Rocksmith Catch All

ranalin wrote:

Bought the Muddy Waters set last week. Not played it yet though.

The Muddy pack is what inspired me to look at the store in the first place. Somehow I ended up buying that other stuff instead. I'll probably get the Muddy stuff at some point.

Does anyone have any guesses as to whether the mic on a HyperX Cloud 2 headset would be good enough to play Rocksmith in USB mic mode? I bought my wife a lower end Martin acoustic guitar years ago, so we have one in the house. I don't know how to play the guitar, so Rocksmith may make it fun to learn.

If my HyperX Cloud 2 mic isn't good enough for this then I either need to buy a standard USB mic or get an electric guitar.

I doubt it would work well. For the music selection in RS I'd strongly suggest a cheap electric, but if you want to try without spending too much I'd suggest a pick up for the acoustic. Couple options here for as low as around $30, but try support your local music store if you can. http://www.musiciansfriend.com/acous...

ETA

If you do go for a pickup rather get a magnetic one, not a transducer.

I'm guessing that acoustic will NOT work with this game. Get an electric. I'm a budget rocker, myself. None of my guitars cost more than $400 USD.

pssssst..... wanna know a secret?

Spoiler:

I have a family member who retired after working at Fender manufacturing for 30 years. He swears to me that the Squire guitars are identical to the Fender guitars. Squire is Fender's "budget" brand. Most people naturally assume that they are lower quality instruments and are made from lower quality materials. He told me that they are made from the same materials on the same machines. The only difference is the name on the headstock.

He assured me that the same holds true for Epiphone guitars as well. Which are the "budget" brand for Gibson.

There is an exception to this. Any brand new guitar that costs less than $200 is probably a throw away model that gets sold at Target and Walmart. I'm not even sure that they make those anymore. They were absolutely horrible.

So I would suggest you buy a Squire or an Epiphone.

Yeah, based both on the music selection and my doubts about how well a mic could actually pick up the details of the individual notes/strings, I'm pretty leery about Rocksmith; I was shocked when they added acoustic support, because it just doesn't "feel" like it fits at all.

It is a lot more fun to just sit and play acoustic, because it sounds better solo, but the best way to learn is going to be a host of Youtubers, or start playing tab:

Ultimate-Guitar has a LOT of tabs, which are basically visual representations of where your fingers should go; an E chord is 022100, meaning the fattest string is open, the A and D strings you press down on the second fret, the G string is first fret, and the top two strings are open. It's a much easier way to learn than trying to read music.

But, to the original post, you can likely get one of the uber-common cheap electrics (Squier Strat or Epiphone Les Paul Special) for about $100, and a decent local guitar store will help you find one that doesn't completely suck (because a lot of them completely suck).

RawkGWJ wrote:

So I would suggest you buy a Squire or an Epiphone.

Apparently we're cross-promoting Squier and Epiphone, moments apart. I'll add to your advice the big difference between a higher quality Fender or Gibson and a cheaper Squier or Epiphone is actually going to be from a quality control aspect; I've played a couple Squier strats that were phenomenally nice instruments, and I've picked up far more that were utter garbage, with bent necks, sharp frets, terrible intonation, and other problems. You can get a decent guitar for cheap, but the simple fact is the people checking out the $1000 guitars are going to go over them in detail to make they're right, and, for cheap guitars, they're just going to spot-check guitars out of batches and rubber stamp them. A cheap guitar could be good or could be crap, so you don't quite know until you handle it.

As an aside, the guy at my local shop was talking about how the Squiers are everywhere, and he stopped selling them because they'd have enough significant problems to where he'd have to do a return. The factory told him it wasn't worth it to ship the guitars back for an exchange, so just to saw off the headstock to prove the guitar was destroyed and send that back as proof.

So, anyways, Squier or Epiphone are excellent choices as long as you're shopping carefully, which is easier if you can find a local shop where they generally aren't upselling dickwads like Guitar Center people.

There's no way to know for sure, but I suspect that those Squire returns were the $100 versions. Those are atrocious. Or the $200 guitars that are bundled with a crappy practice amp. Those are also hot garbage. Those are the models that aren't worth the price of shipping it back to the manufacturer.

Think about this. If it was a real guitar, the store would just repair it and resell it.

