Rocksmith

[cedwebb]

Re: Rocksmith

Got my new Guit'r!!! I'm totally in love with it and can't contain my smile.

I got Rocksmith a few weeks ago and think it's a pretty solid SUPPLEMENTAL learning tool. It does have a delay, but not so much that it's unusable for me.

I got my guitar because it's a hollow body electric that makes a great deal of acoustic noise so that I can practice completely unplugged, and keep the action of an electric as I'm not too fond of acoustic guitars in general.

I think the biggest issue with Rocksmith is that it brings you along too slow and basic so that once you turn up the difficulty you don't have the skills necessary to play the song - my other big gripe is that so many of the songs aren't great choices or are in another tune aside from E standard. The problem there is who wants to adjust the tuning every other song? I find myself just skipping songs because I don't want to retune so often.

What I mean by the skills point is that they should just expect even beginners to play entire chords... learning to play chords with one note pressed imo isn't a great way to learn. Just play the entire basic chords! This becomes an issue because I can play chords no problem, but adding notes between them becomes hard when I'm used to the game just getting me to do super easy chords.

Very nice guitar man! I am thinking if buying this game as I feel I am in the same spot as you.i self taught myself about 6 years ago playing a couple hours a day. I can play chords no problem, I can solo around no problem, but have trouble going in and out of chords and adding notes as you described. Life got busy so I stopped playing but pick up my Les Paul every now and then just to hear that sound. Was looking at this game wondering if it would help me get past that stuck feeling from just being self taught. Might take a closer look as it will give me a reason to pick up the axe again which I love to do

[allBthere]

Re: Rocksmith

Very nice guitar man! I am thinking if buying this game as I feel I am in the same spot as you.i self taught myself about 6 years ago playing a couple hours a day. I can play chords no problem, I can solo around no problem, but have trouble going in and out of chords and adding notes as you described. Life got busy so I stopped playing but pick up my Les Paul every now and then just to hear that sound. Was looking at this game wondering if it would help me get past that stuck feeling from just being self taught. Might take a closer look as it will give me a reason to pick up the axe again which I love to do

Thanks! Nothing beats teaching yourself. I was determined to learn tears in heaven today and did! Learned from a lady on YouTube! The game just forces different ways to train and has some neat features like repeating riffs and custom speeds. Also it has beat boxes and other instruments you can get to do custom background so you can "jam". Where it lets down is default song list and wonky difficulty progression , at least at my level..my wife loves that I'm learning so much so fast and playing a lot so good times right now

[cedwebb]

Re: Rocksmith

Thanks! Nothing beats teaching yourself. I was determined to learn tears in heaven today and did! Learned from a lady on YouTube! The game just forces different ways to train and has some neat features like repeating riffs and custom speeds. Also it has beat boxes and other instruments you can get to do custom background so you can "jam". Where it lets down is default song list and wonky difficulty progression , at least at my level..my wife loves that I'm learning so much so fast and playing a lot so good times right now

That's awesome dude, it really is cool once you start to pick it up. Just bought it for PS4, about to try this thing out.

[RumbleCard]

Re: Rocksmith

Just bought this game. Very impressed. I'm on PS4 and not really feeling like there is tremendous lag...I can tell there's slight lag but all in all I don't really feel like its hindering me. If anything I find the lag keeps me from trying to play too fast in the jam section.

One great thing about this game is that you don't realize that you just practiced a scale for over an hour. Something I would rarely do just sitting down and practicing by myself.

I agree about the one finger vs. full chord issue. It makes for awkward progress. Might just be better off practicing the song at a slower speed but with the full difficulty.

The arcade games are great for my 9 year old. Killing ninjas up and down the scale worked pretty good at keeping his attention span.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Rocksmith

Does this teach structure/theory along with learning songs? Not that I don't love learning to play songs, but I feel like I want to learn the hows and whys moreso. How does Rocksmith approach that?

[sydrogerdavid]

Re: Rocksmith

The game itself doesn't really get into music theory. The developers usually do a "backtrack spotlight" every week that sometimes gets pretty far into the theory into individual songs in the game. Can't link you to anything because the Ubi forums are down.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Rocksmith

This game in the mail yesterday and I ended up playing for about 3 hours. I really like how the game sets itself up with the progression of the songs, the Guitarcade, and particularly the Riff Repeater, but I wish they used more actual guitar terminology. In one of the initial lessons they refer to the frets as "metal things" and I had to cringe.

Even at that it seems like it'll be a wonderful supplementary tool to what I plan on starting this Summer with the Alfred's Self Study Essentials of Music Theory.

I'm already making a list of track packs to download.

[allBthere]

Re: Rocksmith

This game in the mail yesterday and I ended up playing for about 3 hours. I really like how the game sets itself up with the progression of the songs, the Guitarcade, and particularly the Riff Repeater, but I wish they used more actual guitar terminology. In one of the initial lessons they refer to the frets as "metal things" and I had to cringe.

Even at that it seems like it'll be a wonderful supplementary tool to what I plan on starting this Summer with the Alfred's Self Study Essentials of Music Theory.

I'm already making a list of track packs to download.

That's the thing, as long as you know going in it's supplementary - like I get better gains through teaching myself songs via youtube.

