jetwash69

You're going to need Ubisoft's $30 USB adaptor. People have reported on UG that it Rocksmith wouldn't recognize their Lightsnake, Behringer, and other 1/4" to USB cables or interface boxes either.

Ground.7

Works fine with Active Pups

St John 999

Bit more feedback as Newbie on Rocksmith.

I have turned the fret over to emulate Tabs – that now makes sense.
The Riff repeater bit is useful for learning tracks, and you can adjust the complexity level for what you are learning – but on PS3 you have to pause the track after it starts and then select mastery and tweak it up – as you feel like.
The higher mastery levels can be quite challenging so I have to remember this is a game and keep advancing along – at around 50 – 70 % mastery for most stuff.
Getting lots of practice playing lots of different styles.
My left hand is now a lot stronger for runs and the likes, I was initially surprised how much stamina you need to play a whole song through.
My right hand is picking the strings more accurately too.

Down side – you can get away with sloppy technique and still get a good score. I have to remember to take time out to do my book work – but Rocksmith is allowing me already to play in a group and have a load of fun.

Best part is playing a gig. I get right into it. Pretend its the real thing. Get the butterflies as you glide around the virtual venue. Kinda like you are arriving early to set up. And then there's the crowd standing all expectant... The first time when I was going really well and they got out their iphones and started videoing me, I cracked up.

I recommend Rocksmith to anyone who wants to play electric guitar.

Thank you to Jetwash69 for the really useful hints – this opened up Rocksmith for me to use more easily.

Currently at local headliner level, and the neighbours dog is now deaf...

stanadon

i've heard you apparently need an amazing sound sytem or you get serious lag hope this isnt the case as the game looks really good!

jetwash69

There's no connection between the quality of your sound system and lag. Here's the skinny on lag:

If you're using HDMI for your audio then you're probably going to get extreme lag; you solve that by using the analog stereo jack to ouput audio instead of HMDI. In some rare cases that might mean you might not be able to use a TV's built-in audio.

If you're playing it on a PC, you can have lag issues regardless of how you run the audio. Especially if it's a slower PC or you have a lot going on in the background (other applications and/or utilities/services). I get the sense that's not so much of an issue with game consoles, but I don't have personal experience with that.

It has lots of lag on one of my older laptops, and a little bit sometimes on a newer one (both 2+ghz dual cores). I didn't even bother with it on our newest laptop because it's just a cheapo single core.

TekGecko

To be honest, and this is just my opinion but I think it's a game that teaches you how to play a GAME but with a guitar. Not the other way around. I haven't found it helpful really and I tried playing plug in baby which I can play fine normally by following the not highway and I just couldn't get my head around it so ended up playing without looking at the screen and getting a great score lol. I am going to just use my cable as a line in for my electro acoustic...

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St John 999

To a certain extent you are right Tekgecko, as I know my guitar skills are really better than come out on the game as I am deciphering string colours rather than just playing the notes. I know at the nut end of the guitar I could read music faster than I can read the revolving cubes. BUT at the dusty end of the guitar around fret 12 – 17 the game kicks butt. I have no idea or want to know what those notes look like written down. I just want to nail them and can quite often with this system.

The game allows you to play with a real backing band - ( as in the real band) which I feel is priceless for me. My eventual aim with guitar is to be able to play in a small group and have fun. I feel Rocksmith is teaching me lots of useful skills in this respect – eg keep going even if you hit the wrong note but don't hit the right notes at the wrong time, get some of the notes right and it can sound good, if you have a feel for the song playing extra notes is okay too...

It is allowing me as a beginner to have fun with contemporary music – instead of doing boring exercises based on 1950's music etc. I am starting to get a greater appreciation for the music I play – I never really understood the complexity of most songs that you tap your foot along to at the pub.

It is nice to have a purpose to your guitar playing early on in the learning process.
I also think it is important to have a learning system going along in the background. Here again Rocksmith compliments nicely – with the guitarcade games – on chords and scales – I have only justs started on these – but they will be a useful addition to practice.

Good as my friends are, I cannot see them being as tolerant to my mistakes as Rocksmith, or as available, ie whenever I get a mo' and can kick the boys of the PS3.

St John 999

Regarding sound lag
On PS3 - Using HDMI only was just noticable -
Using AV RCA cable from PS3 output into small desk top speakers – (2.1 setup)
so little lag it is un-noticable and has no real effect on game play (still got HDMI video so nice quality though)
Sounds brilliant too
Got these speaker cheap but with nice subwoofer unit. The room rocks and I get regular requests to 'turn it down'. A combination of great speakers and lousy playing no doubt.

Perhaps if you channel your sound through a home ents system you introduce more delay.
So cheap wins here.

jetwash69

Only if the home entertainment system is hooked up to use HDMI for the audio. Otherwise it doesn't matter. Most decent systems have options to hook it up either way.

PluckingGood

I have my xbox running audio through the HDMI and there is little if any lag. I had my component cable ready to switch up but didn't need to. Wish I still had my home audio system for this game and then it really would rock.

Not a Les Paul

It makes sense that it would work with a Sustainiac, since driving the strings wouldn't fundamentally change the makeup of the signal. Glad to hear confirmation that it works though, since I got mine I can't resist using it.

Will Rocksmith accuse you of missing a the note if you flip the Sustainiac on?

