Rocksmith 2014 Day 3

Day 3 saw an epic milestone: the first successfully completed song on Score Attack.

Song - Paint It Black
Score - 77265
Difficulty - Easy
Finger Callus meter - 2

I found this song to be a lot of fun for my current skill level. There weren't any slides and long shot movements across the fretboard.  The song was just slow enough for me to be able to look down at my fingers (both fret and strum) in case I ever got lost.  The action was enough to make me feel like I was actually contributing to the song, instead of being a giant road block. [video below, not me]

 I also went back to the Guitarcade games to see if I had progressed. My first attempt on these games from Day 1 wasn't the best, and saw more frustration and impatience then I would like to admit.  I couldn't even get more than 10,000 pts on most of them that day. 

One thing I knew even before I started Guitarcade was that my picking had definitely improved. When I started I had a lot of trouble just switching between the E and A strings, however now I'm able to go between [1]E, [2]A, [5]B, and [6]e.  (The middle ones are when I still get lost in the forest...).  

First game I went to was the String Strip Saloon...

 I'm no where near as good as the guy in the video, but I was still able to make out to level 2, another milestone achieved!  So the way the game works is that as you can see in the video above, there are 6 doors the angry gunman can come at you from.  Lo and behold, you have 6 strings on your guitar.  You pick the string on the guitar that matches with the lane the baddies are coming at you from to shoot them.  (Personally, if I was the bartender at this saloon I would have a shotgun, not a pistol)  For being a minigame that tricks you into practicing, its actually a lot of fun.

Next I wanted another shot at those ducks [skip to 35s]..

Again, not as good as the guy in the vid, but I am making progress.  I learned since last time not to hold the fret down too hard, and to recalibrate the game if I kept missing.  So this game works by just fretting the correct position, and picking the corresponding string. None of the Guitarcade are difficult, they just require some practice to master the skill required.

So even after only 3 days, its pretty impressive to see that the Rocksmith system is working for me. Even when I'm actually playing "Learn the Song" mode and playing the same song over and over for hours at a time, the system doesn't make it feel like a boring practice session.  It feels like a game. It feels fun, and I still can't get enough.

If you've been holding out on whether to get this "game" or not (it does have achievements on the Xbox version), and there's a little guitar hero guy inside of you, then you need to pick this up.

Your's may look different.

Rocksmith 2014 Day 2

On day 2 of my Rocksmith 60 Day Challenge I was eagerly awaiting the end of the work day to get home to continue my journey on becoming an elite shredder.

Wrong shredder. Cute though, would make an awesome rock outfit.

I focused more on the Riff Repeater today, wanting to nail the "American Idot" by Greenday.  But first, I wanted to see how much of the song I could perform from the day before, so I just jumped right into playing it.  Apparently it takes more than 24 hours for muscle memory to develop..... Got about half way through the intro and freaked out going all over the fret board.  Back to square one.

I kicked off Riff Repeater to get my skills up.

More options than you can shake a guitar at!

If you don't know what Riff Repeater here's my sparknotes for it. It's the ultimate tool to help you learn a song.  There's tons of options specify exactly what part of the song you want to practice, what happens when you master that section (repeat|continue), what mastery of the song you want to focus on, etc etc.  Check here and here to get the complete breakdown, I only messed with what to practice, where, and how fast.  My only frustration with it would be helpful if the song layout at the top of the screen also had subheadings underneath of what part of the song that is, into, chords, bridge, ending.

However, I can honestly say that I spent more than an hour in Riff Repeater on the same section of the song and it was still fun.  Practice makes you better, and it was fun getting better because Rocksmith was pretty well designed in this area. As Rocksmith noticed I would ace a section of the song, it would either increase the difficulty or speed to encourage me to keep going.  And going I did, I hadn’t even realized I went through most of the song until the outro.  Thanks for keeping me engaged Rocksmith!  By the end of the session I was at 50% difficulty on 100% speed.

