert

Guide
This one is tough, but it's still doable, but will require practice. For tips on how to beat the TTFaF intro, see The Inhuman Achievement. Fortunately, many of the phrases are easy to get, but just to make sure you are able to activate 3 times, activate immediately when you have Star Power ready. You can still get the achievement if you fail after activating 3 times!
Note: This achievement will ONLY unlock in Quick Play

Host Ranked Online matches and win 15 consecutive songs

Guide
See Search and Destroy

Join Ranked Online matches and win 15 consecutive songs

Guide
This and Life of The Party shares the same technique. Simply host or join Ranked Matches, and win songs. Battles on lower difficulty levels are easier if you know how to play it. If you are about to loose a song, do not quit to the Main Menu, as it will count as a loss, instead exit to Dashboard or turn off the console via the Xbox Guide button (remember to apologize to your opponent ;-p). This achievement is also boostable, set up a Best of 7 Battle Game, have your friend play on Expert, and tell him to strum alot to loose the songs.

Hit 250,000 notes in Career

Guide
This will unlock by time and/or grinding. Simply play through the songs under the same band. Failing also seem to count, mine unlocked after failing Raining Blood on Expert.

Earn $350,000 in career lifetime earnings

Guide
This achievement requires grinding. You will net about $130,000 from completing every single player career difficulties on one band, so naturally you will have to complete this with more bands. If you are a decent Expert player and can 5 star most songs, just create new bands and play through the Expert careers. Co-op career earnings also count for this achievement.

Complete Co-op Career

Guide
Simply play through ("win") a co-op career difficulty as player one. For some odd reason, this achievement will not unlock for the secondary player.

Complete all songs as the back-up guitar player

Guide
See Guitar Wizard

Complete all Co-op as the lead guitarist

Guide
Play through the career as Guitar / Lead. For Back Up Hero, play as Bass / Rhythm (The secondary option to Lead).
Note: As with most multiplayer achievements, this will only unlock for player one. Keep this in mind when starting a new career, unless you want to waste time!

Earn 100,000,000 points total in Career

Guide
You will have to achieve a totalt of 100,000,000 points total in career mode. As with Too Many To Count, this will unlock over time or by grinding. I stlll recommend you keep playing under the same band. Failing also seem to count for this achievement, as mine unlocked after failing Through The Fire and Flames.

Earn a 150 note streak in a Ranked Online Battle mode match

Guide
This achievement isn't neccesarily as easy as it sounds. Your opponent might easily mess it up for you. Play songs that you know, and try to control your opponent with powerups. If you have problems, you could try boosting it. I boosted it when I boosted Life of the Party/Search and Destroy. Just get to 150 notes and tell your friend to fail.

Beat any song on the expert difficulty with the games sound options turned down to zero

Guide
Simply play through any song on Expert difficulty with the audio levels turned to 0 (accessible from the pause menu). Rumours has it that you can play through a song as normal and at the end turn the audio levels to 0, and still get the achievement, but I haven't confirmed this myself.

Complete a Career on the Easy Difficulty

Guide
Not that difficult (it's Easy! ;-p). Just play through the single player Easy career.

Complete Career Mode on the Medium difficulty

Guide
A little more challenging than Easy Rider, but still very much doable for most people. Getting that pinky to work properly is crucial!

Complete Career Mode on the Hard difficulty

Guide
Alot more challenging than Medium Rare. You will not only have to work with more fretboard notes, but now you will also have to work the Orange button! Unless you already are a Hard player, you will most likely have to spend "some" hours playing Guitar Hero before you can beat the Hard career.

Complete all Career difficulties

Guide
As the description states, complete all career difficulties (only single player careers required)

Win 15 consecutive Ranked songs online using a standard controller

Guide
This is a tough achievement. If you intend to do it the "legitimate" way, and have no experience from playing with a Xbox360 controller - good luck! For us, the impatient ones, this achievement is luckily boostable. Combine it with either Life of the Party or Search and Destroy.

