How to learn the guitar in one week

chockomonkey said:
Anyone tried this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZRPDftt0dA

I have an ECHO Mia (or is it Darla? I can never remember) in my PC at home, so i could plug my guitar right into one of those large phono plugs.
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I dont see why it wouldnt work. Technically the Rocksmith cable is just a AD converter with Hi-Z input, mic connector with preamplifier that is (required for guitar, using normal mic input sounds like crap), same device as Behringer guitar-USB adapters and many others. Nothing magical about it, Rocksmith is just coded to work with its own cable and apparently it can be cracked.
 
So, how is this on the PC? I've been thinking about picking music up again lately; as a kid I screwed around with guitar, piano and trumpet. Unfortunately I've forgotten even how to read music it's been so many years.

If I picked up this, and a cheap electric guitar, would I be able to play on my PC with my headphones plugged in? I live in an apartment in the city, and there is no way I could play the guitar on an amp without getting kicked out.

EDIT: What I'm looking for is a fun way to get a few fundamentals down/back on my "feet" that I can then transition to sheet music on my own, or online tutorials. Do you think this would be an OK way to do this?
 
PC version is the ideal version, IMO. I had the PS3 version, but when the bass expansion came out, I decided to just buy the whole thing on Steam instead of the DLC on PS3 (hoping all the songs get massive steam sales).

You should be able to play on your PC with headphones no problem. Just be sure you are not using some post-processing USB headset or something, because you might introduce some audio lag into the game. There are ways to adjust it.

Played bass and guitar on it and it really does work. I played bass for many years and it was like riding a bike when I picked it back up again. I can't play guitar at all, but I am starting to pick it up thanks to the game.

I have not noticed any audio or display lag running my monitor via display port and analog out to my speakers. PS3 through HDMI was a different story.
 
TwistedAegis said:
So, how is this on the PC? I've been thinking about picking music up again lately; as a kid I screwed around with guitar, piano and trumpet. Unfortunately I've forgotten even how to read music it's been so many years.
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I picked this up on the PC via Steam, and ordered the cable from Amazon. I'm pretty much a beginner. I took lessons for 3 years about 6 or 7 years ago, but my teacher wasn't very good at teaching. I learned the basics of how to hold the instrument; pick; strum; play chords, notes, hammer/pull-off; harmonics, etc. I just never really learned to play anything or put that all to use. When I quit taking lessons, I pretty much stopped playing my guitars.

I've been playing Rocksmith about 2 hours per day since getting it. I'm using analog speakers (not HDMI) and my monitor is plugged in via DVI (not HDMI). After fiddling with the settings a bit, I've got almost zero lag. It's so little that it is not noticeable. I did initially have some lag, but I determined that it was mostly due to effects enabled on the audio output on my Xonar DX control panel. I set to "HiFi" and it works great. If I have it set to "game" mode or anything like that, there is noticeable lag. Sometimes I play through the speakers, sometimes I play with headphones. Both experiences are fine. I turn down the music volume a bit compared to my guitar volume in the settings so I can hear what I'm playing better fwiw.

What I like about Rocksmith is that it makes practicing guitar fun. I've played my guitar more in the last couple of weeks than I did in that many years prior combined. I'm definitely seeing progress. Rocksmith forces you to try to keep up. One of the things that held me back on my own was that when I'd try to change chords, I'd play one chord, pause, finger the next chord, then strum it. That makes it almost impossible to get to the point where you can switch chords smoothly. Rocksmith doesn't wait for you to switch chords. That makes it really hard at first, but it forces you to keep going when you make a mistake. My speed in switching between chords has improved dramatically. I also think that if you are going to play something for an audience (even of 1), if you make a mistake, it is vital that you just keep going. They may not notice if the mistake is small enough. If you stop, they will notice. Rocksmith teaches you to keep going.

Because it keeps pushing you, I've gotten better at bends and hammer-ons/pull-offs too. Significantly in just a few weeks.

There are downsides to it. First is that sometimes I play a note fretted correctly, not bending it at all, or even fretting it too hard and it registers as a different note. There are a few notes that seem to do this consistently. My guitar is in tune, and intonation is set perfectly. I'm not sure why it does this, but I'd like to figure it out.

