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[Lady Gaia]

Wait, so Rocksmith has a mode for bass guitar as well?

Absolutely! It's not treated as a second-class citizen, you just tell it whether you're focused on lead guitar, rhythm, or bass and everything past that is tailored to your choice (plus you can switch at any time.) I've been very impressed so far with only a few nits:

• The game keeps reminding me to check out chord charts, which isn't especially meaningful given my focus on bass.
• The selection of songs is pretty heavy on music I can't bear to listen to, much less play. That goes for the DLC as well. I wish there was a way to hide songs you want to pretend don't exist.
• At least one of the lessons seems to be extremely finicky. I can't get one of the exercises in the bass slide lesson to recognize that I'm doing what was requested, and I've heard from others who have had the same problem.

 

[Ethical Hedonism]

• The selection of songs is pretty heavy on music I can't bear to listen to, much less play. That goes for the DLC as well. I wish there was a way to hide songs you want to pretend don't exist.

It is kinda boring (and not an optimal solution) but you can favorite songs and sort the songlist by favorites first.

 

[Lady Gaia]

It is kinda boring (and not an optimal solution) but you can favorite songs and sort the songlist by favorites first.

I did try it, but I often find it useful to sort by other characteristics: mastery, artist, title, etc. It really would be nice to have a dislikes list in addition to the favorites.

Otherwise the game really is fairly brilliant. I'm blown away by the adaptive difficulty that can recognize when I can play some parts of a song at true to the original, but that some phrases need to be simplified for the time being. Really nice. The challenges it comes up with are really on point, too.

Here's hoping the holiday song pack makes an appearance again this week for those of us who missed out during previous years.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

So is there a way to repeat a very specific section of a song or do you have to use the sections they have in riff repeater?

That's probably my biggest pet peeve with this game.

 

[PaulLFC]

If I wanted the original Rocksmith just to import the songs into 2014, does it matter if I buy a used version or not? New versions still seem to be expensive here due to the cable being included.

Secondly, is the real tone cable cross-platform? I bought the PS3 bundle, but if I bought the game on PC, could I use the same cable?

 

[Xyber]

So is there a way to repeat a very specific section of a song or do you have to use the sections they have in riff repeater?

That's probably my biggest pet peeve with this game.

Unfortunately not.

Secondly, is the real tone cable cross-platform? I bought the PS3 bundle, but if I bought the game on PC, could I use the same cable?

Yes, cable works between both games and all platforms.


Downloaded a custom of Whiplash by Metallica and man that one is fun to play even though you are just chugging along on the E-string for most of the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwrEjD3EV7s

 

[methane47]

Wow this game is great. Let me explain exactly why in the shortest way possible.

I love to play the guitar. But "Practicing" is pretty boring. Especially since practice is more free form with no real goals. and it also takes a lot of work to setup different practicing scenarios.

This game, quite easily has made practice great and exciting and interesting. And with a couple button presses i can be practicing something completely different and always striving to attain a goal. Its great.

The only thing that I wish was different was that there were more genre's of music.

Used to tablature? - You can flip the board vertically to be more like a tablature layout. (Options -> Play Settings -> Invert Strings)

Why didn't i see this before. Changing this as soon as I get home.

 

[Milchmonster]

Just bought this a few days ago and it's definately an improvement over the old Rocksmith.

I have one problem, though. It seems that the game isn't saving my progress on songs regularly? I thought I was a bit confused as I've changed between rhythm and lead guitar quite often and wasn't sure how far I've progressed in each mode. However, after playing Blitzkrieg Bop and the song starting at like 50% difficulty, I was sure something's wrong.

Is that a known bug or is this supposed to be a "feature" as in "You suck in this song, you'll get downgraded in every other song, too"? Terrible either way, I hate it.

 

[Cess007]

I just ordered this game, and it will arrive on time for Christmas. I've seen some videos and some friends encouraged me to try. Any tips for totally newcomers?

 

[Katyusha]

I just ordered this game, and it will arrive on time for Christmas. I've seen some videos and some friends encouraged me to try. Any tips for totally newcomers?