My insider informant tells me that if you buy a Squire or Epiphone for about $250 or more, you are getting the exact same guitar as the Fender or Gibson equivalent. You are saving $400+. And the same holds true for the more deluxe models.

RawkGWJ wrote:

My insider informant tells me that if you buy a Squire or Epiphone for about $250 or more, you are getting the exact same guitar as the Fender or Gibson equivalent. You are saving $400+. And the same holds true for the more deluxe models.

That video was interesting. If you don't want to watch all 15+ minutes of it, jump to 10:15. That's where they get into the meat of the conversation.

Here's my interpretation of what was said. They're comparing a high end Squire Telecaster to a low end Fender Telecaster. The two guitars are very similarly priced. One guy thinks that the Squire is WAY better than the Fender. The other guy thinks they're about the same. The guy who prefers the Squire has some specific reasons why he thinks it's better. The guy who likes the Fender just kind of shrugs and says, "I like that one better."

In the end, it's pretty subjective. Some people take pride in owning a more prestigious and expensive model. It makes them feel good. It makes them feel like they play better. Which in turn does make them play better.

Marketing tactics don't work so well on me. I don't care so much about status symbols. If anything, playing a budget guitar inspires me to play better.

RawkGWJ wrote:

That video was interesting. If you don't want to watch all 15+ minutes of it, jump to 10:15. That's where they get into the meat of the conversation.

I think the point about Squier providing fewer, more 'generic' options due to production efficiencies compared to the wider array of options under the Fender branding is a good one. For instance the Fender they showcase is kind of a hybrid that may not really be feasible to build in the mass quantity Squier production model. So with Squier, it's 'Basic Tele' 'Basic Strat' 'Basic Jaguar' and with Fender it's Strat, Tele, Duo Sonic, Jaguar and so on with various pickup conifgurations, neck profiles and woods. So while the overall build quality near the meeting point of the range is similar, you pay more under the Fender brand to get something with more varied features.

I used to own an Ibanez GAX-70, a low-end beater with dual humbuckers and a 5-selector switch. Are there any modern equivalents in the low-end guitar market? I loved the dual humbucker sound and the distortion on it was fun.

Thanks for the advice. I guess I won't go down the path of using an acoustic with Rocksmith. I just don't know if I'm ready to drop much money on something I may not stick with. Playing Rocksmith does seem fun though. My fingers just don't like to contort themselves into the weird positions required to play a guitar. I started trying to teach myself a couple years ago and progressed to a cordless Ode to Joy and that was about it.

Mixolyde wrote:

I used to own an Ibanez GAX-70, a low-end beater with dual humbuckers and a 5-selector switch. Are there any modern equivalents in the low-end guitar market? I loved the dual humbucker sound and the distortion on it was fun.

Maybe a lower-end Epiphone SG but as discussed above the QC can be pretty spotty. Jackson makes some cheap shreddy guitars but I have no clue how well they actually play. You can always hit the used market too!

imbiginjapan wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

I used to own an Ibanez GAX-70, a low-end beater with dual humbuckers and a 5-selector switch. Are there any modern equivalents in the low-end guitar market? I loved the dual humbucker sound and the distortion on it was fun.

Maybe a lower-end Epiphone SG but as discussed above the QC can be pretty spotty. Jackson makes some cheap shreddy guitars but I have no clue how well they actually play. You can always hit the used market too!

I still see cherry red Ibanez's like my old one on eBay. Hmmm...

Mixolyde wrote:

I still see cherry red Ibanez's like my old one on eBay. Hmmm...

I will say if you buy online add the cost of a thorough set-up (assuming you don't do it yourself) to the advertised cost. Nothing will make you sound bad like a warped neck and a worn out nut.

I ended up buying a Yamaha PAC012 from a local music store. It was between that and a Squire Bullet or Affinity. My friend owns the music store and gave me a really good deal - $135.That made it cheaper than the Squire Bullet another local store sold. In my friend's opinion the Yamaha is made better. I know nothing about guitars and the price seemed very good.

robc wrote:

I ended up buying a Yamaha PAC012 from a local music store. It was between that and a Squire Bullet or Affinity. My friend owns the music store and gave me a really good deal - $135.That made it cheaper than the Squire Bullet another local store sold. In my friend's opinion the Yamaha is made better. I no nothing about guitars and the price seemed very good.

