![]() Rocksmith: A Guitar Player's Perspective. Share. Of course, their sentiment was less an encouraging call to ax's and more an acerbic attack on musical mediocrity – anyone can play guitar, but few of us can write genuinely good songs. Ubisoft's Rocksmith isn't too concerned with teaching you about musical composition – it's strictly about getting you up to speed with chords, scales and basic fretboard techniques and putting you on the path towards becoming a decent guitar player, and as long as you've got working sets of eyes, ears and hands (and/or incredibly dexterous feet), you'll be able to pick it up and play. But is it a worthwhile purchase if you're already familiar with the instrument? I played in a couple of different bands during my university years at various pubs and clubs in Sydney's inner city, but inevitably I finished studying, got a job, got married and my musical pursuits were pushed to the periphery. However, even though I might not play guitar for a living, I have spent well over two decades now playing guitar almost everyday – and back when I was a student and had minimum responsibilities or commitments (and no girlfriend), I'd often play up to six hours in the one evening. I couldn't get enough of it. Sure, Power Gig and Rock Band 3 have both previously dabbled in allowing you to use strings instead of coloured buttons, but Power Gig was straight up awful and Rock Band 3 required a specially designed Stratocaster. Conversely, Rocksmith works with each of the eight guitars I already own. That score sits well with me, as I feel that while Rocksmith is somewhat rough around the edges in terms of presentation, it certainly works at a technical level and indeed interprets the sounds generated by your fingers on the strings (occasional dud string bend not withstanding). My main concern prior to getting the game was that it might suffer from audio latency, but in both the IGN AU games room setup and my lounge room at home, the game performs with a barely tangible delay between the strings and the speakers (although for reasons unknown the song replays are always completely out of sync). So the first pass through a verse might just give you the root note in each chord, and then the next time through the game will reveal the fifth and octave notes and before you know it you're playing power chords. As someone who already plays (and given that I already knew how to play many of the songs on Rocksmith's soundtrack prior to getting the game), I found myself intuitively feeling out each riff and chord progression without the need for further instruction from the game, so it's hard for me to gauge how effective this method of teaching would be for someone completely fresh to the instrument. One analogy might be that learning to play a song from scratch in Rocksmith would be akin to learning how to spell a word by watching Wheel of Fortune, as you're given just hints of what's going on at first before eventually having the whole thing revealed, which might be interpreted as counter- intuitive. At the end of the day, the guitar is a very approachable instrument and most people will develop their skills by absorbing a variety of influences. I learned by studying a chord book and then taping songs off the radio (totally showing my age here) and figuring them out via trial and error. Not the most efficient way of learning, but you do end up with a pretty good ear for chords and scales, even if you can't name them all (I know plenty of scales by hand, but to me 'Phrygian mode' sounds like something you unlock in a shoot- 'em- up). It certainly shouldn't be perceived as the be all and end all for learning how to play the instrument – no one source can really claim that (not until Hendrix comes back from the grave and starts giving lessons). Nobody likes to practice scales, but building up your muscle memory is essential in order to improve as a soloist, so whereas I used to practice scales by absent- mindedly running through them while I watched something else on television, now I can try and beat my high score in one of Rocksmith's 'Guitarcade' games like Scale Runner and get a tangible indication of whether or not I'm improving. ![]() Rocksmith, Powerful Training Tool or Just Another 'Guitar Hero'? I really enjoy playing, and as someone who's prone to be easily defeated sometimes. Read below for our Rocksmith 2014. Sure you can get in there and learn a few notes of a. Notes fly at you just like in games such as Guitar Hero. It's not in any way going to take my playing to another level, but it is certainly going to make practicing a heck of a lot more enjoyable and it beats playing along with a metronome as far as tightening up my technique and phrasing goes. Although the developers have built the effects themselves rather than license them from effects companies like Line 6 or Digitech, they all sound great and I've spent a lot of my time with the game just fooling around with pedal combinations and chasing tones. The day that I can heat up some leftovers in my microwave by banging out the riff to 'Rock You Like a Hurricane' must surely be soon at hand. On Trying to Learn Guitar With Rocksmith 2. I have this daydream in which I'm sat in the SPOn. G Orbital Platform on my own one day and someone's left a guitar lying around. And, because making sure all the release dates are in order for hidden object puzzle games gets tedious sometimes, I just.. And pick a string. An hour later everyone gets back from lunch to find me stood, hunched over in a trance- like state, dripping with sweat, squalling out something that sounds like the result of Jimi Hendrix joining Explosions in the Sky. Everyone stands, transfixed, as I change the way they think about the guitar. ![]() ![]() It's an experience so epic and all- consuming that someone decides to fire the thrusters and drop us into the atmosphere so we can all burn across the sky while I play, and then the citizens of Earth cut my face into the moon as a testament to how amazing I am at guitar. Hello Rocksmith. This is not a review, by the way. For reasons that'll become quickly apparent, I'm not well- equipped to provide a thorough review. This is a report on what happens when you give a witless n. Rocksmith 2. 