If you're a complete beginner, I'd advise you to start out with lessons before jumping into learn a song mode. It'll help you get a good feel for your guitar and you'll learn some basic techniques.

I jumped into the OG Rocksmith without doing any lessons at all (granted, I had prior bass experience) and I kind of regret it, as I developed some pretty bad habits.

 

[CoG]

Want to buy this game for the PC. I had the old Rocksmith and didn't like the latency through the 360 to my receiver. My new setup will be PC and audio out through headphones on the PC.

Question: Can I choose which audio card to use for Rocksmith 2014 itself? I have 2 - 3 audio devices (mobo, video card, and dedicated card) and I would like to pipe audio through the dedicated card so I can have lower latency and not annoy neighbors (apartment life). Is it possible or do I have to change this in Control Panel every time I play?

 

[Xyber]

Want to buy this game for the PC. I had the old Rocksmith and didn't like the latency through the 360 to my receiver. My new setup will be PC and audio out through headphones on the PC.

Question: Can I choose which audio card to use for Rocksmith 2014 itself? I have 2 - 3 audio devices (mobo, video card, and dedicated card) and I would like to pipe audio through the dedicated card so I can have lower latency and not annoy neighbors (apartment life). Is it possible or do I have to change this in Control Panel every time I play?

You actually get the lowest latency using the motherboards soundcard. I can't use my Asus Xonar in this or the first game as it introduces too much delay.

The game uses whatever you have set as the standard audio device.

 

[Cess007]

If you're a complete beginner, I'd advise you to start out with lessons before jumping into learn a song mode. It'll help you get a good feel for your guitar and you'll learn some basic techniques.

I jumped into the OG Rocksmith without doing any lessons at all (granted, I had prior bass experience) and I kind of regret it, as I developed some pretty bad habits.

Thanks a lot. Yep, i'm a beginner so i think i will stick to the lesson for a while

 

[CoG]

You actually get the lowest latency using the motherboards soundcard. I can't use my Asus Xonar in this or the first game as it introduces too much delay.

The game uses whatever you have set as the standard audio device.

Yeah had to go down to the mobo integrated card to get decent latency. Could only bring the engine down to 2 but really good and usable. Rocksmith 1 was unusable on my 360 due to all the latency (probably 500ms). Really enjoying the game now.

 

[akira28]

Amazon has a deal for the DVD version plus cable for 50$.

 

[Thrakier]

While I think the standard riff repeater is a big improvement over 2013, I still have major problems to read these notes compared to a normal tab. It seems to be much harder to read. I don't know. MAybe it's just my brain.

 

[Xyber]

While I think the standard riff repeater is a big improvement over 2013, I still have major problems to read these notes compared to a normal tab. It seems to be much harder to read. I don't know. MAybe it's just my brain.

But reading a scrolling tab is way harder for the brain to keep up with and you can't really just start playing a song with all the notes using that (something I do with most songs in Rocksmith and it's been working great). There's too much information to take in. Here you just really need to learn what color each string is and after that it is very easy to see how to play something. No need to read the fret number for each individual note.

And out of the game I like tabs, they are better than riff repeater in RS since you can pick any notes you want and just practice that. Something I wished was possible in RS too. But a scrolling tab is not intuitive and I wouldn't pay money to just see a tab-like format in a game when I can play along with tabs for free anyway.

 

[CoG]

Here you just really need to learn what color each string is and after that it is very easy to see how to play something. No need to read the fret number for each individual note.

Why the hell is the G string not green and the B string not blue? Wouldn't that make more sense?

I'm having a little trouble ramping up to Rocksmith being a semi-average guitar player. I try to play the songs as if I am playing the song most of the time which is not really what the game wants. I either have to scale all the way back or the game assumes I am Yngwie Malmsteen and throws a million notes at me. Still a great game just hard coming from really playing to this.

 

[XShagrath]

Why the hell is the G string not green and the B string not blue? Wouldn't that make more sense?

I'm going to hazard a guess and say that it has to do with red/green colorblindness. If the strings were colored as you suggested, they'd be right next to each other. Also, I believe they use the same coloring order as the Guitar Hero/Rock Band games.

