Rocksmith Catch All

.38 Special Pack out today.

I am sure The Game King will be pleased.

I could keep googling it, but it seems easier to just ask here; in order to import songs from the original Rocksmith into Rocksmith 2014 on Xbox One, I need to acquire a 360 Rocksmith disc, put it in the 360 so it recognizes I've used the disc, then get into Rocksmith 2014 on 360, buy the import pack for the original Rocksmith, and then get into the Xbox One version of 2014 and download the songs individually?

I have 2014 for both platforms, but not the original Rocksmith at this point.

RS 2014 was on a big Steam sale, so I bought it for $10, and a bunch of DLC. My cable is coming from Amazon tomorrow, and I am super excited. Going to try it out with my acoustic/electric Fender for a bit, and then probably shop around for a decent used electric. Rock!

\m/

If base Rocksmith is also on sale I would recommend picking that up as well.
- You'll get a bunch of additional songs to play, and the RS1 songs slant a little easier than RS2014
- You'll open up all the old DLC in Steam (unless Steam has fixed the bug where you can't purchase RS1 DLC for RS2014)

A bunch of the DLC is 40% right now, too. They suckered me into a few more songs.

I was going to pick this up for a friend but the cost of the cable is ridiculous.

Honestly, the best way to get a cable is to buy a copy of the game, then sell the game on its own. Knocks the price down considerably.

AnimeJ wrote:

Honestly, the best way to get a cable is to buy a copy of the game, then sell the game on its own. Knocks the price down considerably.

Guess I deleted the picture, but snapped a photo at Gamestop last year of Rocksmith 2014 for the 360 costing $20 more WITHOUT the cable than with it. Could just buy it, then sell the shrink-wrapped game on Amazon as new without the cable for what you paid for it, and get a free cable.

I noticed Amazon has the PC version of the game, with cable, for $30. I bought my version on steam as I already owned a cable from the 360 version. If my friend bought the boxed version from Amazon, can it be registered on steam? It's not mentioned anywhere on the amazon site. If it can't be, how do people get a hold of the DLC for the game? Can you buy the DLC on steam even though the game isn't registered on Steam?

Also, I know it will probably never happen, but I keep hoping for a Rocksmith Humble Bundle to show up one day.

The boxed version of Rocksmith 2014 has a key for steam.

Clumber wrote:

If base Rocksmith is also on sale I would recommend picking that up as well.
- You'll get a bunch of additional songs to play, and the RS1 songs slant a little easier than RS2014
- You'll open up all the old DLC in Steam (unless Steam has fixed the bug where you can't purchase RS1 DLC for RS2014)

Not sure I could pass two copies of the same game past the Wallet guardian, but I'm sure it will go on sale again. Had a little technical issues with the cable and Windows settings, but finally got it working and had some great fun with it. I think I am getting a little lag in hit detection, but it might just be me. Really want a real electric now, just to mess with the tone designer stuff.

I'd welcome some advice on how - as a complete beginner - to get the best from Rocksmith. Should I just pile through all the lessons first (which is what I'm doing now). Or should I alternate lessons with songs (or some other option).

I've only had the 'game' a week and a half, and already I'm find myself losing the desire to play. Each lesson takes me about an hour of constant practice to complete. But when I've completed a lesson, I don't see how it connects to the next one.

Contrast this with JustinGuitar - which I'm also using - which starts with the D, A and E chords, and is clearly trying to teach me how to play them individual, then how to move between them and then how to string them together.

I really need a path to follow.

The other thing I'm find frustrating is the game's inconsistency. On Tuesday I tried Bends 101, and there were a dozens of occasions when I thought I'd played a good note only to see the 'miss' message come up. Then - on my next attempt - I'd play a horrid bend (more of a 'thunk' than a 'twang'), and the game would give me a pass mark. I don't have perfect pitch so at this stage I find it incredibly difficult to detect when I've played a duff note. More importantly, I cannot tell what I've done wrong and how to fix it. So at the moment I'm passing Lessons based on trial and error and a lot of dumb luck.

This bit of the lesson took me more than an hour and a half to complete, and my reward wasn't a score, but an even more complicated riff.

One final thing: why doesn't the game start each new riff at the slowest speed? It already knows I'm a complete beginner, so what's the point of encouraging me to play on the fastest setting?

All advice greatly appreciated.

Yeah, I think you're doing basically the opposite of what you're supposed to.

The main focus of the game is 'Learn A Song' mode. Play the songs you like, then the game recommends lessons and passages for the Riff Repeater to improve how you play those.

