Rocksmith Catch All

karmajay wrote:
snorlax789 wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
snorlax789 wrote:

Gamestop is selling Rocksmith as a standalone game for $70 this week, so I'd need to hunt down a guitar. Guitar Center is selling an Epiphone Les Paul Jr. for $120, while Musician's Friend is selling a Dean Vendetta XMT Electric Guitar with Tremolo for $99. (Amazon also has the Dean Vendetta for $99, but it's in translucent black.)

Best Buy is selling a combo (whether it's in-store or the retail bundle depends on the B+M location, it appears) for $200, but it comes with a $50 gift card.

Considering the bundle comes with an Epiphone Les Paul Jr, I think that's your best option.

I'm assuming that the bundle doesn't have a strap, picks, a stand, or a bag/case. Is that accurate?

I was actually leaning toward getting the game from Gamestop and the Dean Vendetta from Amazon. In total, that's about $170 before taxes. I'd lose out on the $50 gift card, but I'd get a slightly better guitar, from the reviews that I've read so far.

The bundle I got at Walmart for $200 had the game, Epiphone Les Paul Jr guitar, pick, strap, xbox 360 usb to 1/4" jack, another cable that I briefly glanced at and I think was 1/4" jack to 1/4" jack, a poster and Epiphone sticker and manual :)

Yeah the bundle comes with everything you need to get started. You do not get a stand or bag/case however. The bundle is just the Epiphone Junior package (cardboard box and all), like if you were to get it at a music store. except you get a strap with Rocksmith embroidered on it, and 2 picks with the Rocksmith brand on them. The extra cable is just that, a 1/4" - 1/4" patch cable for plugging straight into an amp, than in the space left over they stuck another compartment into the Rocksmith bundle box that contains the game and all it's accessories. If you haven't already, get that bundle and the 50 dollar gift card. I wish I had gotten that deal!

So how is the guitar?

LiquidMantis wrote:
ranalin wrote:

any suggestions on exercises that will help with stretches like you find between 2nd and 5th fret?

I'm not quite sure what you mean either. Are you not using your pinky or are you just having a hard time with your pinky getting fatigued? If the former, then use your pinky. If the latter then it's just a matter of repetition and rest. Your pinky is normally atrophied and guitar can be demanding on it. You'll just have to build it up.

For example in No Satisfaction you hit notes back and forth on the 2nd and 5th fret. I use my pinky to hit the 5th fret notes. It's not just fatigued (or maybe thats the word), but it causes my whole hand to cramp up after too many repetitions. Just frustrating because i never had this problem before, and now i'm can barely finish a song and cant really play again until later.

Yeah, unfortunately that's just going to require muscular development. You might try a less intense approach to help though. For example if that song kills you after 3 tries, then do it once and then do a diffferent song for 10 minutes and then come back. Or if you can't make it through the song, work one of the sections in Riff Repeater a time or two, then take a break and come back. Basically look at it like a weight lifting approach where you don't want to hit failure. Practice your form, rest, repeat.

Guitarists are always looking for grip improvement methods. Once you start working with barre chords a lot your pinky becomes very important because you just traded your index finger for a movable nut (OoCT freebie) so you're down to three usable fingers and your pinky is where you get little runs and chord variations. These are a guitarist staple, available in different strength levels. Another thing you might try are "hand flashes" or whatever. Hold your hands in front of you and as fast as you can go from a loose fist to open hand with fingers spread. Repeat that for duration. Your forearms will get a pump from that.

The key is to be patient and not get frustrated. It requires dexterity and a specialized kind of hand strength that just has to be developed over time through constant practice. Check out the JustinGuitar.com website and videos for more technique building than Rocksmith offers. Especially relevant is Justin's Spider technique video. A warm-up I like to do is hammer-on/pull-off for all left hand finger combos. So try something like 1h2(x4), 1h3(x4), 1h4(x) start on the 6th string and repeat up to the first string and back down. Then move to 2h3(x4), 2h4(x4), same string walking, and finally 3h4. And then try the same thing with pull-offs: 2p1(x4), 3p1(x4), 4p1(x4), following the same approach.

LiquidMantis wrote:

Yeah, unfortunately that's just going to require muscular development. You might try a less intense approach to help though. For example if that song kills you after 3 tries, then do it once and then do a diffferent song for 10 minutes and then come back. Or if you can't make it through the song, work one of the sections in Riff Repeater a time or two, then take a break and come back. Basically look at it like a weight lifting approach where you don't want to hit failure. Practice your form, rest, repeat.