 

[R1CHO]

No free Christmas songs this year? Sad Panda

 

[Xyber]

Why the hell is the G string not green and the B string not blue? Wouldn't that make more sense?

As mentioned I think that was their way to make it as easy as possible for colorblind people, even though that didn't work out great for some (Vinny on Giant Bomb had some problems with it in the first game).

It took me a couple of days before I had the string/color thing down, but after that is was pretty easy.

 

[Sent]

Rocksmith 1 is $7.49 on Amazon for PC/Mac.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009GKT2W2/?tag=neogaf0e-20

 

[Thrakier]

But reading a scrolling tab is way harder for the brain to keep up with and you can't really just start playing a song with all the notes using that (something I do with most songs in Rocksmith and it's been working great). There's too much information to take in. Here you just really need to learn what color each string is and after that it is very easy to see how to play something. No need to read the fret number for each individual note.

And out of the game I like tabs, they are better than riff repeater in RS since you can pick any notes you want and just practice that. Something I wished was possible in RS too. But a scrolling tab is not intuitive and I wouldn't pay money to just see a tab-like format in a game when I can play along with tabs for free anyway.

Weird I feel the other way around. Do you know guitar pros pro tabs? This is the best way imo would love to see that in Rocksmith.

 

[toymachine]

Why the hell is the G string not green and the B string not blue? Wouldn't that make more sense?

It's a psychological thing

 

[vehn]

edit:nm

 

[Thrakier]

Why is the performance so shitty on this game? I got a fairly new samsungs series notebook with an i7 proc and a dedciacted, ahlfway decent nividia graphic chip. Still, this game is stuttering even on the lowest graphical setting and below my native resoultion 720p instead of 900p. What is wrong?

 

[toymachine]

Why is the performance so shitty on this game? I got a fairly new samsungs series notebook with an i7 proc and a dedciacted, ahlfway decent nividia graphic chip. Still, this game is stuttering even on the lowest graphical setting and below my native resoultion 720p instead of 900p. What is wrong?

Did you turn off the visualizations as well? Are all your drivers up to date?

 

[Katyusha]

I kinda wish there was a Christmas song pack this year as well. The pack from RS1 had some pretty fun songs.

 

[VillageBC]

I got this game for Christmas. Pissed off everyone tuning the guitar, fired up and Aerosmith song and crashed and burned.

I do not know how to play guitar at all. So their transition from intro, this is an open chord play a note too pick a song and play threw me. =)

 

[Thrakier]

This game is still so fucking frustrating. Granted I'm still a noob with a little more than a year on the guitar, but this game as either two versions it seems: it's fucking boring and way to easy or it's throwing way to many notes on me and I find the chords super hard to read for some reason. I stopped playing Rocksmith 2013 after about 20 hours for the same reasons and found "free playing" way more satisfying.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

I got this game for Christmas. Pissed off everyone tuning the guitar, fired up and Aerosmith song and crashed and burned.

I do not know how to play guitar at all. So their transition from intro, this is an open chord play a note too pick a song and play threw me. =)

Well, they did say "learn to play guitar in 60 days" not "60 minutes." I'm actually coming up on my 60 days since first picking up a guitar, I'll have to put a video together next week or something.

 

[Xyber]

Weird I feel the other way around. Do you know guitar pros pro tabs? This is the best way imo would love to see that in Rocksmith.

Yes, guitar pro tabs is a good way to display tabs because you have the option to stop it at anytime and play along with it when it plays back for you. The numbers are all static and you can see a bit ahead, that's a good thing. This is not the case with Bandfuse for example that uses a scrolling tab where you can only really see like 5-10 notes ahead and you have to focus a lot more to keep up with what you are going to play.

But using a guitar pro-style just wouldn't work with Rocksmith. It doesn't make any sense to take something that already exists and slap a "gamified" look to it and expect people to pay for that. In my opinion the Rocksmith way of displaying tabs is intuitive, easy to play along with and just makes a lot of sense for introducing new players to guitar. There's far less focusing on every single note. You just need to know the anchor position and can then easily see if you need to play the next note a half step, full step up or down the neck without actually knowing what fret it is on (this is simplifying it quite a lot, but you get the idea). So you use your peripheral vision more than having to focus on each note.