Play through a career on the Hard or Expert difficulty using a standard controller

Guide
As with Button Masher, this is tough, but still doable on Hard. The toughest challenge will be the final tiers.

Glitch
If you have already completed Hard or Expert career with a Guitar, boot the game up with a Xbox 360 controller. Navigate to Career, your band, Hard or Expert depending on which you have completed, and then enter the Setlist. The achievement should unlock.

Win 500 Online Ranked matches

Guide
Probably the most time consuming achievement in the game (and the only one I haven't unlocked yet, because I'm not THAT patient!). This achievement requires A LOT of time, patience and skill. To speed up the process, I'd recommend you host 1 song only Battle matches. This gives you two advantages:
1) You can pick whatever song you're experienced on
2) Due to the nature of internet and latency, your opponent will have a lag disadvantage.
Note: Several people claim that the description for this title is incorrect. You will only have to win 500 songs. It's still alot, but keep in mind that it is boostable. Play Best-of-7 Battles with a friend and take turns winning the songs or matches.

Complete all difficulties in Career, buy everything from the shop and complete 100 online matches

Guide
You will need to complete the [single player] careers on every difficulty, own everything from the shop (see Burnin' a Hole in Your Pocket), and actually won 100 online matches. Once every requirement is filled, the achievement will unlock

Glitch
If you have completed the careers and won the online matches, the achievement will unlock if you use the Unlock All cheat (see Enlightened Guitarist) and enter the store.

Beat one of the creators of Guitar Hero 3 at their own game

Guide
This is a viral achievement, meaning that if you beat anyone who has it, he/she passes it on to you. In other words, the only way to unlock this, is to beat someone, who have already unlocked it, in online play. After you unlock it, and someone beats you, he/she will unlock it as well. This does, of course, not mean that you will loose it!

Complete Career Mode on the Expert difficulty

Guide
Well... What can I say? If you had problems with Always Hard, be prepared to spend alot of time with your plastic guitar. Beating Raining Blood and the Lou Boss Battle are the ultimate challenges here.

Earn a 100 note Streak in Career or Quick Play

Guide
This will most likely be one of the first achievements you'll unlock. Just play any song on any difficulty and hit 100 consecutive notes.

Earn a 250 note streak in Career or Quick Play

Guide
A little more challenging than Bronze Streaker, but shouldn't be too difficult. If you're struggling to get this, try a lower difficulty. If you're already playing on Easy, try another song!

Earn a 500 note streak in Career or Quick Play

Guide
If you have already unlocked Silver Streaker, you should be good enough to get this achievement as well. You could try unlocking this by playing One on Easy.

Earn a 1000 note streak in Career or Quick Play

Guide
Ok, this is worse than the other note streak achievement. Most Easy songs do not have 1000 notes, while many of the Medium songs that do have 1000 notes are extremely complicated. My best advice would be to try Through The Fire and Flames on easy, as it is the only standard song that has over 1000 notes. You could also try Revolution Deathsquad from the Dragonforce DLC or either Suicide & Redemption song from the Metallica DLC on Easy

Score 250,000 on a song

Guide
It's not possible to score 250,000 on any Easy song except Through The Fire and Flames, but of course, that is if you almost 100% it. I would suggest playing Story Of My Life or One on Medium

Score 500,000 on a song

Guide
To unlock this achievement, you have to be at least a decent Hard player. Although, there is only one song you can "easily" score 500,000 on if you're a decent Hard player, Ernten Was Wir Säen, which is available a single DLC. If you're better than decent at Hard, you will most likely be able to unlock this with ease.

Score 750,000 on a song

Guide
To achieve this, you have to be really, really, really good. Your absolute best bet would be All Nightmare Long from the Metallica DLC on Expert. If you can't do it there, you could try it on the much harder Through The Fire and Flames.
Good luck!

