Rocksmith Catch All

RawkGWJ wrote:

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.

Pro Tip: Buy more guitars!

So I just bought this when I realized the I could play this with my acoustic guitar. Fingers already sore so I'm taking a break. I'm a super beginning so giving my something that I can practice with is nice. I figure an hour a day will be good and get my fingers in shape.

Pretty fun overall and better use of my time then say twitch/reddit/imgur.

I've never tried to play this game on an acoustic guitar. I can't imagine that it would be enjoyable. If there was a special acoustic guitar version of the game, that focused on acoustic guitar songs, I would be very interested in trying it. But that hasn't happened yet.

I started with my acoustic, but it struggled to pick up a lot of the high pitch noises past the 12th fret in game.

Definitely can see that, but I'm an absolutely beginner who mostly just needs motivation to practice. If I wind up taking this serious then the plan is to pick up an electric guitar. So far it seems to recognize the notes pretty well. Did have some trouble with the mini games. They are definitely not optimized for acoustic.

I took 5 years of guitar lessons between middle school and high school (which is now a distressingly long time ago) and have played guitar with varying degrees of focus in the many years since. I picked up the original Rocksmith sometime in the year or two after its release, but put maybe 45 minutes into it at that time before I decided I hated the interface and I was too frustrated to figure out how to dial the difficulty into something consistent with my skills. But in the last few weeks I've been feeling musical and so I decided to give Rocksmith another try. And I'm really liking it! I'm not sure if I fiddled with the right setting or if I just played enough that the game figured it out for me, but generally I'm being asked to do stuff that is like 15% over my head, so that, as I'm sight-reading this music as it's flying down the highway at me, I can nail most of it but really h ave to fight to get through certain sections in a way that feels productive.

I wish there were a way to get some idea of what was coming in the song without having to specifically load up the riff repeater mode to practice trickier sections, because some songs, especially when they're songs I haven't heard, are unreasonably difficult to try to pick up while the notes are just flying at your face. I also am still struggling to internalize their string colors and sometimes get confused about which number slot a note is supposed to appear in. It's also very strange how many load screens I have to sit through, since I have a pretty solid gaming PC and this is a ~6 year old game.

How much better than original Rocksmith is Rocksmith 2014 Remastered? If I'm enjoying original Rocksmith now, should I soak up all of that content before moving on to 2014, or does 2014 have sufficiently meaningful improvements that I should just make the jump now? My biggest frustration at the moment is the menus, loading screens, and interface. If 2014 has improved and streamlined that process, or has a more interesting career progression, I might want to make the jump now, but if the 2014 version is just more music and some new features but overall is the same game, maybe not worth it at the moment. What do you all think?

In a similar vein: I bought a guitar, but have not yet picked up the software. Should I jump straight to Rocksmith 2014, or should I start with the original Rocksmith so I can understand the backstory?

Spoiler:

Serious question, wiseass reasoning aside

Rocksmith 2014 has much needed quality of life improvements and the lessons feel better structured and guide you better than the original.

merphle wrote:

In a similar vein: I bought a guitar, but have not yet picked up the software. Should I jump straight to Rocksmith 2014, or should I start with the original Rocksmith so I can understand the backstory?

Spoiler:

Serious question, wiseass reasoning aside

Thankfully there is absolutely zero story. Just plug in a guitar or bass and start rocking faces.

Rocksmith 2014 Just works better than the older one.

IMO, the biggest reason for buying the original is bringing over the original songs as DLC. There are a few easier songs in the original than there are in 2014. That, and as far as I know, steam hasn't fixed the DLC issue where in order to purchase older songs, you must have a copy of the original. With the original between $10-$15 and the import tool probably another $10 it's a bit of an investment though (although with the game on sale it becomes paying full price for more).

That being said, I don't see any reason to actually play the original game, just jump in to 2014.

mrlogical wrote:

How much better than original Rocksmith is Rocksmith 2014 Remastered? If I'm enjoying original Rocksmith now, should I soak up all of that content before moving on to 2014, or does 2014 have sufficiently meaningful improvements that I should just make the jump now? My biggest frustration at the moment is the menus, loading screens, and interface. If 2014 has improved and streamlined that process, or has a more interesting career progression, I might want to make the jump now, but if the 2014 version is just more music and some new features but overall is the same game, maybe not worth it at the moment. What do you all think?