 

[PaulLFC]

Got the game (and guitar) today and I'm enjoying learning so far. Only have about an hour or two of experience up to now, but as well as playing the game itself, it's fun to find some easy tabs and play along to them - got the intros to Men's Needs and I'm A Realist by The Cribs down, just very, very slowly

The main thing I've noticed so far though is that parts of a song that only use 2 or 3 strings, I can play well - parts that use 5 or all 6 strings I really struggle with up to now. The main problem is having to both hold the correct note and play the correct string - often I'm finding myself holding the right string in the right place, but playing a different string.

Is it just practice, practice, practice that'll improve this, or is there a technique I'm missing that helps with playing the right string for each note?

I should say that I haven't completed any of Rocksmith's lessons yet, I've just been playing around with some tabs trying to see what I can and can't play. I should probably give the lessons a shot tomorrow and maybe they'll help - although I realise the biggest help is lots more practice

 

[saunderez]

Is it just practice, practice, practice that'll improve this, or is there a technique I'm missing that helps with playing the right string for each note?

It's just practice mate. Keep at it and you'll be blind picking all 6 strings accurately in no time.

 

[VillageBC]

Well, they did say "learn to play guitar in 60 days" not "60 minutes." I'm actually coming up on my 60 days since first picking up a guitar, I'll have to put a video together next week or something.

I gave it 6 minutes. =)

Mostly I was just commenting on how after answering it's initial questions. It didn't appear to dump me into the appropriate area and wanted me to play something after only doing one chord. Figured I would have ended up more in tutorial mode.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

I gave it 6 minutes. =)

Mostly I was just commenting on how after answering it's initial questions. It didn't appear to dump me into the appropriate area and wanted me to play something after only doing one chord. Figured I would have ended up more in tutorial mode.

I wouldn't give to much thought to the game's built-in challenge thing. I spent hours watching/doing the lessons before even touching a song. The song-specific challenges they put up just seem like "whatever." Its like, your Mastery is at 75%, raise it to 78%! That's not helpful. I don't need the game to suggest I use the Riff Repeater on a certain segment, I know I suck at it.

I suggest do as many lessons up through the first chords lesson, sort the songs by difficulty and start there. Then go back through a few more lessons. Etc. That's kinda where I'm at. I only have about half the lessons done because the difficulty of the lessons ramps up pretty heavily.

 

[Animator]

This game is still so fucking frustrating. Granted I'm still a noob with a little more than a year on the guitar, but this game as either two versions it seems: it's fucking boring and way to easy or it's throwing way to many notes on me and I find the chords super hard to read for some reason. I stopped playing Rocksmith 2013 after about 20 hours for the same reasons and found "free playing" way more satisfying.

You know there is this thing called riff repeater right? You are supposed to practice shit before you can play it.

A lot of people seem to want instant gratification which is not going to happen. You can always check out the tabs out of the game and practice there as well if you prefer the classic tab view.

 

[SFenton]

I'm loving reading these tab arguments and seeing that people either remember BandFuse or don't recognize that it exists.

 

[toymachine]

I'm loving reading these tab arguments and seeing that people either remember BandFuse or don't recognize that it exists.

http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=496411&page=3

The thread is waiting for people lol

 

[fred]

Absolutely! It's not treated as a second-class citizen, you just tell it whether you're focused on lead guitar, rhythm, or bass and everything past that is tailored to your choice (plus you can switch at any time.) I've been very impressed so far with only a few nits:

• The game keeps reminding me to check out chord charts, which isn't especially meaningful given my focus on bass.
• The selection of songs is pretty heavy on music I can't bear to listen to, much less play. That goes for the DLC as well. I wish there was a way to hide songs you want to pretend don't exist.
• At least one of the lessons seems to be extremely finicky. I can't get one of the exercises in the bass slide lesson to recognize that I'm doing what was requested, and I've heard from others who have had the same problem.