Second is the way the game increases difficulty. It starts you out playing single notes. So for example, maybe you start out playing the third fret on the sixth string, followed by the fifth fret on the sixth string. The easiest way to do that it fret the 3rd with you first finger, then the 5th with your 3rd or 4th finger. Once you get good at that, it ups the difficulty and you find that those two notes are actually part of chords. Now, you have to move your hand between those two notes and fret them both with your first finger. Although it does show you where your hand should be positioned when playing the single notes (and therefore, shows you that you should be moving your hand) it is rather subtle. It would be cool if it could somehow give you a clue that you will eventually be playing a chord. A great way to do this would be to allow you to watch the game play the song perfectly, at 100% mastery, so you could see what you are working toward.

Third, when it increases the difficulty in the middle of a song, it can completely throw you off. You'll be playing along thinking, "Ok. I remember this part and can sorta play it," but when the notes show up, there are new notes and you go, "Oh crap!" There is no advance warning.

Fourth, Riff Repeater is an AWESOME tool. However, when you don't play something right, it doesn't give you any feedback like you get when you play the song. I've got one riff that I think I can play damn near perfectly, but for some reason it doesn't think so. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, and it doesn't tell me. BTW, I wish the feedback during the songs was in a nice, clear font and showed up in the same place on the screen every time. It is faded and shows up on the right or left; sometimes it alternates. I'm trying to watch the notes, so trying to catch the feedback is a bit tricky, especially since it doesn't stay up very long.

Last, it does "clean up" your playing a bit. I've mastered a couple of songs, but if I were to play them on my amp while listening to the song, it would sound like crap. My timing is not perfect and consistent, nor is my technique. I wish that once you master a song, it would force you to play it to a higher standard; even more precisely.

Even though I have those gripes, I love Rocksmith. I've been playing my guitar a LOT, and having fun doing it. I never had fun practicing my guitar ever before. That alone makes it worth the $80. Hell, I paid $40 a week for lessons for three years, and I've learned WAY more from Rocksmith than I did from those three years of lessons. That makes it well worth the $80 for me.

Oh yeah. One more minor gripe. The songs that come with the game are pretty much pop rock. Some of them are annoying as hell to me. The upside is that even the worst songs are at least fun to play. The DLC has a bit more variety (blues, metal, etc.), but it's still limited. As a metalhead, I want some real metal. Judas Priest and Megadeth are cool, but I'd like to have something a bit more up-to-date and extreme. There is one Lamb of God song, but I'm not into them (though I'll probably still get it). It seems like their musical choices are based on American popular music. What passes for metal in the U.S. is way different than what passes for metal in Europe. I'd like some European metal. But I can always learn that stuff on my own later when I pick up more skill.

Hope this helps. Sorry it's so long.
 
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Hmm, I have a set of Corsair HS1's, which are exactly the post-processing USB headsets you say I should avoid. Would I be better off picking up a pair of cheap analog ones?

EDIT: Thanks Yippee, that's great info. Think I'll troll CL for a cheap guitar and pick this up.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Hmm, I have a set of Corsair HS1's, which are exactly the post-processing USB headsets you say I should avoid. Would I be better off picking up a pair of cheap analog ones?
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Is there any way you can turn off that post-processing? If not, then you may have to. Try it first and see how it works.

When I initially tried playing and still had a bit of lag, I learned to anticipate the notes to compensate for the lag. Of course, you don't want to continue doing that or you will be reinforcing in yourself playing early. ;)

Think I'll troll CL for a cheap guitar and pick this up.
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If you do, consider spending the money on getting it professionally set up (My local shop will set up a Floyd Rose guitar for $70. A guitar without a tremolo would be cheaper). If the guitar's set up is not right, it will make playing more difficult. If the intonation is wrong, the game will have trouble interpreting the notes correctly. You can set it up yourself (see YouTube), but it's a PITA, and takes a while the first time you do it.
 
I tried to learn guitar like 7 years ago just to find out I utterly suck ass. 2 years of playing 20 minutes a week and I'm still not as good as buckethead.

would this game work for an acoustic electric guitar? Or do I finally have a reason to pick up a Parker MoJo?
 
I've read that an acoustic electric works fine but I've not tried it.

The PC version is far and away the best version. I originally bought it for the PS3 but quickly tired of the load times. On PC you can just about be in and finished with a song before the PS3 is even done loading the menu. It's literally a consistent 2-3 second load time vs. 1-3 minutes.
 
Bankie said:
I've read that an acoustic electric works fine but I've not tried it.