Rocksmith is all about the songs, about jamming along with stuff you like and using that to help you improve your skills. I wouldn't recommend it as the sole training method for a complete beginner, but you're doing the right thing (IMO) and working with justinguitar too. When lessons get a bit dry what Rocksmith does is remind you why you are trying to learn. To melt faces and play cool songs. :p

As far as bend detection goes I really do struggle with that in RS and haven't had the patience to sit down and go through the bend lessons and games.

@MrDeVil909

Thanks for those tips; particularly about going straight into 'Learn A Song'. I was a little surprised when - after the first couple of lessons - 'Learn A Song' came up on the screen. I assumed it was an unlock rather than a recommendation. I figured "If I can't even find the strings yet, then there's no way I'm meant to be learning songs".

I will return to Rocksmith this weekend with renewed enthusiasm (it's JustinGuitar night tonight).

One more question though: my practice time is fairly limited, so I've set myself a target of at least 20 minutes per day (with an aspiration to hit one hour per day at least twice a week). Is this sufficient to make real progress or do I need commit significantly more time.

Yeah, the software will start you out very simply while it rates your skill. You start out essentially accompanying the song on a string or two until your skill improves and you start to actually play it. Also don't be scared of flubs, it will turn the difficulty down if you struggle.

detroit20 wrote:

One more question though: my practice time is fairly limited, so I've set myself a target of at least 20 minutes per day (with an aspiration to hit one hour per day at least twice a week). Is this sufficient to make real progress or do I need commit significantly more time.

20 minutes of total practice time? That's pretty low, but it's better than 0 minutes. I'd try aim at 1 hour more regularly, but if 20 minutes is what you can spare then you will still improve slowly.

The more time you have to practice the faster you'll learn of course. If you have 20 minutes then 20 minutes is ok. I might suggest adding a little bit of time here and there to just run some scales or do some chord change or strumming exercises. Early on the biggest thing is to get your hands moving and stronger.

I would very much suggest not using Rocksmith to learn the basics and instead use it to play along with songs you like, gain finger strength and dexterity and yourself regularly picking up the guitar. The lessons and techniques are not really meant to guide you through from top to bottom but are there for when you want to review something in the songs. And like you said the detection isn't always brilliant.

Learning guitar especially as an adult is incredibly complex. I've been working at it for probably 5 years or so and am just getting reasonably competent, and there is a ton of stuff I still struggle to learn. But when you 'level up' and something that was previously incomprehensible clicks, it's a pretty great feeling.

My experience:

I have two very young kids so I'm only able to devote a couple of hours per week to practice. Despite that, I've been playing now for about a year and am pretty happy with what I've learned. I know most basic chords and can play a dozen or so of my favorite songs pretty competently. It's slow going but fun.

I agree that you should jump right into learn a song mode. I would sort the song list by difficulty and then just choose a song that's in the lower half difficulty-wise. Pick a song that you really like, since you're going to be listening to that same track a lot.

The lessons are hit-or-miss. I only do them if Rocksmith suggests them and, even then, end up skipping them probably three quarters of the time. I'm sure my technique is not the greatest but I'm not trying to be a professional musician - just trying to learn to play some songs that I like. If you go in with that kind of an attitude, I think you'll really enjoy Rocksmith. If not, you may need to supplement your practice with something additional, as others have suggested.

As others have mentioned, I would use Justinguitar for lessons, use rocksmith for learning songs/practice/fun. Do a lesson or two in justinguitar and then switch over to Rocksmith to have fun learning songs.

I find Rocksmith incredibly fiddly with detecting bends and harmonics, so don't feel bad about that. If you're doing the Justin Guitar lessons, they're probably better than the Rocksmith ones anyways, so I would use Rocksmith for the fun part; playing along. Also, some of the technique games are silly, but others are genuinely helpful. String Skip Saloon will help you recognize which string is which, and helps with cross-picking and such. Some of the chords games you'll get into later will really help you quickly play different chords, things like that.

Basically, there are lots of places online you can find lessons, but the Play a Song and technique games are kind of the unique parts of RS, so I'd focus on that.

Thanks all for the excellent advice.

I'll try to find more time for my daily session, and try to put in more longer sessions. I'll also dive into learning songs.

My thoughts ­
Let me start by saying, I was in a similar position to you two years ago. Forty­eight years old,never touched a guitar in my life, setting off to learn guitar via Rocksmith 2014.