You should pay a visit to the Smithy's Anvil forums mate. There has to be well over 500 custom songs available for it now.

For the problems with slides being recognised you might want to check your intonation and make sure you don't push down too hard.

 

[sladeums]

http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=496411&page=3

The thread is waiting for people lol

I've passed up a few copies ~44 on Amazon Warehouse Deals the past couple weeks.
Still a little rich for me.

I'm interested in a few of the licenses they have, but every screenshot I've seen the UI looks soooo amateur.
Reminds me to look up some vids.

 

[SFenton]

I've passed up a few copies ~44 on Amazon Warehouse Deals the past couple weeks.
Still a little rich for me.

I'm interested in a few of the licenses they have, but every screenshot I've seen the UI looks soooo amateur.
Reminds me to look up some vids.

I'ma throw this out there- since the videos outside of the promotional ones you're likely to see are mine, AceAllYourBass, or elisoncruz (TheRiffRepeater)- the game looks *much* better in its natural 60 FPS than it does on Youtube. It'll look stutterry or blurry in videos, but in-game, it's buttery smooth (though not necessarily easy to sightread).

 

[sladeums]

I'ma throw this out there- since the videos outside of the promotional ones you're likely to see are mine, AceAllYourBass, or elisoncruz (TheRiffRepeater)- the game looks *much* better in its natural 60 FPS than it does on Youtube. It'll look stutterry or blurry in videos, but in-game, it's buttery smooth (though not necessarily easy to sightread).

Yeah just watched yer Hangar 18.
Pretty smeary there in spots.

The color shifting for fingering is pretty distracting .. that mighta just lowered my interest bout 10 bucks
lol

Thanx for the vids, btw. I know I've consulted quite a few of yours while making DLC buys.

 

[SFenton]

Yeah just watched yer Hangar 18.
Pretty smeary there in spots.

The color shifting for fingering is pretty distracting .. that mighta just lowered my interest bout 10 bucks
lol

Thanx for the vids, btw. I know I've consulted quite a few of yours while making DLC buys.

Oh well Hangar 18 is an exception. It's smeary even in game because it goes so fast.

 

[Gen X]

I've started getting bored of the track listing so decided I would buy Rock Band 3 but upon doing some research it appears you can't use a real guitar. Is this true? I would've thought that with the usb-3/4 jack lead I might be in luck but RB3 is set up differently and only allows midi equipment.

 

[Xun]

I'm playing the guitar more than ever, but I haven't bothered with this game for a while.

I have a week off next week, so maybe that'll change. It'll certainly speed the learning process up (along with playing in my band).

 

[Mr. Luchador]

The default track list is pretty shitty, far too many 'obscure' American (and British) bands for my liking. Sorry folks. Give me more classic Rock and big name bands, please! Or at least songs that are full on balls to the wall Rock you can play and sing along too.

Eagles
Queen
Led Zep
Motorhead
Metallica

Anything along those lines.

 

[TyrantGuardian]

Welp, bought this on Steam. Sm fucking h at how horribly the game handles professional usb interfaces. Get your shit together, Ubisoft, and patch in ASIO support. Guess I'll plug headphones into my on-board sound (lol...) for now.

Still waiting for the usb cable I ordered, so I can't play yet.

How does the game hold up for an experienced professional guitarist? I've been looking for some excuse to expand my horizons (and get some extra motivation) in-between the usual band rehearsals and songwriting, but I'm a bit worried about latency and how precise the input detection is. Would like to know what some experienced people have to say on the matter. How does the game handle tunings, btw? Locking bridge = fml.

 

[Xyber]

The default track list is pretty shitty, far too many 'obscure' American (and British) bands for my liking. Sorry folks. Give me more classic Rock and big name bands, please! Or at least songs that are full on balls to the wall Rock you can play and sing along too.

Eagles
Queen
Led Zep
Motorhead
Metallica

Anything along those lines.

If you play on PC, just visit http://forums.smithyanvil.com/index.php
Super easy to get customs to work. There is and will be songs from all those bands up there.

 

[Mr. Luchador]

Yeah, I keep meaning to check that site out to be fair.