An Epic Quest for Anyone: Let's Play Rocksmith (either)

[Hemiak]

Played about 20 min last night. Tried the last song for the current set,  Space Ostrich. Lots of tremolos, not very catchy. Anyway,  played it,  did riff repeater for a section or two,  played again and qualified. That was it for the session. 

 

Got a little more than an hour this afternoon. Played S. O.  again for a warm up. Then performed the gig. For the first time ever I didn't get an encore. I wasn't expecting to,  but it still hurts.  got about 245k pts for the 4 songs,  I think I needed about 280k. 

 

The next set was awesome. 3 songs I had completely over performed previously but hadn't spent too much time with. Slow Hands by Interpol,  Higher Grounds by RHCP,  I Want Some More by Dan Auerback. Gave each one 10-20 min and had smashed all the qualify scores,  so decided to play the gig. Got a work call after the first song so I paused it. Came back 15 minutes later and apparently RS decided to unpause when my Controller shut off. It was almost done with the 3rd song. I paused again and quit the gig. Then I decided I should hang out with my kids since I have to go to work in a bit.

 

Then,  wonder of wonders. The wife gets a call for a play date and the whole brood tumbles out the door. I restarted the gig,  smashed the set and got an encore. Turned out to be an STP song I dont know,  which I didn't think was possible. Did well,  but it started the song way more leveled up than I was prepared for,  so didn't earn a double.  Another 330k RS points,  I'll hit 20 mil  in no time.... :/

 

Oh,  I earned 97k on Slow Hands and almost fully leveled the song. Only this one super long slow solo part in the middle that is leveling really slow,  so I'll probably RR that to get it maxed sooner. 

Edited March 18, 2016 by Hemiak

[Hemiak]

Had some 20-30 min sessions over the last couple days, and then yesterday got in 45 in the morning and another hour last night.

 

Just been working on qualifying to play the next gig.  I don't remember the first song, but it's having me work on 'Number Thirteen' by Red Fang, 'Use Somebody' by Kings of Leon (great song btw), and it also gave me 'Where is My Mind' by the Pixies.  I guess the game thinks I'm doing all right, because the lowest qualifying score was 56k for the first two songs, 73k for US, and 90k for WiMM.  Each song is taking at least two plays to get leveled, with some Riff Repeater sprinkled in on the more complicated sections to raise the mastery and figure out what the hell is going on.

 

For the first time ever, the game asked me if I'd like to lower the qualifying score on a song... :'(  Apparently 3 plays of WiMM to get from 71k to 90k is too many.  I told RS to go screw its helpful self and went back into RR for the verse, which I thought I had leveled more than I had.  I finished the night with the first three songs qualified, and WiMM sitting at a heartbreaking 86k.  

 

The solo for that song isn't hard, but it has a bunch of bends right in a row.  It recognizes the 9th fret G string bend just fine, but it won't hear the e12 bend for anything.  I eventually just cheesed it and dropped down to e14 (playing normally) and it registered every time.  Got the solo and the chorus up to about 95% mastery each, verse has been at 100% for a long time.  I think it was just a matter of frustration and trying too hard that was keeping me from hitting the target.

 

I also picked up an unexpected trophy for earning 50 effects pedals.  You get one every time you earn an encore, and whenever you get a song up over 70k points. Wasn't expecting that to come just yet, but I'll take it.  Still have to earn about 13.5m more RS points for rank 11 (sitting at about 6.5m now) and I'm not sure how close I am to the "collect 48 guitars" trophy.  You get one every time you play a gig, and that's the only way to earn them.  I'm probably sitting between 10-15 atm.  

 

I should probably go back to working on the last three mini games soon, scale runner especially.  I find myself recognizing scales during song solos, but it's still not ingrained in me.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Hemiak

[StrickenBiged]

Sounds like you're getting in more regular practice @Hemiak. Do you feel it is paying off? Sounds like it is. 

[Hemiak]

Sometimes it doesn't feel that way since you have to work so much harder to master the last 20% of a song, and that's where I'm at in a few if them. But if I take a step back it's definitely noticeable. I recognize some patterns and progression used in a few different songs and even some of the solo sections are easier to fake my way through on the first or 2nd run of a new song.