Rocksmith 2014 is better in every way, and likely fixes a lot of the things you don't like. Loading times are much shorter, it doesn't make you tune over and over, and the mechanics for practicing with the riff repeater are much better. I've gone back to the original to play a couple of the songs that did not transfer to the new version, and I could barely stand it.

If any of your struggles are due to the software (as opposed to the guitar itself), 2014 is a no-brainer.

Yeah, 2014 is definitely the way to go. And pick up RS1 and the Importer DLC when they go on sale.

Thanks for the feedback all! I'm convinced--I just purchased Rocksmith 2014 on sale at GreenmanGaming for $10 on their holiday sale. Excited to check it out later this week. Not sure whether I'll bother spending another $10 to import the original Rocksmith songs, but I guess I'll have to browse both libraries later to see whether I feel there are songs I like enough that I want to bring them over.

mrlogical wrote:

Thanks for the feedback all! I'm convinced--I just purchased Rocksmith 2014 on sale at GreenmanGaming for $10 on their holiday sale. Excited to check it out later this week. Not sure whether I'll bother spending another $10 to import the original Rocksmith songs, but I guess I'll have to browse both libraries later to see whether I feel there are songs I like enough that I want to bring them over.

The import dealy-ma-bob is a pretty good bargain, but it's not going away any time soon. There's no rush.

That's not entirely accurate. It comes with Limelight and there is a whole DLC bundle with Tom Sawyer and several other songs.

Oh man, I spent an hour or so with Rocksmith 2014 last night and you all were not wrong--what a huge improvement over original Rocksmith. I spent so much more of the time with it actually playing guitar rather than waiting through loading screens. I'm quite sure I'm going to end up spending hundreds of hours on this.

Is there a good way to browse the available DLC? Through the Steam app on my PC, I can either expand the list of DLC on the store page to see 1000 or so songs scrolling all in a row, or I can click on the DLC tab but it just takes me to a blank white screen. The Steam store website can also give me a long list, but I think/hope there must be a better way to sift through this stuff. Any thoughts?

Also, does DLC from original Rocksmith work with Rocksmith 2014?

All OG DLC works. But you might need the import thing.

mrlogical wrote:

Is there a good way to browse the available DLC? Through the Steam app on my PC, I can either expand the list of DLC on the store page to see 1000 or so songs scrolling all in a row, or I can click on the DLC tab but it just takes me to a blank white screen. The Steam store website can also give me a long list, but I think/hope there must be a better way to sift through this stuff. Any thoughts?

https://rocksmith.ubisoft.com/rocksm...

I just played this again for the first time after picking up a couple of songs. My new favorite song to play is Cinderella's Don't Know What You've Got (Til It's Gone). This song more than any other makes me feel like I'm contributing even when I'm not playing a lot of notes.

Sorry if this has been addressed elsewhere, but it wasn't coming up via the search tool:

I'm considering picking up RS 2014 Remastered for the PS4 for my son for Christmas. I read that there are issues with the PS4 and latency relating to the HDMI signal. Is there an established workaround for this? I saw something about using a digital-to-analog converter but just want to check in with the court of the Game King before committing.

hubbinsd wrote:

Sorry if this has been addressed elsewhere, but it wasn't coming up via the search tool:

I'm considering picking up RS 2014 Remastered for the PS4 for my son for Christmas. I read that there are issues with the PS4 and latency relating to the HDMI signal. Is there an established workaround for this? I saw something about using a digital-to-analog converter but just want to check in with the court of the Game King before committing.

Well, all I can say is it depends on the speed of your AVR hardware. I have it on PC but the concept is the same. On my old audio system I couldn't use HDMI or optical audio out because of really significant latency. I was fortunately able to run analog directly out of my sound card. I very recently changed to a new Denon AVR and am now running through HDMI passing video to my TV. I can put it in "Direct" mode and get no (well imperceptible anyway) audio latency.

hubbinsd wrote:

Sorry if this has been addressed elsewhere, but it wasn't coming up via the search tool:

I'm considering picking up RS 2014 Remastered for the PS4 for my son for Christmas. I read that there are issues with the PS4 and latency relating to the HDMI signal. Is there an established workaround for this? I saw something about using a digital-to-analog converter but just want to check in with the court of the Game King before committing.

