Rocksmith

a l e x

Am I missing something here?!

A few people recommended getting Rocksmith to help with learning the guitar... It's awful!

What's the best way to use it to learn? I'll be playing a song, nice and easy, going ok and suddenly a chord I've never seen or played will appear! Surely it's better to teach this chord first?

What am I doing wrong...?!

LeftHandedMatt

Rocksmith 2014 is absolutely brilliant, but you need to use it in the correct way. Understand that it is NOT a complete guitar learning system, but rather the best practice tool you could ever ask for. It's best used to supplement other learning methods.

I wrote a review of it here: Rocksmith 2014 | Review | Gaming @ The Digital Fix

RBZ5416

Most of the RS activity seems to take place in the Xbox 360 > Music Games forum so you'll probably get more help there. I've only had a quick play with a mate's copy & found a couple of times that it did indeed tell you that a new chord was coming along & how to play it. But that seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. And as with most software these days, the lack of a paper manual to sit & go through with the game on the screen is poor IMO.

But for me the worst thing is the sheer amount of info flying at you. My poor brain just can't process it quick enough, & that's on relatively slow, uncomplicated stuff. Probably why my gaming never went beyond Space Invaders!

Kailash

I've heard great things about rocksmith and will buy it in due course I think
surprised its not the great learning tool its maybe meant to be?
I can play guitar so I guess it will be a supplement for me

Beximus

It's good, but it's not something that you could use as your sole learning tool.  It's definitely best used alongside lessons, whether actual lessons, or something like justinguitar and video lessons.  I think it kind of hovers between being a game or a learning tool and ends up being a bit of both, but not necessarily enough of either (if that makes any sense).  It shows potential as a learning tool and I think in time the technology will become better.

I find it pretty good as a beginner, but just jumping into the songs and trying to play them just doesn't work without the supporting lessons and techniques.  It definitely pays to look at what's available in the game, and you do really need to spend time on them, not just pay them a bit of lip service and them jump back into the songs again.

The Guitarcade games I find good to work up my basic skills - Ducks Redux for working up and down the fretboard, and String Skip Saloon for changing between the strings are the best ones, but as with practising for lessons, you have to put a fair bit of time into it before you get anything out of it.

Also, utilising the riff repeater in the songs helps you to break down a song that you're having trouble with.  You can isolate individual sections, and play them over and over, or slow bits down so that you can see the notes coming towards you better and get used to the patterns.  When you're in a song and have no idea what's happening, riff repeater is invaluable.  If you think about how you may be taught in actual lessons, you would be likely to break down a song into sections and work on them, riff repeater is the in-game way of doing this.  You can also lower or raise the difficulty level of the section there.  You're basically learning songs from memory, and playing over and over is the best way to remember what you're learning.  

Through Learn a Song mode, you get suggestions of what techniques to look at to help with the song, or a suggestion to practice a chord, things that will help you with the song you're looking at which I recommend as they're useful, so if you come across a chord you're unfamiliar with, in Learn a Song mode it doesn't matter if you don't play it, it will carry on regardless, but you can go to the chord book and look at the chord there.  So it doesn't necessarily tell you which chords will be in the song to start with (whether there are chords or not depends on the difficulty level you're playing at), but if you struggle, it will put looking at the chord in the suggestion list for the song.

If you're a beginner and you just jump straight into the songs, it is very off-putting.  One of the down points as a learner is that it's just too tempting to pick a song because you think it would be awesome to play, start it, fail miserably, and then put the guitar down and ignore it, which I have done!  But I know that if I really put the effort in with the techniques and Guitarcade games, I'll be giving myself a good chance for success.  I am hoping to pick up a tutor at some point soon to help me understand more of what I'm doing.

So yeah, at the moment it's not the best straight learning tool for a beginner, but if you put the time in, I think you can get a lot out of it.

I think if you can already play a bit, then it's a bit more like Rockband and Guitar Hero, but with more skill, and the opportunity to learn songs that you may never have considered, without having to peer at a tab on a piece of paper all the time.

Hope that's a bit helpful.

KungFuPro

Like LeftHandedMatt said, used correctly it can be a great tool to improve your playing. I have the pc version which can play custom content and I've been using it to brush up on loads of old Metallica songs. Creeping Death solo is one that I've always struggled with but since playing about with it in riff repeater I can finally play it without feeling like I'm rushing it, I've gone from 90% to 96% accuracy and the gamer in me wants to improve on that score.

I'm not a fan of Rocksmiths learning in real-time and adding more notes approach though. To me that's a selling gimmick, you can't learn proper technique that way.

Learning guitar is all about playing the same 3 or 4 notes/chords, at most a bar, over and over at a slow speed until it sinks in and speed naturally follows. You can't learn the mechanics of what your fingers are doing at full speed, if anything you'll pickup bad habits trying to learn songs in real-time.

For anyone thinking of trying Rocksmith I would recommend using the riff repeater with the note difficulty at 100% but slow the song right down to a speed you can manage. Don't worry about learning whole songs, just concentrate on one of two riffs at a time, go over it multiple times until you feel comfortable playing it then speed it up. Sure, try it at full speed now and again to remind your fingers of the speed you're trying to achieve, but you need to have it down accurately at a slow speed first.

It can takes weeks for basic techniques (hammer-ons, pull-offs) to sink in and years to speed them up, advanced techniques like alternate picking take months/years to get down so don't expect miracles within the first few months. Just enjoy learning little chunks at a time and build up a vocabulary of techniques over time.

Kailash

have they plans to release it for the xboxone; its probably the only reason im hanging onto the 360

KungFuPro

I haven't heard anything about Rocksmith for xboxone or ps4, maybe someone with a 360 might know.

Beximus

I would definitely be in favour of being able to turn the automatic levelling off, so you can keep it at the same difficulty.  I know you can do it in riff repeater, but just having one easy option would be ideal.  You just get comfortableish with a level, and then it adds a chord you've never seen before.  Pain.

Apparently there's issues with latency on the next gen consoles, so as far as I'm aware there are no plans to release this on the One.

hyperfish

It's not without its issues,  but I run the pc version on a laptop.