I had two questions for people I forgot to ask.

1)Each game has tone pedals that you can earn and use throughout the game. They each even have some trophies tied to them. Other than for the trophies, how much (if any) time do/have you spent messing with them? For me the answer is none, I'm here to learn to play, not to play around with effects. I'm sure if I was a lot farther along and was just grinding out the end game it might serve to keep things interesting, but I'd rather just be playing at the moment.

2)Riff Repeater in 2014 is far superior to the original so I don't even know if it has this feature. Does anyone actually use the Free Speed setting? I usually use leveller, and if I can't figure out a section I'll use accelerator, but I really dislike the free speed setting. That's the one that plays normal speed but then pauses and rewinds a bit if you make a mistake or miss. Just curious.

Bonus: how do you practice? Do you always do some scales or games to start? Or maybe you jump right into learning something new? Maybe you like to warm up on a familiar song. Or maybe you just do whatever you feel like each time.

I almost always start with a full song, but after that it's pretty much free flow. Depends on how much time I have and whether I have the living room to myself.

Edited May 31, 2016 by Hemiak

[StrickenBiged]

Sometimes it doesn't feel that way since you have to work so much harder to master the last 20% of a song,  and that's where I'm at in a few if them. But if I take a step back it's definitely noticeable. I recognize some patterns and progression used in a few different songs and even some of the solo sections are easier to fake my way through on the first or 2nd run of a new song.

 

Yeah, I'm finding the same on guitar. The last bit of levelling is always way harder than the first bit. It'll go from showing you the basic chord shapes and transitions to then suddenly saying: "oh yeah, that shift is actually a slide, and that chord is palm muted, and here's a single note or two that is played in between the chords, have fun, thanks for playing."

 

... 

 

 

1)Each game has tone pedals that you can earn and use throughout the game. They each even have some trophies tied to them. Other than for the trophies,  how much (if any)   time do/have you spent messing with them?  For me the answer is none,  I'm here to learn to play,  not to play around with effects. I'm sure if I was a lot farther along and was just grinding out the end game it might serve to keep things interesting, but I'd rather just be playing at the moment. 

 

I've barely spent time messing with it myself. I think it's there as a tool for the guitarist who wants to go out into the real world and play. I don't know if you can do it in RS1 but it's sometimes interesting in RS2014 to load up a preset from a song if you found the effect interesting. If you wanted to play a cover in real life and you wanted to know what pedals the band used to achieve that sound, it'd be really interesting. 

 

2)Riff Repeater in 2014 is far superior to the original so I don't even know if it has this feature. Does anyone actually use the Free Speed setting? I usually use leveller,  and if I can't figure out a section I'll use accelerator,  but I really dislike the free speed setting. That's the one that plays normal speed but then pauses and rrwinfs a bit if you make a mistake or miss. Just curious. 

 

Eh. I don't think 2014 has this feature. 2014's got dynamic speed changing, so if you start  the riff you want to learn at 80% speed, you can also tell it to start increasing speed once you've played the riff properly at whatever accuracy you want. 

 

 

Bonus: how do you practice? Do you always do some scales or games to start?  Or maybe you jump right into learning something new?  Maybe you like to warm up on a familiar song. Or maybe you just do whatever you feel like each time. 

 

I usually start with a song I know quite well to get warmed up. I focus most of my time in Learn a Song, but it's pretty free flow from there. At the moment I'm letting the Rocksmith missions guide me around the game. They're quite good at keeping you on your toes. 

[Hemiak]

Lol, 3 days and one response,  awesome. I have no idea how I missed the notification from your response though Stricken. 

 

I've hit a new low. After two more attempts at Where Is My Mind,  RS again kindly asked me if I wanted to lower the qualifying score. I caved in and said yes. RS kindly lowered the qualifying score from 90k to 86,503, my exact score on my previous attempt. I played it one more time,  and beat it by 400 pts. I finally played the gig. I smashed the scores on the first three songs,  and then had a measly 82k on WiMM,  no encore. I think I can definitively cross that off my 'next to master' list. On the other hand,  I got Use Somebody by KoL up over 90k so that's a contender. 