01. 4 to see if he can learn guitar. Things started well enough. The set- up requires you have a guitar and a lead that enables you to plug into your console (3. USB port. You set some basics, such as which hand you favour, whether you want to play bass, rhythm or lead guitar (I went 'lead', because of.. Then you get to the main menu, which is the point at which your hand stops being held. Listed are 'Learn a Song', Session Mode', 'Nonstop Play', 'Lessons', 'Guitarcade', 'Multiplayer' and 'Uplay'. It's not entirely clear what all those are without a bit of exploration, but it was pretty obvious where I needed to head. The lessons start off reeeeaaaallll simple. Like, 'here's how to hold your plectrum' simple. Which is good, because that's the exact sort of thing I imagine a self- taught guitarist can find they've been doing wrong for half a decade. Once you get to the stuff that involves playing actual notes the lessons start by giving you an explanation of what you're about to do, with video thrown in for good measure. When it's time to give it a go yourself, you'll be presented with an on- screen fretboard scrolling towards you that's not dissimilar from those you'd find in the likes of Rock Band or Guitar Hero if they were still around. Except, you know, this one has real notes on it. When it works, it's a great system. I can't, in fact, think of a format better suited to presenting you with how to play a song. It shows you where on the fretboard your digits need to be, gives you the timing in *ahem* real- time and has other parts of the music playing to give you audio clues as to what you should be doing. One huge advantage of a system like this if you're a bit useless is there's no- one in the room impatiently watching you. That was also, alas, where me and Rocksmith 2. You see, my fingers flit across the fretboard with all the dexterity of haunted sausages. Rocksmith has a couple of tricks up its sleeve to help you if you get stuck. First it will slow the music down for you. Then, it will take you back out of the exercise to show you video footage of some hands (there's never a head) doing what you're attempting to do, with some more explanation. But, sooner or later, you're left to repeat the exercise again and again until you get it. There's no suggestion of an alternate version of the riff. The game certainly can't nail the exact reason you're going wrong so that you can fix it. I was attempting to get a bend right, for example, and failing spectacularly. The game (which talks in a rad American accent) kept saying I was on the wrong string. For reasons that still escape me I was muting the string and producing a duff note. Understandably, however, the game couldn't see that. I'm not picking fault with the development team here – there are just natural limits to what a piece of software can do for you (for the time being, at least). I firmly believe that Rocksmith has a better chance of teaching me guitar than a book or a website, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm just too cack- handed for it to be up to the task of teaching me. If, however, you are less rhythmically- challenged than I am, I suspect the game/software can do a lot for you. A friend who'd probably fall into the 'intermediate' range took a pop at it and after five minutes or so came away quite pleased, having mastered the rudiments of Everlong by The Foo Fighters. There are 5. 0 tracks on the disc, running the gamut from Def Leppard to the Deftones. There are well over 1. Also added this time out are the 'Guitarcade' games, which are mini- games playable with the guitar. They're pretty good fun even if, like me, you have bear paws for hand. So, for the even vaguely able, there's a lot here. If, like me, you have barely- functional flesh- clubs where your hand should be, you may not get very far. Does Rocksmith actually teach you how to play guitar? EDIT: Lord, I ended up typing far more than I intended. I'm moving my tl; dr to the top. Yes, it'll teach you guitar. I haven't played it myself so I can only go off of what I hear from other people, hence all the wordiness in here. It's almost certainly a yes. The Rocksmith bundle comes with a real, actual, functioning Epiphone Les Paul Junior. I looked up a couple videos on the internet and learned to read tabs to teach myself how to play guitar, and getting the basics down is easy. I personally would never pay for guitar lessons. I have a friend (who is the frontman for Sk. Attered Union) who gives guitar lessons and he assured me that there's really not much they can teach you that practice and minimal research wouldn't do for you anyway. Note that I'm not saying this is a fact and that guitar lessons are useless, just that a guy who gives them told me that they are. Back to the main point, though. The game works on real, actual, functioning guitars. It teaches you how to play the real guitar, because that's what you're using as a controller. It'll show you chords, how to hold them, etc. Rock Band pro guitar taught you the names of the strings and which fingers to use to hold down which strings for chords, so I can't imagine Rocksmith would be any less helpful than that considering that you're playing an actual stringed instrument and creating the proper, actual sound out of your guitar at the same time you make the correct sound in game. There's also a mode that allows you to use all sorts of different amps and pedals and it even teaches you how to get the sounds out of those that you desire, both in game and for a real guitar. If it's detailed enough to teach you that, I can't imagine it wouldn't teach you basics. The E3 reveal and the trailers to date all say that it . Research into it yourself a bit more before making the full purchase. If you don't already own an electric guitar, the bundle will set you back $2. I plan on picking this game up to help me advance my skills and also just to have fun with it, so I also have looked into it quite a bit and it seems legitimate. It isn't Rock Band or Guitar Hero; you are playing a genuine instrument, not a controller.
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