Using Rocksmith 2014 Remastered for practice

Gear
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Rocksmith 2014 is maybe the reason why I’m learning bass today and also why I’m here.

I didn’t bring it in my presentation post, but I have some (light) musical background from my childhood where my parents tried to make me learn music the “classic” way: solfege lessons, instrument lesson (french horn for me), and even symphony orchestra repetitions and so on.

For various reasons, I globally hated it and I stayed on the fact/impression that playing music just wasn’t for me (which was also fine, since I have developed some honorable skills in other creative fields).

It’s a discussion on a forum that made me aware of this game, and some users even argue that they learned guitar with it, and are now in a group etc.
So I thought: lets give it a try, it’s mostly the “context” of the music school that I didn’t like after all, so I bought a bass, bought Rocksmith, and lets try this again. And if it fails again, well, at least I tried it twice.

Clearly, I have to thanks this little game for making me take this road again.

That was a bit more than a month ago, today Steam says I have 5h logged in, and I’m in the middle of Module 7 of B2B.

What happened?
I realized that even with the (ultra light) lessons included, I wouldn’t go anywhere: the game is fun, but once I plugged back on my amp, my sound was shitty and completely different than when playing in the game, I realized that with this tool alone, I would develop very bad habits and not learn to play properly.
So I took B2B, and I didn’t relaunch the game since. :slight_smile:
(And those lessons - by the way - exceeded all my expectations: the more I play the more I enjoy it, and that wasn’t an easy win on me)

I think that now that I have a better technique and at least some muscular memory, I will maybe launch Rocksmith again, especially now that I’m looking to tablature’s websites to start playing songs, but it’s clearly not enough alone for a pure beginner.

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What’s interesting about this thread is that if you see playing music as fun, or as a game, it makes it less likely you’ll give up, from having to do some of the drier or more rigorous aspects of practicing.

Though I haven’t played bass through a video game console, I still see the playalongs, and the jam tracks as a sort of game, hitting the right notes, at the right time, and it sounds good, so it becomes cool & fun.

Right now I’m trying to see getting into rhythm as a game. Just hitting the note at the exact right time, to a beat. 1…2…3…4

And then, if you can do it, it’s like a feeling you “won” something. And even if you don’t do it, oh well, no real harm, just hit the reset button and start over, until you “win” :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: It’s almost like if you see practicing that way, it doesn’t feel like “practice.”

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bump, since its currently on sale at steam till 11 May

no more new dlc releases

rocksmith to tab

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I own this for Xbox but never use it. I’m not a huge fan of just having notes scroll at me and trying to keep up, it is kind of fun as a game, but I don’t find it to be a good learning tool (for me, everyone learns differently). It does have some cool features that I would prob play around with more if I could solve the issue with the delay. There is a good 1/2 to 1 second delay between playing a note and hearing it in the game which is what really kills it for me. It would be more fun without that.

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hey thanx for this, rich. never saw this before, ordered it for my ps4.

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I have it as well. I think I got it for myPs4 in 2014. I’ve probably played it 10+ hours. It is pretty fun, but I struggle with the guitar hero—like graphics. Back then, I thought it was going to offer more instruction content like B2B.

No comparison. Thanks for the fine work Josh!

There is some latency as well, but if I remember I was able to adjust that down a bit, and run my signal through a DI box to create my own pre-mix monitor into a small practice amp. Then, I had the PS4 through my stereo. That was pretty sweet as I remember.

I guess I should try it again!

Also, for all of you that have it… that real tone cable should allow you to play bass into a PC or Mac. I actually used mine for a while before I got an Audio Interface. I’ve used the cable a lot more than the actual game.

Best.

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Rocksmith 2014 is on sale on the PS4 right now for $5.99, so I got that yesterday. I had ordered the cable before. Once I inverted the strings to put the E on the bottom (on the screen I mean), it’s not bad. It doesn’t have quite the feel of playing bass, because I find it a little bit hard to hear myself in the mix, and I think there’s a tiny latency. I think if you just learn to play bass by Rocksmith, you would probably have a pretty janky sound. But it’s a fun video game and gets a little practice moving your fingers around, and you might learn some songs. I think it is best paired with some more deliberate, “real” playing practice where you listen to yourself carefully and get some technique guidance.

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I know this thread has some age. but I thought i would put some info in here as well. Just incase anyone’s wondering.

You can flip the strings to be tab accurate if you do not like the set up they use at base.

You can play with a 4 string. 6 string. probably even a 3 string if your up for the arm workout. The only thing the game cares about is note accuracy. for instance on my 6 string, instead of having to de-tune for drop D all of the time for heavier songs. I can just use the 3rd Fret D on my B string, and skip to my E string for anything higher. and it registers just the same. (also good for learning how 4’th etc. work.

There is also a really good mod out now for those that don’t know that will allow you to use Custom forge songs created by note trackers, and another that allows you to plug and play with any 1/4 jack to USB on the market directly or through an amp so you can hear yourself more clearly with out all of the effects the game likes to push onto you. among tons of other great features.

Currently I’ve got a library of about 600 songs, and id say 550 of them are at 98% or more. So its not really difficult once you get it worked out and learn your fretboard. It is a lot of fun and good exercise I find for keeping your hands worked out and learning to relax them. As well as having a chance to hear the band play along with you and get into a good groove. The best part of it all is you can make up basslines as you go and there is really no penalty for it. witch is a lot of fun for experimenting.

Defiantly not a replacement for the wealth of knowledge Josh is sharing with us all though. but at least a good jam session emulator.