 

Then I played Big Swing Baseball,  another mini game vastly inferior to its 2014 counterpart. I won't explain it,  but it's a pita for sure. Like many of the originals,  it's the randomness of the game that makes it way harder than it needs to be.

 

None of this was helped by the fact that playing an unbent note only registered correctly about 50% of the time.  If you play the wrong string or fret he'll spin around and you'll get a message. That doesn't even happen on the straight notes. He just stands there and watches the ball go by. The game never once registered an unbent E string note on any fret. I'll admit it,  after watching this happen over an over I said screw this crap and decided to cheese it with the pause trick. I truly see no value in this mini game at all,  and will never play it again. 

 

Played a little more scale runner and I'm improving,  still a ways to go before I hit my target score on the first scale,  and then 10 more after that.  XO

Edited March 25, 2016 by Hemiak

[Hemiak]

Been practicing a little almost every day. No major developments game wise yet. However I'd like to make a (semi) important PSA:

I was wondering why it was taking me so long to reach the next game rank when I was playing so many songs that I was scoring so highly in. Apparently you only get full RS point value for a song if you play it in a gig. If you use the RS recommends practice, or choose a song practice /perform, you only get RS points equal to the difference if your score improves. That 20 mil points is looking farther away by the night.

[ArK_TatiCo]

I recently bought the game. and it was great, especially 2014. Unfortunately my guitar is not in good condition. But in a few days I'll buy a new =).
I'm in the early stages, and I like to play more rhythm guitar (solos are not for me), get platinum, will be difficult.
and songs f ... !! They are amazing. I am proud of my 92% in bat country.

[skateak]

 

I had two questions for people I forgot to ask.

 

1)Each game has tone pedals that you can earn and use throughout the game. They each even have some trophies tied to them. Other than for the trophies,  how much (if any)   time do/have you spent messing with them?  For me the answer is none,  I'm here to learn to play,  not to play around with effects. I'm sure if I was a lot farther along and was just grinding out the end game it might serve to keep things interesting, but I'd rather just be playing at the moment. 

 

2)Riff Repeater in 2014 is far superior to the original so I don't even know if it has this feature. Does anyone actually use the Free Speed setting? I usually use leveller,  and if I can't figure out a section I'll use accelerator,  but I really dislike the free speed setting. That's the one that plays normal speed but then pauses and rrwinfs a bit if you make a mistake or miss. Just curious. 

 

Bonus: how do you practice? Do you always do some scales or games to start?  Or maybe you jump right into learning something new?  Maybe you like to warm up on a familiar song. Or maybe you just do whatever you feel like each time. 

 

I almost always start with a full song, but after that it's  pretty much free flow. Depends on how much time  I have and whether I have the living room to myself. 

I plateaued a while back and took a 2 months hiatus but it seems to have helped.  I just have an issue where if I put it off for 3 days or so, I will continue to put it off until I realize that I didn't spend $600 to 'Hope' I learn to play.

 

1.) I think I played with a couple authentic tones but never messed with any settings. They don't explain enough about what each slider does so I avoid all of that.

 

2.) I use the stock settings in RR for the exception of difficulty and speed. I usually turn off the level up setting so I don't get thrown extra notes.

 

3.) I usually warm up some in Session Mode for 10-15 minutes using what ever band Rocksmith recommended and then turn 'Grove' to 'Changes' so the scale and positions change to keep me on my toes and to learn how the scales merge together while staying in the same key.

 

I have made a pretty good dent in the trophy list but the ones I am missing will take a while to get. I have seen some decent progress since I started a little over a year ago and had no real experience playing guitar before that. At least 7 months of that was wasted last summer and beyond when I started a new job and my hands were to sore to play. If I had to put a number on it I would say I have a total of 3-4 months of dedicated practice and haven't even finished "The 30 Day Challenge" on the Ubisoft site.

 

http://psnprofiles.com/trophies/2958-Rocksmith-2014

Edited April 21, 2016 by skateak

[Hemiak]

I recently bought the game. and it was great, especially 2014. Unfortunately my guitar is not in good condition. But in a few days I'll buy a new =).I'm in the early stages, and I like to play more rhythm guitar (solos are not for me), get platinum, will be difficult.and songs f ... !! They are amazing. I am proud of my 92% in bat country.

Welcome bud.

snip

Thanks for the responses.