Guitarists are always looking for grip improvement methods. Once you start working with barre chords a lot your pinky becomes very important because you just traded your index finger for a movable nut (OoCT freebie) so you're down to three usable fingers and your pinky is where you get little runs and chord variations. These are a guitarist staple, available in different strength levels. Another thing you might try are "hand flashes" or whatever. Hold your hands in front of you and as fast as you can go from a loose fist to open hand with fingers spread. Repeat that for duration. Your forearms will get a pump from that.

The key is to be patient and not get frustrated. It requires dexterity and a specialized kind of hand strength that just has to be developed over time through constant practice. Check out the JustinGuitar.com website and videos for more technique building than Rocksmith offers. Especially relevant is Justin's Spider technique video. A warm-up I like to do is hammer-on/pull-off for all left hand finger combos. So try something like 1h2(x4), 1h3(x4), 1h4(x) start on the 6th string and repeat up to the first string and back down. Then move to 2h3(x4), 2h4(x4), same string walking, and finally 3h4. And then try the same thing with pull-offs: 2p1(x4), 3p1(x4), 4p1(x4), following the same approach.

Thanks! especially for teh extra link. I've been doing what you suggested. Play through as much as i can and then poke around on other songs and then go back. Usually at that point I'm completely done and have to rest.

One question I have, and forgive me if it has been mentioned, is if Rocksmith is smart enough to measure the pitch no matter where I play on the neck of my guitar. Once I learn a song, it is nice to find my own way to play it, that sounds the same, but may be easier for my own personal play style.

Yeah, since Rocksmith is just pitch detection it doesn't matter what position you play a note if you hit the right note. Just realize that their recommended position can be there because it's needed for the song as it gets more advanced. I tried playing "my way" at first on a couple of big neck leaps that didn't make since to me but I had to adjust as it added notes that forced me into the Rocksmith's highlighted position.

I've only dabbled above 15th fret and Rocksmith is forcing me into uncharted terrirtory. I've put more time on 22nd fret yesterday than I have in all my years of tinkering.

So someone collated all the Q&A from the Reddit page.

Bad news for Mex (your test results are in):

can we get some guitar based menu controls?
I'm afraid we weren't allowed to do that as certain console manufacturers wouldn't let us. Sorry!

Guitar advice, and reviewage
http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2...

I've come across my first really big complaint about the game. I'm to the point where event qualifying songs requires a pretty high score, often leveling up most of the phrases and playing the songs with few mistakes. Which means that in a few cases, I really need the built-in practice tools like Riff Repeater, and they're just not all that conducive to actually practicing. In this case, I think they made them too game-centric.

I've been working on the song "Jules" by Seth Chapla, and there are two fairly complex solos in the game. So I go into Riff Repeater to try to learn them, and start with the Leveler mode, which lets you begin with the simplified version, then gradually "level up" the phrase. Except I'm making so many mistakes that partway through the song it just stops and makes me start over. Considering Rocksmith never does this when actually playing the full song, it's jarring. To make it worse, once my five lives are up it abruptly dumps me back to the main menu.

Next I tried Accelerator, which lets you slow the riff down and learn it at partial speed, then gradually speed it up. The problem is, its "auto speed detector" slows me down to a lazy 94% speed, which really doesn't help. Why no option to manually set the tempo?

Finally I thought I'd try the last mode, which completely stops the song and (theoretically) lets you play note by note until you get each one right. Nice in concept, but in practice it's almost useless for this particular riff. It's too fast and too many of the fingerings are patterns that flow into each other, and you completely disrupt that when you stop at some random point. If I'm trying to play a note that leads into an ascending triplet and screw it up, don't start me at the second note in that triplet. Musically, that increases the difficulty enormously.

I know I've heard that the "5 lives" aspect of Riff Repeater is something that's due to be addressed in an update. Hopefully some of these other restraints will be lifted and let the player have even more freedom in the game. Even being able to pause the note chart on-screen would be useful. Just let me see the notes and play them on my own, at my own speed.

I've slowed down lately with Rocksmith to wait for a patch to fix Riff Repeater. It's not for any change of opinion or post-honeymoon phase with Rocksmith, it's just I've been busy/sick but more importantly because Rocksmith has encouraged to get back into my regular guitar practice routine. Scales, metronomes, chord changes, rhythmic studies, oh boy!

Hoping to dig into Rocksmith a good bit this weekend though, now that my fingertip pads are thickening up. Of course UPS is about to come by with Skyrim so....

duckilama wrote:

Guitar advice, and reviewage
http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2...

I will agree with the Ibanez recommendation. I have a somewhat better than low end Ibanez semi-hollow, and it's excellent quality for the money.