The PC version is far and away the best version. I originally bought it for the PS3 but quickly tired of the load times. On PC you can just about be in and finished with a song before the PS3 is even done loading the menu. It's literally a consistent 2-3 second load time vs. 1-3 minutes.
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Yeah, you reminded me how horrid load times were on the PS3.. Might check out the PC version. I unfortunately haven't played Rocksmith in several months, but I've been having the itch to start again due to this thread.

If I start again, the first thing I'm going to do is reverse how the frets are displayed on the screen so I can learn to read tabs better, since IIRC, the display is backwards from how tabs are.
 
got this for pc a few weeks ago. im already at 90% on 7-10 songs. played it on a desk top and tried it on a laptop with hdmi to a big screen. both have the chance to lag. i just unplug the cable and then place it back in if it gets bad..
 
Yippee38 said:
Is there any way you can turn off that post-processing? If not, then you may have to. Try it first and see how it works.

When I initially tried playing and still had a bit of lag, I learned to anticipate the notes to compensate for the lag. Of course, you don't want to continue doing that or you will be reinforcing in yourself playing early. ;)
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There is a lag setting in the game, at least for the PC version. Default is 40ms IIRC. I actually had to lower the lag to 20ms. Just get set up and dig into the settings menu for it.
 
djstarfox said:
There is a lag setting in the game, at least for the PC version. Default is 40ms IIRC. I actually had to lower the lag to 20ms. Just get set up and dig into the settings menu for it.
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Yeah. I played with all of those settings. None of them really helped much since I have an off-motherboard sound card. Turning off effects in my sound card control panel made a huge difference though.
 
Yippee38 said:
Yeah. I played with all of those settings. None of them really helped much since I have an off-motherboard sound card. Turning off effects in my sound card control panel made a huge difference though.
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what do you mean off-motherboard?

You mean a sound card in a pci slot or something?

Or like one of these?

fastrack_pro.jpg[
 
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my M-audio c400 arrives on the 3rd. I'll be trying this game out with an acoustic electric guitar.....I doubt it will help with my lack of talent but it might be fun.

So not a terrible song list some of them I already can play. As long as they don't force me to play the songs I don't want to play I'm all good.

"Song 2" Blur
"Are You Gonna Go My Way" Lenny Kravitz
"Plug In Baby" Muse
"In Bloom" Nirvana
"Breed" Nirvana
"Where is My Mind?" Pixies
"High and Dry" Radiohead



Just looked through the download list and its a pretty small list. I was hoping for some Tool since I know bits and parts from pretty much all of their songs but have never played through one.....Seems like a perfect bad for this type of things their guitar lines are quite easy and and fun as hell.
 
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SoAndSo said:
you need to learn the boring side (theory) etc to really learn to play
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you don't need to get deep into theory at all... unless you want to be a shredder making nintendo music on a guitar. that said though, i don't think rocksmith is going to make anyone really know what they are doing. for someone that says they want to learn how to play and are opposed to spending money on a real instrument, as opposed to a video game, they aren't real serious about learning how to play to begin with.
 
Banyan said:
for someone that says they want to learn how to play and are opposed to spending money on a real instrument, as opposed to a video game, they aren't real serious about learning how to play to begin with.
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Except that this game requires you to already own a guitar to play it. If you're talking about the bundle containing a crappy Gibson Jr., they don't sell it anymore.
 
Banyan said:
you don't need to get deep into theory at all... unless you want to be a shredder making nintendo music on a guitar. that said though, i don't think rocksmith is going to make anyone really know what they are doing. for someone that says they want to learn how to play and are opposed to spending money on a real instrument, as opposed to a video game, they aren't real serious about learning how to play to begin with.
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you know, for the first few years i was learning to play i figured that exact same thing. You know what i learned? when i went to get some lessons and learn various modes and scales my skill as a guitarist increased substantially.

the mini games that rocksmith have built in are actually pretty handy for someone who is just starting out on a guitar, that said, if someone wants to actually get good, they will spend just as much time practicing on rocksmith as someone who learned without it spends on practicing basics when they start.

all in all, its an ok game, but thats about all it is, i wouldn't go buy this expecting to become a guitar god thats for sure
 
I bought the game through Steam (it was $15!) and now I need the cable. Does the cable come with the boxed games and if so is it universal? I'm showing the PS3 version of Rocksmith at wal-mart for $20; if it comes with the cable and that cable is a USB cable that can be used on a PC then I'll just buy that!
 
Finally got around to setting this up.....and this game is annoying for people who already know how to play the guitar a little bit.