I jammed the hell out of my left ring finger playing basketball two weeks ago. I've got full range of motion but it still feels bruised in the knuckle. I can do most everything, but trying to press a string down is still highly uncomfortable so I haven't played in over two weeks at this point. I'll get back to it soon hopefully.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Hemiak

[skateak]

Man, I hate chords. I can't seem to get some of them to ring clear no matter how I try to angle my fingers or twist my wrist. I can do scales all day, no problem, at a pretty quick speed. It is so stupid. It really just seems like my fingers are won't fit on the fretboard but I don't even have fat fingers. I have a friend with sausage fingers and he shreds like crazy, I don't know how he does it. Right now I am talking about a B chord. Mute E, D 2nd fret pointer finger, A 4th fret middle finger, G 4th fret ring finger, B 4th fret pinky finger, e 2nd fret pointer finger.(barred)

 

I don't get what I am going wrong. My middle finger simply doesn't have enough fret space to not dampin the A string and make it twang. I can't move it any closer to the fretwire because my ring finger is freting the G and my pinky is right underneath it frettiing the B, nor do I have enough surface area of my pointer finger on the high e so it is also damping the sound and twaging it.

[Hemiak]

OK, so to be clear, you're basically playing a regular A Chord moved down two frets from your Barre correct? I'm a lazy bastard and I just Barre the top string with my index finer, and then I hold all three other strings down with my ring finger, with it slightly lifted off the e string.

It might not be the "correct" way to play it, but it's the best most consistent way it found to hit that chord quickly and make it sound good. I've got pretty long thin fingers so this might not work for everyone.

I also just ignore the top E string and begin my strum on the a string, so I don't have to worry about muting E.

snip

Edited April 23, 2016 by Hemiak

[Storm]

Is it fine to join this topic if I don't play on Playstation? I play Rocksmith via Steam

 

Rocksmith/Rocksmith 2014 (Steam)
Path: Guitar/Bass/Rhythm
Electric: Ibanez SA160FM

Bass: Ibanez GSR180
Intermediate I guess, can't shred those insane solos, but can hold my own through most songs... starter on bass, learning them finger picking skills!

Rocksmith Achievements 20/60 (worth going back and playing this? I moved on to RS2014 instantly, but I'm tempted to go back and try play through the "career" mode which I didn't do back in the day.

Rocksmith 2014 Achievements 14/47

 

Not really going for achievements, just learning a song and improving my skills, I'm a drummer, not a guitarist so this should be fun.
 

[Hemiak]

Is it fine to join this topic if I don't play on Playstation? I play Rocksmith via Steam

 

Rocksmith/Rocksmith 2014 (Steam)

Path: Guitar/Bass/Rhythm

Electric: Ibanez SA160FM

Bass: Ibanez GSR180

Intermediate I guess, can't shred those insane solos, but can hold my own through most songs... starter on bass, learning them finger picking skills!

Rocksmith Achievements 20/60 (worth going back and playing this? I moved on to RS2014 instantly, but I'm tempted to go back and try play through the "career" mode which I didn't do back in the day.

Rocksmith 2014 Achievements 14/47

 

Not really going for achievements, just learning a song and improving my skills, I'm a drummer, not a guitarist so this should be fun.

The more the merrier man.

[Storm]

Yeah, should be a interesting thread to keep checking in on for sure, bass is my most recent focus, but I switch between them all pretty frequently

[Hemiak]

Yeah, should be a interesting thread to keep checking in on for sure, bass is my most recent focus, but I switch between them all pretty frequently

If you're more interested in bass check out Stricken's thread here. He's playing 2014 and mostly working bass.

http://psnprofiles.com/forums/topic/30737-strickenbigeds-epic-quest-for-another-platinum-and-rock-godhood/page-1

[Storm]

Thanks for the thread, it's been interesting reading through it, not finished reading it yet but pretty good so far.

 

I decided to redownload Rocksmith 1 onto my PC today, It's been a real eye opener to how much the game has actually improved my skills, I remember the first time I loaded it up, it took me about five attempts to qualify on "Where Is My Mind?", Did it not only first time today, but my performance on that and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was solid enough that by the time I went to actually play the concert mode, it was nearly all the way leveled up.