First off, some initial recommendations
∙ Don't set your expectations too high. Sure there are youtube videos of people completingthe 90 day challenge (1 hour of Rocksmith per day for ninety days) and being able to flawlessly rock out to Aerosmith's Walk this Way, and maybe that's the norm for folks, but I didn't achieve that level of skill after ninety days.
∙ If possible pick up the original version of Rocksmith and the import tool. This will open upa bunch of easier songs (at least for me). Also, not sure if it applies to you or is even still valid there is/was a Steam issue where you can't import old DLC without a copy of the original version (in my case Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water)
∙ Try to have fun
As far as using Rocksmith as your primary learning tool, you are right, it's definitely lacking a lesson plan. As other people have pointed out, playing a song and then following the Rocksmith Recommends items is one way to go.
I'd recommend the following guitar arcade games to build technique
∙ Ducks Redux to get used to moving up and down the fretboard and having to changefrets without counstantly staring at your fretting hand
∙ String skip saloon to build some muscle memory just changing strings
∙ Scale racers teaches you to play the minor pentatonic scale
∙ Star chords to learn some basic chords (sort of optional, Justinguitar is better for this)

And to repeat what others have said jump into Learn a song. Sort by difficulty, pick something that speaks to your inner guitarist, set a goal to improve at it (or maybe even just a lick from it), play it through once or twice, then break out to the riff repeater to slow stuff down and start to learn a section. Personally I feel like it's better to stay slow and increase difficulty rather than the way Rocksmith behaves. In my case, it was the intro to Paint It Black. Learning this went a long way in making me feel I was learning how to play guitar.

Another thing that helps; having songs you really want to play. I bought the Iron Maiden pack so I can play "Aces High", and the Rush pack so I can do "Red Barchetta". I wound up buying the Bon Jovi pack because it inspired my daughter to occasionally pick up a guitar and play "Living on a Prayer". Having songs you love available makes a huge, huge difference, so a couple bucks on DLC can really make you want to play more.

@Clumber

Thanks for the Guitarcade (?!?) tips. I spent 40 minutes on Skip String Saloon last night, and I could really feel the improvement after that one session. So much so that I think I'm going to try to learn finger-picking too now.

I'll be repeating that session tonight, and dipping in to Ducks Redux too.

I'm having a problem with the game's note detection and would welcome some advice.

Put simply, Rocksmith is not detecting which fret I'm playing on the 6th string. On Ducks Redux the target is 3rd fret, but when I play Rocksmith thinks I'm on the 4th. I therefore have to play the second fret in order to score.

Similar!y, on my first song Rocksmith only registered my attempts to play the 2nd fret if I played the 1st fret.

Clearly, this is game breaking for me. Has this happened to anyone else? Could you fix it?

You need to determine if it's the guitar, the game, or you. When you put it into a tuner (not in Rocksmith) and play the 3rd fret does it register as a G or G#? Is it accurate if you play a fret up?

Tbh it sounds like your 6th string is tuned a half step up from where it should be (ie open F instead of open E)

Also you absolutely need one of these, you're not going to get more accurate for less (or more, actually) money.
https://www.amazon.com/Snark-SN-5-Tu...

detroit20 wrote:

Similar!y, on my first song Rocksmith only registered my attempts to play the 2nd fret if I played the 1st fret.

I had a devil of a time with that exact same issue starting out. Try pressing down on the string a lot lighter. I found that the the 6th string is very easy to bend sharp by pressing too hard. Back off the pressure until just before the note gets all buzzy, see if that helps.

Not sure of the timing but this problem cropped up right after I developed some calluses. I figure that before the calluses, pain stopped me from pressing too hard on the strings, and the calluses were hurting my accuracy because I was less aware of how much pressure I was applying.

Also, checking the tuning to something other than rocksmith is a good idea since it's tuner is pretty forgiving (Guitar Tuna is a good free app for this)

I wanted to share a method I've used here and there and that I recommend everyone try...

Plug into Rocksmith, select a song and get past the tuner part.
Unplug from the computer, plug into an amp.
Set Riff repeater up to the spot you want to work (or the whole song) on at the speed and level you want, and make it repeat forever.
Just follow along with the Riff Repeater but with your sound coming out of the amp.

Why do this you ask?
Well, for one it highlights the imperfections in your playing that Rocksmith tends to gloss over and second if you want to improvise on top of a song you can without seeing "miss" , "late" etc. You'll get a MUCH better sense of what you're actually doing well and poorly at.