I traded in BF3 today (couldn't deal with having to grind just to have competitive weapons on day 1) and bought Rocksmith based on the forum comments. Holy crap is this game fun! I just played my dusty Epiphone Les Paul II (in sunburst, because it rocks harder) more tonight than I have in the year since I bought it. How brilliant to start with such a well known riff as the intro to 'Satisfaction' and let me hear myself play it! I think my left index finger is bleeding but I want to play more.

LiquidMantis wrote:

Hoping to dig into Rocksmith a good bit this weekend though, now that my fingertip pads are thickening up.

This is the main thing that is holding me back at the moment. After years of not playing, my fingertips are all shredded now. I forgot how annoying the break-in period is.

I just wanted to chime in and say thanks for mentioning this on the podcast. After only a weekend of play I'll add that my daughter who already plays guitar is really enjoying it and watching it scale up and down to her ability has been impressive.

As for me, it's scaling down to my non ability and I'm having fun as well.

tagged for interest... I might wanna wait till PC comes out if loading times are as bad as everyone is saying.

I've only played with it installed on the 360 but while loading times are there they're trivial. If anything they almost seem too short because I keep getting cut off while noodling around during the "free play" mode that comes on during the loading screens.

Do you guys know if they are planning DLC for new songs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocksmi...

Currently they're shooting for DLC every two weeks.

SodaGremlin wrote:

tagged for interest... I might wanna wait till PC comes out if loading times are as bad as everyone is saying.

The load times themselves individually are not bad, but the problem is there are a lot of loads. It seems like you have to go through 4 different loading screens (menu, song, tune, play) before getting to the song. If you restart the same thing again it eliminates that but transitioning from one song or technique to another take a lot of effort.

imbiginjapan wrote:
SodaGremlin wrote:

tagged for interest... I might wanna wait till PC comes out if loading times are as bad as everyone is saying.

The load times themselves individually are not bad, but the problem is there are a lot of loads. It seems like you have to go through 4 different loading screens (menu, song, tune, play) before getting to the song. If you restart the same thing again it eliminates that but transitioning from one song or technique to another take a lot of effort.

ENABLER!!!

@Liquid: thanks for the link

The UI can definitely use some streamlining and redesign with user feedback. I hope they add an option to disable the pre-song tuning checkup too. My American Strat holds tuning like nobody's business and I'd rather do a quick tweak with my brand new Snark clamp-on tuner than rely on the overly forgiving Rocksmith quick-tune.

Maybe the software that detects if you're hitting the right notes needs the tuning for calibration. ?

Probably stating the obvious, but yeah it is pitch sensitive. The tuner is getting you to concert pitch though, not just adjusting to the player's poor tuning.

OK, I have a nice acoustic and can play a bunch of chords/songs. I'm a metalhead at heart, and a friend has "lent" me an electric guitar with a tube amp, which doesn't have any distortion.

Would Rocksmith be a reasonable substitute for a distortion pedal/amp if I just want to goof around? Am I understanding correctly that you can use it like an amp and just free play?

El-Producto wrote:

Would Rocksmith be a reasonable substitute for a distortion pedal/amp if I just want to goof around? Am I understanding correctly that you can use it like an amp and just free play?

Well after I just typed a book trying to convince you that my Pod I'm selling is awesome, yeah, Rocksmith could do that. It takes a small amount of effort to get the latency down, but if you can deal with that then Rocksmith offers an amp sim mode that lets you play with different pedals and amps. To make it work well you'll need to run analog out from your Xbox to powered speakers or to your receiver with the Direct mode turned on as for guitar practice you really will want the audio lag to be all but non-existent.

El-Producto wrote:

Would Rocksmith be a reasonable substitute for a distortion pedal/amp if I just want to goof around? Am I understanding correctly that you can use it like an amp and just free play?

Yes, it has a free play mode, and yes you can use it just like an amp. There are dozens of effects pedals modeled in the game (not to mention several different amps), and you can mix and match your own combinations to create your own sound. The pedals include not just distortion but other effects like wah, tremolo, phaser, etc. The only thing lacking is a way to swap out effects on the fly like you could with a few stomp boxes laid out in front of you. You can swap tones using the controller, but you can't really do that while playing. Still, it's a tremendous feature and is almost worth the price of the game alone.

Yeah.. sorry about that Mantis

Good news is, my reciever is actually an older Denon and is Analog (gasp!)

You'll still want to put it to Direct. Even set to Stereo the DSP is running and adds a slight delay. Once I set it to Direct to bypass the processing though Rocksmith is effectively instantaneous. With that setup you'll get the same response time as playing through pedals to an amp, but you also get the benefit of stereo sound for dual-channel effects like stereo flangers and choruses, maybe even stereo delays if Rocksmith has them.

One last question, 360 or PS3. I only have a 20gb drive on my 360.