 

I didn’t do too much else on Day 2 except try another Guitarcade game called Star Chords which reminded me a lot of math blaster back in the day.  Check the video out below.  The game is fun once you realize how to interpret the chord sheet they show you.  Took me a minute to realize that the solid lines are not to indicate a bar chord, but an open string. =/

 

Rocksmith 2014 Day 1

Day 1 saw a lot of frustration and giddy.  First I didn't expect to spend 6 hours on my first day with this but it happened.  After I tore open the packaging with my bare hands I quickly plugged in everything and started the game up.  While I downloaded the mandatory game update is when I actually opened the setup document for Rocksmith and felt my first pang of disappointment.  Apparently there is an "Ideal" setup for play. 

I don't have a fancy theater system setup, just a simple "plug HDMI cable from Xbox to TV." In my determination to be the best, I plan to buy an audio out plug for my Xbox to encounter 0 audio lag.  I tried using the original composite that came with my box, but for some reason there's a plastic mold on it to block the HDMI port when composite is used. However! It's great to note that during my play I didn't really experience too much lag (then again I didn't hit too many notes either).

As the game finished loading I heard the first wailing of the Epiphone guitar as the game booted.  It was awesome.

The first thing the game has you do is play a song.  On the guitar. So I go to "Learn to play" and select the recommended song "All I Wanna Do" by Splashh.

The video above is on Expert I think, I was playing it on Novice. But let's face it, the song on youtube looks easy right? Totally different when you're actually on the guitar and trying to slide from 3rd to the 7th fret and vice versa while at the same time positioning your strumming hand to pick the right string.  At first the picking experience is akin to using a needle to find a tree in a forest while the fretting hand is fighting a long and arduous battle with the board.

Guitarcade. Guitarcade is awesome. It's like an 80's arcade game collection that you play using only your guitar.  My favorite so far is Duck Redux because of the simple look of the game, and ease of play (when it works).

Arn't they cute?

The way it works is that a duck will show up on the fret board, and you have to play a note in the fret to shoot the duck. Too bad it doesn't always read the frets right. When a duck is on 5 and my FINGER IS ON 5, the game shoot in FRET 6.... Very frustrating, especially when you're looking at your own fingers on the correct fret wondering what's wrong. A quick search on Bing/Google says that this may be because I'm putting my finger down too hard on the fret itself, or the guitar needs to be professionally tuned.  Either way, it says its my fault and to fix it. Thanks guys.

At the end of the day (11pm?) I had played for about 5 solid hours.  It was hard to put the game (is it really a game?) down, and I figured it would be even harder to wait through the next day for my next chance to play.

Here's a breakdown of what I had accomplished:

Path: Lead

Songs I worked on:
X-Kid - Greenday - 20%
All I Wanna Do - Splashh - 6%

Lessons learned:
Chords
Shift
Holding the Guitar

Guitarcade:
Ducks Redux
Scale Racer

Looks like I'm on my way!

Background

Ain't she a beaut?

I've been playing my Takami acoustic guitar for about 2 years now consistently. Safe to say that I'm not a complete novice, nor am I "good".  What few chords I can play has seen many fun times with friends singing songs, which is partly the reason I took up guitar in the first place. The other reason I took it up was to be able to do what this guy can  with his electric and classical Canon.  Of course I never got that far! BUT, maybe I can get there now with Rocksmith 2014 Edition.

There's also a version for Mac.

See, Rocksmith has challenged players/gamers to a 60-DAY CHALLENGE. 

        Play Rocksmith For 60 Days; Play Guitar For Life.

         Countless people gave up on their dreams of playing guitar because their experience was too frustrating and too time consuming.

         Now with advances in technology, there is a better, faster way to learn. With the Rocksmith                method, all it takes is just an hour a day for 60 days.

Who else can relate? Frustrating? Yes. Time consuming? Yes. And Rocksmith is supposed to be better and faster? Pretty big promise right?

So I couldn't help it.  The offer was very enticing, making my mouth salivate with the thought of being able to pull off a riff from the likes of Santana. Needless to say, without a second thought I forked over my money and am now on the road with Rocksmith.