Earn 5 stars on all songs on the Easy difficulty

Guide
This is pretty easy. You will probably have at least most of the Easy songs 5 starred after your first playthrough. If not, just go back and play the ones you haven't 5 starred yet.
Note: You only need to 5 star the setlist songs

Earn 5 stars on all songs on the Medium difficulty

Guide
Not too hard. Go back and play the songs you haven't 5 starred yet. You should be good enough to 5 star the Medium songs in no time if you play frequently.
Note: You only need to 5 star the setlist songs

Earn 5 stars on all songs on the Hard difficulty

Guide
Yet another challenging achievement, but it's still pretty doable. Raining Blood, One and Number of the Beast will probably be the hardest songs if you are going for this achievement.

Earn 5 stars on all songs on the Expert difficulty

Guide
I remember the pain I went through trying to unlock this one. You need to be very good to 5 star most of the Expert songs, but in order to 5 star Raining Blood you have to be extremely good. I can only say three words: Practice, practice, practice!

100% a song

Guide
You need to hit every note in a song to achieve this. Pick a song in one of the earliest tiers on Easy, and replay it until you get it. Slow Rider is very easy to 100%.
Note: You are allowed to overstrum.

Complete the tutorial

Guide
Simple enough, just complete every tutorial available from the Tutorial menu.

Buy all the Guitars from the shop

Guide
This achievement is actually a LOT harder than it seems to be. Not only do you need the cash to buy all the guitars, but you also need to unlock every guitar in the game! Both single player career and co-op career.

Glitch
See Burnin' a Hole in Your Pocket

Buy all songs from the shop

Guide
Each song costs $500, and there are 26 of them. In other words, save $13,000 and spend them on the songs to unlock the achievement

Glitch
See Burnin' a Hole in Your Pocket

Buy all characters from the shop

Guide
There are 5 characters, of which 3 are bosses. You will first have to play through career once to unlock all the characters. Once you have done that, you will need $65,000 to actually buy them all.

Glitch
See Burnin' a Hole in Your Pocket

Earn a 200 note streak in a Co-op match

Guide
Easy enough. Just play any song on Easy.
Note: Also unlockable over Live

Earn a 500 note streak in a Co-op match

Guide
Also easy to unlock. You can still play any song on Easy, or if you are feeling confident, play on Medium or even Hard. ;-p
Note: Also unlockable over Live

Earn a 1000 note streak in a Co-op match

Guide
Somewhat tougher than Two Timer, but still not too difficult. You should be able to get this on most Medium songs. If you still want to stay on Easy, you could try Through The Fire and Flames.
Note: Also unlockable over Live

Earn a 2000 note streak in a Co-op match

Guide
This is very hard to get, even for decent players. A really easy way to unlock this achievement is to play Through The Fire and Flames with both players on Easy. Beware, though, if you miss once you're screwed, as there's a little over 2000 notes in the song.
Note: Also unlockable over Live

Score 1,000,000 on any song in a Co-op match

Guide
Very hard achievement. The "easiest" songs to achieve 1M on are Ernten Was Wir Säen (single DLC), All Nightmare Long (Metallica DLC), Stockholm Syndrome (Muse DLC), Number of the Beast, One.
Note: Also unlockable over Live. Make sure you host the match, and your setlist does not consist of more than 3 songs, otherwise you will not get the achievement.

Score 700,000 on any song in a Co-op match

Guide
You can actually score 700,000 on the harder Medium songs. Through The Fire and Flames, One and Number of the Beast are among the easier songs to unlock this on.
Note: Also unlockable over Live. Make sure you host the match, and your setlist does not consist of more than 3 songs, otherwise you will not get the achievement.