 

Also had a double encore, both songs I had never played before, "Chimney" and The Police's "Synchronicity II", managed to nail both sightreads so I was really happy with that... I remember when getting those Encore bonus's seemed impossible!

 

EDIT:

 

Sneaked in another hour (Quite literally, was playing in my kitchen in order not to wake anyone up) and happy with some of my progress, started to get "Ziggy Stardust" and "The Man Who Sold The World"'s purple sections on lead. still need to work on some things though, Got my ass kicked by "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"

Edited April 24, 2016 by Storm

[Hemiak]

Just an FYI, RS 2014 is 9.99 ps3 and 14.99 ps4 on the NA store right now. I'm going to grab it now and hopefully that'll help me get back into it.

[StrickenBiged]

Just an FYI, RS 2014 is 9.99 ps3 and 14.99 ps4 on the NA store right now. I'm going to grab it now and hopefully that'll help me get back into it.

 

Did you get it? How you getting on?

[Hemiak]

I did get it... I haven't started yet.  With my kids swim team and a series of bugs moving through my house, other gaming projects, and general laziness, I haven't had the opportunity/motivation to start the game. It is however downloaded and installed (w/ patch) on my system, so one of these days the guilt of dropping $9.99 for absolutely no reason will get to me.

[StrickenBiged]

When you do get round to it, I think you'll find it much more enjoyable than RS1. Hope to see you playing soon!

[Hemiak]

So I finally found someone who has a RS cable they were willing to loan me for a week, so I knocked out the two player bs trophy.

I them fired up my shiny new (digital actually) copy of RS 2014 and gave it a whirl.

About an hour total, played several songs, dinked around with the riff repeater a bit, and played some Gone Whalin and String Skip. Mostly I was just following the RS recommends stuff and a couple missions.

Felt good to be playing again.

[Hemiak]

Played for about 30 minutes in the afternoon, and another hour last night. Mostly just using the missions to get familiar with the various moving parts.

I've tried a couple more songs, I'm currently working on the rhythm path, so more chords, less solo-ish parts. I both like and dislike the removal of gigs. It's nice to just go work whatever you want, but at the same time it was kind of cool to regularly try out new songs. I have a feeling this way, I'll get to the end and have like 8 death metal songs to play in a row to finish playing every song.

I played about 4 more guitarcade games. Finished the first part of both Scale Warriors and RtC Chordead. In each game I'm getting my multiplier to x2 before moving on.

I've passed RU Mine on med score attack, and Every Breath You Take on easy. I like the mode so far, as it actually matters whether you play well.

Fired up session mode for several challenges, and got three trophies out of it. Honestly this is by far the least interesting mode to me, I can't see myself "playing around" here except as needed later for trophies.

Hope to keep up the steady practice over the coming weeks.

[StrickenBiged]

Fired up session mode for several challenges, and got three trophies out of it. Honestly this is by far the least interesting mode to me, I can't see myself "playing around" here except as needed later for trophies.

 

Actually, I've been getting into session mode a bit more lately. There's not much music theory in the game, but what there is is found here, I've recently discovered. 

 

 

I've tried a couple more songs, I'm currently working on the rhythm path, so more chords, less solo-ish parts. I both like and dislike the removal of gigs. It's nice to just go work whatever you want, but at the same time it was kind of cool to regularly try out new songs. I have a feeling this way, I'll get to the end and have like 8 death metal songs to play in a row to finish playing every song.

 

Don't be in any rush to go for the "played all the songs" trophy. The longest trophy to grind is definitely the 500 missions one, so save some of them for the "play X new song(s)" missions and you'll be making progress towards two trophies at once.

[Hemiak]

Naw, I'm not in a hurry to play everything at once, just making an observation . I've probably only played about 6 songs so far. I'll probably eventually import the original RS songs. But I'm not big on DLC so I probably won't purchase anything else.

One weird thing that happened yesterday. I had missions for playing an 80s song, and playing a drop D song. I found a Queensryche (sp) song that filled both categories. I hit play and it asked me to download it for $2.99. I had the list sorted by year, but I didn't think it would list DLC songs unless I owned them. Has this happened to anyone else? If so is there a box I can check somewhere to exclude those?