I need to learn scales it's becoming apparent, and also more strumming techniques - I can't wrap my head around playing homeward bound for example....this guys' picking is really really difficult and he makes it look so easy.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3eFHATL8yw

Another thing I find hard is playing Bar chords vs Power chords I need to push my thumb against the neck more in Bar chrods vs regular and power chords which changes my whole hand alignment slowing me down - so I need to work on that too. An example of that I'm getting decent at is the Cat Stevens song Wide World, the 'F' bar chord is fine, but if I had to do a bar chord further down the neck transitioning from a g chord for exmaple I'd probably studder

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Rocksmith

I have to give praise to the session mode - being able to play with an interactive backing track is awesome and really does a good job of teaching you what notes sound good in a scale. I haven't tried out any of the progressions and has just been in jam mode, but this feature is probably the most helpful once you get you know your way around a guitar and have some basis of understanding of theory/scales.

Throw in the tone editor and its basically an inexpensive substitute for a digital practice amp. For $60. Unreal.

The "game" itself is pretty damn good. The riff repeater is a great tool and really allows those tricky solos and progressions to imbed in your head. Sometimes its maddening to only miss 1 note, but it forces you to fret correctly all the time which is something I'm apparently sloppy with.

Last night I jumped around between a couple White Stripes songs and You Really Got Me. Those fast riffs from The Kinks really got my arm tired. Great exercise for dexterity.

Perhaps it is addressed in one of later lessons, but I really wish the game would go over hand/finger placement - particularly on solos - so I know I'm fretting with the correct technique. I noticed there are typically four frets highlighted so maybe that is their subtle way of addressing it?

Also, I cannot clear some of the session band tasks. I noticed this the first time I played the game, but I had to close the application and re-enter the game in order to clear out the first session task. Now I am stuck on "play scales for awhile."

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Rocksmith

I downloaded a bunch more songs this weekend: Audioslave, Soundgarden, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pearl Jam, and some odd songs. I'm surprised at how easy some of the Audioslave songs have been (Cochise and Like A Stone), but that Cochise riff is really fun to tear off.

I've also been working on Santana's Smooth. Its a fun song and again I'm surprised at how relatively simple it is as it largely stays in that minor scale form.

What songs are your guys' favorites? The Hendrix and RATM packs are still on my list, but after that its pretty random for me aside from maybe the Rockabilly and Country packs. The Bachsmith pack looks interesting, too.

[allBthere]

Re: Rocksmith

I was thinking about the blues pack because I love blues... but I also noticed on MAC that you can plug in the guitar (probably pc too) and it recognizes the rocksmith usb/patch chord, so it works with garage band - thought that was pretty cool!

I played it the other day - and the lag is bigger than I remember which is why I'm rarely playing, along with having a little infant daughter in the house.

Recently I've been learning more solo's (santeria) and beatles (michelle, here comes the sun, imagine) and I tuned my guitar for the first time to open E to play stay with me by the faces...but rocksmith didn't recognize that tuning so I couldn't 'jam' with it.

[Blzer]

Re: Rocksmith

I'm curious how some of you guys go about playing this game. I'm not a very good sight-reader unless it's chords, and anything else I learn it's just through practicing over and over. Also, I've only really been okay at fingerpicking, but now that I need to use a pick to do some faster stuff, I'm having trouble with that as well. It's all a mess!

Do you guys do the actual practice in parts until you kind of just know what's next, or are you that good at sight-reading?

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Rocksmith

I really wish I had a computer so I could get this on PC. The custom charts make me jealous.

Playing on PS4 I haven't noticed any lag. I'm trying to find a pre-owned copy of the first game on PS3. I need Outshined.

Blzer, I taught myself via JustinGuitar.com and some basic music theory via Alfred's Music Essentials.

The most basic advice is muscle memory - particularly for picking. Start out slow and then work your speed up.

As for the notes on the screen sometimes I will get jumbled up, but since I've realized the game mostly sticks to 4 fret-blocks (1 for each finger) it makes hand placement a lot easier and quicker for me. Of course I also practice different scales so that helps too.

I would recommend using a resource like JustinGuitar alongside the game.

[allBthere]

Re: Rocksmith

I'm curious how some of you guys go about playing this game. I'm not a very good sight-reader unless it's chords, and anything else I learn it's just through practicing over and over. Also, I've only really been okay at fingerpicking, but now that I need to use a pick to do some faster stuff, I'm having trouble with that as well. It's all a mess!

Do you guys do the actual practice in parts until you kind of just know what's next, or are you that good at sight-reading?

well it's easier when it's actually chords, so it's easier at times on harder difficulty settings... I can recognize a 'd' chord easier than 2 of those notes individually that's more like doing math on the fly.

[sydrogerdavid]

Re: Rocksmith

well it's easier when it's actually chords, so it's easier at times on harder difficulty settings... I can recognize a 'd' chord easier than 2 of those notes individually that's more like doing math on the fly.

I find that troubling at times too. Just give me the stupid chord early on so when I get around to playing it 15 or 20 times, I'll have it down.



If I don't count all the pre 1980 songs, I'd say my favorite songs are the Spinal Tap DLC. Other than the lead track on Give Me Some Money, I'm having a pretty easy time with learning them. I also got the Skynyrd pack last week, and I know Tuesday's Gone will be pretty fun.

The one song I seem to have trouble with is Boom Boom. While the game recognizes the notes, I still can't make it sound good. It only allowed me to get purple because I can fudge it pretty well. I'll get it eventually, though, because it keeps coming up in nonstop play.