I've got it coming for PC for Christmas. I'm not worried about lag, my rig is more powerful than any PS3/360. The song list is meh, but what I'm excited about is scale exercises and stuff that can expand my knowledge base and technique. Plus, having a whole suite of simulated amps and effects at a reasonable volume is worth the price alone.

Does it have sweep picking exercises?

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2012 Schecter Blackjack SLS Avenger FR-S
2010 Schecter Solo 6 Limited Edition w/EMG 81/85
Epiphone Goth Explorer w/EMG 81/81
Schecter Omen 6 w/EMG 81X/85X
Aria Les Paul w/EMG 81/85 ZW
Blackstar HT Club 40 w/4x10 cab

jetwash69

There's more to the Sustainiac than just driving the strings. The documentation talks about the dirvier becoming an active pickup. You can call Maniac Music if you have deeper questions (just Google them). They are friendly and willing to answer questions like that.

As for accusing you of missing a note if you flip the sustainiac on, that all depends on what you mean. If you mean just using the driver in the normal mode, and muting the strings that shouldn't be ringing, then no. If you use the mix mode or harmonic mode, then that will confuse the hell out of Rocksmith.

No sweep picking exercises in Rocksmith. None of the songs available for it use that technique.

Rocksmith completely ignores the technique of vibrato. There is a tutorial on pinch harmonics, but none of the songs seem to use that technique either; just natural harmonics. Finally, it doesn't do "dead strings" either; the closest it comes to that is palm muting.

The amp simulation is very cumbersome and limiting. There's no way to control effects on the fly. If that's a big reason you want the software, then you're better off spending the money on Reaper and a USB interface, then download amp and effects VSTs. Otherwise you may be disappointed.

Rocksmith is great as on tool for teaching you guitar, or helping you go from intermediate to advanced playing, but it won't get you to the higher levels of shredding.

Not a Les Paul

No dead strings? It doesn't have these?

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How do you have guitar songs without them?

Ignores vibrato too? Damn. I guess the scale running will at least be useful. Wonder if the DLC A7X songs are all rhythm, or if they actually get into the advanced stuff.

And yeah, I LOVE the Sustainiac harmonic mode, I'll be sacrificing a lot of high scores to it...

__________________
2012 Schecter Blackjack SLS Avenger FR-S
2010 Schecter Solo 6 Limited Edition w/EMG 81/85
Epiphone Goth Explorer w/EMG 81/81
Schecter Omen 6 w/EMG 81X/85X
Aria Les Paul w/EMG 81/85 ZW
Blackstar HT Club 40 w/4x10 cab

jetwash69

"No dead strings? It doesn't have these?"

No, not like this:

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-3-
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Instead it would do this:

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So you could either finger pick the octave or play it like it has a dead string in there; but it won't matter to Rocksmith.

I don't have any DLC songs yet. The included songs don't have any sweep picking that I've come accross yet (I've played all the songs in at least of the arrangements, and most of them with several. I'm not even halfway thru the "Elite Guitarist" rank yet; I've only had it since it came out for PC about a month ago or whatever.

I Googled the A7X DLC and the videos I saw didn't show any sweep picking, though Afterlife should have some. That video was labeled Combo 2 Syn's part, but it clearly didn't do all the solo work; maybe that would be in Combo 1 or Combo 3. I can't remember if Beast and the Harlot has sweeps or not; it's been so long sing I've played it, but I was still very much a beginner with guitar back then--sweep picking definitely would have gotten in the way big time. I don't know about nightmare; I haven't been impressed with their stuff after they lost the Rev.

It would be cool if Rocksmith can do sweep picking via DLC. I wonder if the A7X pack comes with a tutorial on sweep picking. The standard content doesn't include that. It's only $8 or so for the pack. Go for it! Let us know.

BasementCat

The amount of lag comes down almost entirely to your sound system and TV. If your TV and sound system are low latency, you won't suffer from much latency. If they're not, you will. I've done some travelling with an XBox 360 and found that latency wasn't noticeable, even with HDMI, on any of the TVs I used. However, nearly all of them were Vizios, so it could just be a good brand for latency-sensitive uses.

It's a fun game. It's basically just playing along to various songs with a computer checking your playing against the chart. Plus a built-in amp simulator and "Amazing Slow-Downer" equivalent.

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jetwash69

Really? You know it is out on PC now, so most people using that version aren't even using TVs or sound systems. But a lot of them are still reporting lag. Lag is much worse on one of my older laptops, and it's pretty OK on one of the newer ones even though it doesn't have a discrete graphics card like the older one. But I won't even bother loading it on my newest laptop because that only has a single core.

The thing with the lag is it's not always constant. Sometimes I have to shut it down and start over after an hour or two because it gets progressively worse.

TunerAddict

Which is a result of your system.

jetwash69

Exactly.

Not the TV.

Not the stereo.

Doesn't matter if I use onboard speakers or plug it into a stereo. Doesn't matter if I use the built-in display or jack into a seperate monitor or a TV. Because the lag is in the computer. Maybe it would be worse if I tried to use HDMI for audio, but the main cause is the computer itself (including the operating system and anything going on in the background).

WholeLottaIzzy

I've changed my mind on rocksmith. I played it again the other day an wasn't finding it too fun. I've put it up on by. I'd rather be learning a song properly instead.

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