I can play Plug In Baby already but because they don't give me all the notes it fucks me all up. Is there anyway to force them to spit out the full song?

In terms of learning I think its a bad Idea too. You'll get used to hitting just 1 note not knowing which cord it is a part of so you know which finger to use.



I spent a good 3 hours setting it up. This is my first time using my cheap acoustic electric guitar as an electric and it sounds like utter shit. So googled up a bit and found a patch/hack that allows me to any cable so I use my C400 audio interface which helps greatly.....I have to use it ghetto style and go from Guitar to interface to interfaceMicOut to PC MicIn because this game only lets you use the mic in port and nothing else. I'm going to try and use my microphone instead of plugging it into my piece of shit acoustic and if that doesn't help the quality out I'm going to go pick up an electric....I wish I was rich enough for a Parker fly I'll probably settle for a Hellraiser C-1


Once I finally get out of amateur the game will be much more fun.
 
stevedave said:
Finally got around to setting this up.....and this game is annoying for people who already know how to play the guitar a little bit.

I can play Plug In Baby already but because they don't give me all the notes it fucks me all up. Is there anyway to force them to spit out the full song?

In terms of learning I think its a bad Idea too. You'll get used to hitting just 1 note not knowing which cord it is a part of so you know which finger to use.
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What I do is go into the Riff Repeater and select Accelerator. When it starts the first time, hit Esc, then set your mastery level to 100% If you can play it at 100% speed (you can manually set that also, or select a lower level, let it start, then his Esc again and turn on acceleration), it will then give that section to you at 100% mastery when you play the full song. If you do it for the chorus, it will give you every chorus at 100%. Same for verse.
 
stevedave said:
Finally got around to setting this up.....and this game is annoying for people who already know how to play the guitar a little bit.

I can play Plug In Baby already but because they don't give me all the notes it fucks me all up. Is there anyway to force them to spit out the full song?
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I posted this exact same thing on another forum after getting the game a couple weeks ago. It makes you realize you can't play as well as you thought. If you could, it wouldn't be any trouble hitting a couple single notes while staying in time. I've found the easier modes are good for relearning without looking at your guitar at all.
 
It also annoys me that you can't select difficulty.

All the songs I can already play make me start off in kiddie mode. Oh well, 3 or 4 times through a song will give you the full thing.
 
big_aug said:
I posted this exact same thing on another forum after getting the game a couple weeks ago. It makes you realize you can't play as well as you thought. If you could, it wouldn't be any trouble hitting a couple single notes while staying in time. I've found the easier modes are good for relearning without looking at your guitar at all.
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No I knew how bad I was before playing this game. This game just messes me up by doing the 1 note thing. For instance I went from getting 60% with 1 note to 95% right once it started playing the whole song.... but this only with songs I already know which is like 4 or 5 of them. The rest I go up in progression.

For me it would be better if the put the whole song up and just highlight 1 note at first. This way you can see what that 1 note will turn into so you can get your hand placement right. Or they could put a number below indicated which finger you should use.

Setup my acoustic through my mic and its much better....but I'm still going to go buy an electric.

Yippee38 said:
What I do is go into the Riff Repeater and select Accelerator. When it starts the first time, hit Esc, then set your mastery level to 100% If you can play it at 100% speed (you can manually set that also, or select a lower level, let it start, then his Esc again and turn on acceleration), it will then give that section to you at 100% mastery when you play the full song. If you do it for the chorus, it will give you every chorus at 100%. Same for verse.
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thanks definitely going to try this
 
Skimmed most of this thread and as a guitarist I wanted to offer a bit of advice to aspiring guitarists.... PRACTISE. No game or exercise, no matter how excellent or efficient, will help you become a good guitar player without a shit ton of practise. I laughed at several of you who said things like "I played 20 minutes a week for 2 years and didn't improve" -- Of course you didn't at 20 minutes a week, you spend far more time taking dumps each week than you do playing guitar at that rate. My first 3 years of playing guitar I played 2 hours per day, often more than that. Not religiously of course, there were days I didn't practise because my fingers hurt too bad or I was not near my guitar, but the average was at least 2 hours per day 24/7/365.

Without passion and experience you can't become truly great at an instrument. You can learn the notes, do the drills, follow the steps, engineer the notes into place, but without the passion and practise you can't possibly create music.
 
requiem99 said:
"I played 20 minutes a week for 2 years and didn't improve"
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hahaha that was me. It was also a joke though.