(Links to the mods for the people interested)

GLHF

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There is a setting in game that allows you to turn down the volume of these notification sounds. I hate them, it makes playing a song sound like you’re scoring a car chase in a Mad Max movie.

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I was more talking about the tone options that you go through or get pushed on you, it can get tedious having to switch tones every song even if it is just a button press. Especially in nonstop mode.

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This is on sale on Steam right now for $10 (software only).

Anyone have a track list? They don’t list it :slight_smile:

Also, can you use a real audio interface, or do you have to buy the dumb cable the game normally comes with?

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Eh, for $10 and potential Steam refund, I can answer my own question fast I think :slight_smile:

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Works perfectly with an audio interface if you select “microphone” and pick your DAI line in :slight_smile:

Song selection it comes with is so so. Maybe 50 songs across several genres plus DLC. Definitely solid for $10, would be mad if I’d dropped $50 on it. Need to look in to how to download third party songs.

Fun! Gonna take a while to get used to the funky fretboard note display (upside down from tabs, etc).

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$10 is great, but for anyone else considering a purchase it might be even less come Black Friday/holiday/New Year’s sales. DLC is also marked down to 99¢ a song (usually) during the big sales. Just be aware that the product is considered finished. The publisher has stated there will be no further updates or DLC.

*fixed my typo

You can change this to the proper orientation in the settings.

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Oh cool, thanks! I’ll flip it.

Yeah, Black Friday is probably a great time to score song bundles.

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I know it’s been a while since something was posted here, but I guess it’s still the correct thread for what I have to say.

I recently bought rocksmith for <10€ and it took a while to get it to work the way that I actually enjoy it. Out of the box it doesn’t work with a DAI, but other people had problems with that too and already tried to fix it.

If you don’t have audio hardware with ASIO support there’s the nocable patch (reddit link).
I tried this and it works in so far as my sound devices were recognized by rocksmith, but the delay was just awful. It was no fun playing at all and quite a lot harder than it should be because if you play on the beat the delay caused it to be off. And playing in front of the beat is very hard.

The solution I recommend is using a DAI with ASIO drivers. This does not work out of the box either but it just requires a one time setup. The exact steps are explained in the readme: github link to rocksmith asio support hack
This solution has a minimal delay. Still a little delay but not nearly as much.
I set it up so the game doesn’t play back the recorded bass and I just listen to it via monitor headphones connected to the DAI that’s also used as sound output device for rocksmith.

My judgement about the game as a beginner errr badass bassist and lifelong videogame enthusiast…
Cons:

  • out of the box, without additional setup, it’s unusable in my opinion
  • E-String hard to tune with ingame tuner, but that was the case for every software tuner with my DAI. Probably my fault/setup.
  • “Connecting to server” for licensing in a singleplayer game can be frustrating. Did not test behavior without internet connection though.
  • Needs different setups for single and multiplayer. Maybe I just haven’t figured it out yet but when I set up 2 inputs the game tells me it doesn’t know which one to use.
  • AFAIK no option for tabs or music sheet overlay which would make the game a lot more useful for real life scenarios and sightreading practice
  • You have to practice something that you only need for the game → sightreading the game notation. Color-coded strings and the notes are shown with fret numbers on fret lanes.

A lot of things on the con list are just me being nitpicky but some (tuning) are just confusing me. Although I have a few points on the cons list overall I like the game.
Pros:

  • Songs have a diffculty setting and only the highest is the actual song. The dumbed down versions usually make sense and help you practice for the harder versions.
  • Good practice and practice tools. Like automatically increasing the difficulty in a practice session when you are hitting all the notes. All of that adjustable to a degree or you can turn it off completely.
  • You can choose parts of a song to practice over and over and adjust the tempo of it. Also has an auto-level up function that if you reach the goal you set yourself it gets harder.
  • Base collection of songs included in the game is decent
  • Over 1000 songs available als DLC
  • Visual Feedback on wrong notes is very nice. Shows if you fretted too high/low or the wrong string
  • Actually has technique tutorials and encourages you to do them
  • Forces you to practice blind playing and “sightreading” (the game notation)
  • Has a multiplayer (did not test it yet)
  • It’s easy to have something to play to practice. No looking up music sheets or tabs… just start the game and select a song.
  • Minigames with actual video game logic that help practicing things like shifting or dynamics.

Overall I like it very much, but it doesn’t surprise me very much. I also enjoyed playing Synthesia and bought a cheap keyboard to play that and always liked rythm games, not only those where you use a real instrument.

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It’s great to see you again @juli0r

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I use Rocksmith for practice too. Primarily just to build up dexterity and muscle memory.

I connect the output of my Amp to the PC using a Rocksmith cable and it basically just worked straight out of the box.

I can hear what I’m playing clearly from my amp and there’s no significant latency.

Works fine for 6 string and Bass.

I couldn’t see myself actually learning from it but it’s an entertaining way to practice.

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Maybe the original rocksmith cable has something built in to counter the delay. Could be.
Then again I read reviews that said it’s overall unreliable.

From the amp there is no latency, but is there some until the PC registers it?
When I used a cable, although not the original one, there was a noticable one. The sound output of the game would have it, not your amp.

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I’m sure there’s some but it’s minuscule to the point of being negligible.

I’ve also heard stories of the cables being fragile but we’ve had no issues so far.
(My eight year old daughter plays the game with her 3/4 strat)
I’d be pretty mechanically sympathetic and am not inclined to break things but she can be a little careless at times so it’s proven to be reasonably robust.

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