Well, you got it in the best conceivable way to get it, a recommendation from a friend who knows what they're talking about. Sounds like a great start.

nice! now that you saved money on a guitar you can buy CDN$ 4,955.61 worth of rocksmith dlc :E

Well damn, I lucked out. The soonest Amazon could get Rocksmith to me was on Tuesday. At 8:40PM on a whim I search teh Gamestop website for Rocksmith PC and it looks like they have the PC version for $20. I call my local store and they have it. I fly out of the house and make it there before the 9PM closing time. Downloading now.

That's awesome. Let us know what you'll be playing first.

Pro tip:
Use the riff repeater to learn the songs. You can loop sections of the songs or the whole song, then slow it down. Practice at the slow speeds, then gradually speed it up.

Be patient with yourself. It can be rough going in the beginning. Your diligence will pay off.

I just had a lot of fun playing the Ramone's song that's included in the game, slowly getting more notes to play. I never played it well, but I did make some progress. I also looked at some of the basic lessons.

One thing I didn't see that would be helpful is finger positioning for notes / which fingers to use. Does Rocksmith cover that? They have me sliding up the frets, but I never know when I should be using my pointer finger vs. another, or when I should be sliding my hand vs. reaching with another finger.I did the basic sliding lesson, but they didn't cover that.

Hey ho, let's go!

They do show chord names which is helpful... If you know the chords. One thing I consider essential to own is a chord book.

Blitzkrieg bop uses power chords which are based on barre chords. Just Google how those are played. They are simple, but hard on the fingers.

Also. Once the bug has bitten don't only use Rocksmith. There are other great resources including justinguitar which was recommended earlier.

Rocksmith gets you learning songs which is the fun part. But other techniques are better learned outside the software

It will often show finger positioning for chords. As the chord shape approaches on the note stream, you'll see numbers on each note indicating which finger to use. 1=index, 2=middle, 3=ring, 4=pinky. For individual notes I don't think this is done. That tends to be just experience and practice, although generally you want to anchor each finger to an adjacent fret. So if you're playing a series of notes that go 5th-6th-8th frets, use index-middle-pinky. That "box" gets moved around the fretboard as you play.

There are games in the Guitarcade that will teach you some basic chords; it's a pretty cool little teaching feature.

I just noticed the highlights on the note highway for the hand position on the fret, so that is helpful.

I think I’ll have to try Yousician or something to learn the basics of playing so I get into good habits.

There is a spike in difficulty, somewhere around the 16-20% mark in the songs I tried where I go from happily playing a handful of notes and getting a high grade to watching 50% of the notes go whipping by me. The game doesn’t seem to automatically slow down when I’m struggling, so it looks like I’ll have to adjust the speed manually when learning a song. It will change speeds automatically in lessons and practicing a riff I think.

In that Ramones song, go into the riff repeater. Highlight just a section or the whole song. You can manually adjust the speed and difficulty level. I would suggest putting the speed at 70% and the difficulty at 100%. I wouldn't suggest that for all songs, but definitely for Blitzkreig Bop.

Also, something that's not apparent is that if you do a chord lesson again, it's actually a different lesson.

I looked up the song list in Rocksmith just because I couldn't remember what the original songs actually were, as I . . . might have purchased some DLC. Uh, I apparently play DLC, because I barely played a bunch of those.

I did like Sore Tummy by Paws, it was catchy as heck. There are a lot of songs in that list that require Drop-D or other tunings, though.

Don't let Drop-D tuning stop you, it literally takes seconds to tune down to D and there are a lot of cool songs in that tuning.

pizzaddict wrote:

Don't let Drop-D tuning stop you, it literally takes seconds to tune down to D and there are a lot of cool songs in that tuning.

I think we had this conversation here already but the ones that drive me crazy are the songs that are just a shade off of A 440.

You can sort the songs by tuning. When I tune to drop D or E flat standard, I make sure that I play all of my favorites before changing my tuning again. I know that it doesn't take that long to retune, but it's sort of annoying.

I'll agree with you on the ones that are slightly off tune. It's annoying to have to retune every string just to so it's slightly off standard tuning.