Earn 5 stars on all Co-op songs for the Easy difficulty

Guide
Simply play through the Easy Co-op career. You should be able to get 5 stars without much hassle.
Note: Only one player must play on Easy. As with most multiplayer achievements, this will only unlock for player one. You have to complete all the setlist songs, including the 14 bonus songs that unlocks when you complete the initial setlist

Earn 5 stars on all Co-op songs for the Medium difficulty

Guide
Shouldn't prove to be too difficult either. Have a few beers and give it a go!
Note: The lowest allowed difficulty for both players is Medium. As with most multiplayer achievements, this will only unlock for player one. You have to complete all the setlist songs, including the 14 bonus songs that unlocks when you complete the initial setlist

Earn 5 stars on all Co-op songs for the Hard difficulty

Guide
If you are a good player, you should have no problems playing on Hard. But now you're relying on having a friend who's also a good player! If you both are able to beat the single player setlist (with 5 stars), you should be able to get this. The worst song to 5 star is One.
Note: The lowerst allowed difficulty for both players is Hard. As with most multiplayer achievements, this will only unlock for player one. You have to complete all the setlist songs, including the 14 bonus songs that unlocks when you complete the initial setlist

Earn 5 stars on all Co-op songs for the Expert difficulty

Guide
Shame on Neversoft for not including Xbox Live Co-op Career mode. This achievement is a total b*tch, because not only do you have to be extremely good, but you have to have a friend who's also extremely good. And still, you might have problems with songs such as One, Number of the Beast, and Raining Blood. A real butt-kicker, this one!
Note: Both players must play on Expert! As with most multiplayer achievements, this will only unlock for player one. You have to complete all the setlist songs, including the 14 bonus songs that unlocks when you complete the initial setlist

100% a song in a Co-op match

Guide
Simply play a song on Easy to unlock this one. Even novice players will be able to get this.
Note: Also unlockable over Live

Get an 8X multiplier in a Co-op game

Guide
To get an 8X multiplier, you will need 1) 4X multiplier 2) Star Power. If you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, I would recommend you to check out the Tutorial section in the Guitar Hero 3 Menu. Once you have the 4X multiplier and Star Power ready, simply tilt your guitar(s) or press the Back ("Select") button(s), and voilá - Achievement unlocked.
Note: Also unlockable over Live

Score 500,000 on any song in a Co-op match

Guide
Most Medium songs will do for this one. You could also hop up a notch in difficulty (to Hard, that is), and give a song a go. Shouldn't be much of a problem.
Note: Also unlockable over Live. Make sure you host the match, and your setlist does not consist of more than 3 songs, otherwise you will not get the achievement.

Buy everything from the store

Guide
To actually be able to buy everything from the store, you will have to unlock all of the bonus guitars. This means completing all the careers, including the Co-op ones, 5 starring each and every song in the process. If you are able to do that, money shouldn't be an issue.

Glitch
Use the Unlock All cheat (as described in the Enlightened Guitarist guide), enter the Store, and the achievement (and the other store achievements if you are missing them) will unlock

Complete Through The Fire and Flames on Expert

Guide
The Intro is an extremely effective newbie filter. Although, if you spend some days learning a tapping technique, you should be able to pass the intro. But, of course, the intro is not the only hard part in this song. Both the extremely long and complicated solo, and the outro are easily failable sections. The best tip I could give you is to check out this thread on ScoreHero.com, a very resourceful post with a link to a great guide to learn the method for tapping.

Refuse a boss battle

Guide
When a boss battle (the lame battles where you play vs the 'Boss' characters Lou Morello, Slash or Lou) first occurs, you will be prompted with a battle information screen. Press the red fret button to refuse it. You can reenter the boss battle by selecting it in the setlist menu.

Fail any song 10 times

Guide
Start any song in career mode (preferrably on Expert, as it's faster), and just strum like mad until the Rock Meter is completely drained and you fail the song. Select Retry from the Menu and repeat the process. For funsies, try beating the Through The Fire and Flames intro on Expert if you have it unlocked ;-p

Fail a song passed 90% completion

Guide
Play any song you are familiar with, and when you know you are at the end of the song, strum like mad until you fail. Do not fail too early, because you might end up failing at 89% or less, which is just really annoying!