While I haven't utilized a PS4 for Rocksmith, I spent WAY too much time trying to get the audio just right from my setup out from my PC. I ended up picking up a inexpensive DAC to convert the optical out, and I just use headphones as it ended up being the simplest solution. Essentially you want to be as analog as possible and you should have no issues. If your son gets really into guitar, then you can start looking into mixers and quality AD boxes to split the signal to the PS4 and an amp.

Thanks! I'll look into having an analog option ready to go and it sounds like that should do the trick.

Wow, Rocksmith doesn't have audio & video latency adjusters, similar to how Rock Band (and I think Guitar Hero, too) did it?

merphle wrote:

Wow, Rocksmith doesn't have audio & video latency adjusters, similar to how Rock Band (and I think Guitar Hero, too) did it?

It does, but the addition of a real guitar can make things a bit wonky. Making that one to one, I play a note on my guitar and hear it through my audio seems to be a bit trickier and even a little bit of delay when playing can drive you crazy with a real guitar, IMO.

Thanks, that makes sense. I'll be getting my guitar (and Rocksmith, accordingly) on the 25th, so just planning ahead.

Yoreel wrote:
merphle wrote:

Wow, Rocksmith doesn't have audio & video latency adjusters, similar to how Rock Band (and I think Guitar Hero, too) did it?

It does, but the addition of a real guitar can make things a bit wonky. Making that one to one, I play a note on my guitar and hear it through my audio seems to be a bit trickier and even a little bit of delay when playing can drive you crazy with a real guitar, IMO.

You have to take into account there is no way for Rocksmith to compensate for you physically picking the string, the sound getting converted for the software, then sent back out to the audio processor which will then add its own latency in. As I mentioned if you have an AVR that you can set to take the signal from the console directly without additional processing you can minimize that effect. This didn't work with my old system but is totally fine on my new one.

Another fairly novel solution is to use a buffered ABY splitter to actually run the guitar to Rocksmith for the video and note detection, turn the guitar sound down completely there, and then run the other side of the splitter to a real pedalboard and amp. The big advantage there from a practice perspective is you hear yourself much more clearly. Rocksmith heavily gates your signal and you lose a lot of dynamics and sensitivity. The downside is you need to roll your own tone.

Here's a buffered JHS splitter for 80 bucks:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...

On Xbox1, I've always had a slightly noticeable delay. It doesn't ruin the experience, but it certainly detracts from it greatly. I'm going optical out, directly to headphones, with all audio processing turned off. I would guess that the delay is about 0.2 seconds. By that, I mean that if I palm mute a note, I hear it just a tad after I actually strike the note. Just enough to be noticeable, and just enough to prevent a perfect score when I know I played every note accurately.

If anyone has any advice for eliminating this problem, please let me know.

edit:
ibij and I posted almost simultaneously. That sounds like great advice, though a bit fiddly and costly. It's probably the best solution, but I'm open to hearing other ideas as well.

RawkGWJ wrote:

On Xbox1, I've always had a slightly noticeable delay. It doesn't ruin the experience, but it certainly detracts from it greatly. I'm going optical out, directly to headphones, with all audio processing turned off. I would guess that the delay is about 0.2 seconds. By that, I mean that if I palm mute a note, I hear it just a tad after I actually strike the note. Just enough to be noticeable, and just enough to prevent a perfect score when I know I played every note accurately.

If anyone has any advice for eliminating this problem, please let me know.

The problem is likely the optical connection. If you can find a way of passing the sound direct through HDMI to analog you may be better off.

Edit re your edit: It's fiddly, but if you already have a rig anyway it's going to cost you less than 100 dollars and really is far better in terms of separating the skill (or in my case the lack thereof) in your own playing from the processing Rocksmith does. If you're super casual it's a lot of work but worth it if you want to learn to play outside the software. (You absolutely must get a BUFFERED splitter, though - a true bypass splitter will kill your signal)

imbiginjapan wrote:

The problem is likely the optical connection. If you can find a way of passing the sound direct through HDMI to analog you may be better off.

Wow. Thanks for the quick response.

Could you elaborate on this? Or post a link that shows me how to do this? I'm not sure about what kind of connectors or wires I would need.

edit:
Apologies for the simultaneous posts.