While practice is important its important to not overlook talent. I hate when people say 'I could be as good as XYZ if I just practiced as much as him' While not a bad idea to practice more there is a lot of natural ability with music that some people have it some don't.

2 people both with the same amount of practice doesn't produce the same outcomes. I've seen a few with talent excel far faster than other with the same efforts.

Unfortunately I have very low talent in the musical world. So I'm not very good for more than just lack of practice... despite my passion.

On the bright note I bought an electric schecter hellraiser special solo 6 for $450 at guitar center...not the best deal in the world but not bad...duel audio nobs have me quite confused though need to download the manual.

Edit...For what ever reason I can't play Well Ok Honey. So far everything else has pretty much be playable except this one...time to go learn it with power tabs first.
 
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FYI for people on the fence, this is Steam's daily deal today. 50% off, puts it at $15. The DLC is not on sale sadly, but it's a good price for the game.
 
Grabbed this from the Steam deal a couple weeks back, got the cable for $20 from buy.com. Wish I had passed.

I should note, I'm somewhere between beginner and intermediate. I can't play much in the way of actual songs (excluding fakebook type stuff), can't solo/improvise, can't really play out of first position, and don't know any theory. My problem is I go through phases --- 2-3 months practicing nearly every day, then 6 months without touching a guitar. So I haven't really gotten anywhere in the 2.5 years I've owned my acoustic.

Anyway, I played through I think 9 songs (2 events, can't beat the first nirvana song on the difficulty it gave me to get the 3rd event), and I doubt I'll be playing more. Going to try using the cable to run my guitar into a digital amp and see what I can come up with, because I probably won't be using the cable for Rocksmith...

--All of the menu options are tiled, they're not listed. Lrn2design.
--When chords happen on the screen during a song, unless you're in the chord minigame, they don't tell you WHAT the chord is if you already know them, and I think they're pretty poorly represented by the notes on screen, I have a hard time figuring them out to keep up with the song in-time. EDIT: Apparently I lied, I noticed they *did* show up for some songs, but it doesn't appear to be ALL songs. Don't know what's up with that.--Sometimes it's hard to tell which fret they want you to hit because the board is angled like guitar hero is. I almost wish they'd go with something like DDR where it's flat/straight.
--Did I mention the menu is bad?
--The difficulty adjusts mid-song. I had a streak of missed chords on one song, and I was moving between two chords, and the 2nd chord would disappear because I missed the first one and the game decided I wasn't ready. Happened 4-5 times in a single song where notes/chords would just up and disappear because I missed some notes.
--To me, it seems the way they have the strings assigned is upside down (they have low E on top like it is on a guitar, but it just seems backwards when watching on screen for some reason) -- that's probably just a "me" thing.
--Can't find a way to turn off the guitar tuner. I may be in the minority, but both of my guitars are $500+ guitars, and neither one of them is going to go out of tune between two 3 minute songs. I don't need to tune before every song, and in the terrible interface, I can't find a way to turn it off.


TLDR: Waste of money. Going to just go back to Hal Leonard books and justinguitar.com.

EDIT: Did play a little more last night just because I was at my computer.......unlocked the duck game, that one's actually kind of fun. Would possibly be good for speed stuff, but I'm not sure how *useful* it would actually be.
 
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I used a crack to crack mine so I can use any cable. Without the cost of their cable I'd say I got my moneys worth easy.

Still stuck at 99% on Plug in Baby....I keep fucking up 1 or 2 notes somewhere in this song. I went through and played each song once....but then they looped me back around and I have no desire to play some of the shit on their list.

Here are the only songs I'm going to master

"Song 2" Blur
"Sweet Home Alabama" Lynyrd Skynyrd
"Unnatural Selection" Muse
"Plug In Baby" Muse
"In Bloom" Nirvana
"Breed" Nirvana
"Where is My Mind?" Pixies
"Go With the Flow" Queens of the Stone Age
"High and Dry" Radiohead
"Vasoline" Stone Temple Pilots
"Space Ostrich" Disonaur

once I'm done here I'm going to download these

"Gone Away" The Offspring
"Come Out and Play " The Offspring
"Self Esteem" The Offspring
"Bohemian Rhapsody" Queen
"Killer Queen" Queen
"I Believe in a Thing Called Love" The Darkness
"The Final Countdown" Europe
"Cliffs of Dover" Eric Johnson
"Juicebox" The Strokes
"Last Nite" The Strokes
"Reptilia" The Strokes
 
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