Rocksmith/Bandfuse

[Tom Servo]

Figured I'd restart the thread.

However, my question I think is more guitar related. I finally got tired of my strings breaking all the damn time, so I picked up some 10s rather than some 9s. Specifically, I got some Ernie Ball Cobalts and then some D'Addario strings, since everyone told me how great they are. So far they're okay, but I'm noticing two things that I didn't seem to get with the 9's:

1) When I retune the low E string, it throws all the other strings off. If I detune to D from E, for instance, all the other strings go sharp. Goes the other way if I tighten the low E back up to E from D. Makes changing tunings a tremendous pain in the ass. Is this normal, or is it because it's a cheap guitar with a crappy neck? Is this something I can make it stop doing so much?

2) I'm noticing that the game always says I miss any harmonic on the 7th fret. Seems to pick up 12th and 5th just fine, but 7th never registers. I'm assuming that this means I need to fiddle with the intonation, but I wanted to make sure before I start doing something stupid.

[lostnight]

Just got Bandfuse Rock Legends for the Xbox 360. It allows you to plug in a bass or electric guitar like Rocksmith. It also allow you to plug in a mike and sing if your fingers need a break. My Rocksmith cord did not work, but Bandfuse came with a cord, so the price was approaching 70$. There is no drum option though.

I like that the songs stay at the same difficulty level while you play them. Playing on Level 1 is actually easier than Rocksmith, because they don't throw stuff at you if you are doing well at your difficulty level.
So far I am happy with my purchase of Bandfuse, and I think I will play it the same amount of time as Rocksmith for a while.

[animalica]

110

Last year I bought a bass because 4 thick strings are easier to handle than six thin strings.
Until a few days ago I had no time to try it out but now it`s much easier. :)

Next week my retraining starts and I will also take the bass with me.

This afternoon I will buy a used 32" LCD so I can play, work with my laptop and watch tv.
Only need to find a cheap used compact stereo so I can play Rocksmith 2014 lag free.

[Tom Servo]

Just got Bandfuse Rock Legends for the Xbox 360. It allows you to plug in a bass or electric guitar like Rocksmith. It also allow you to plug in a mike and sing if your fingers need a break. My Rocksmith cord did not work, but Bandfuse came with a cord, so the price was approaching 70$. There is no drum option though.

I like that the songs stay at the same difficulty level while you play them. Playing on Level 1 is actually easier than Rocksmith, because they don't throw stuff at you if you are doing well at your difficulty level.
So far I am happy with my purchase of Bandfuse, and I think I will play it the same amount of time as Rocksmith for a while.

I'm really bummed that there's no drumming in Bandfuse. I was hoping that it would be the Rock Band to the old Guitar Hero - we'd be able to throw together an entire band to play along. Which platforms is it out for?

[George]

How can you tell when a drummer is at your door?

The knocking speeds up. :D

[Random]

:finger:

[lostnight]

I'm really bummed that there's no drumming in Bandfuse. I was hoping that it would be the Rock Band to the old Guitar Hero - we'd be able to throw together an entire band to play along. Which platforms is it out for?

Xbox 360 and PS3. I paid 68$ for it on Monday, and this weekend it's on sale through Gamestop for 39$ with the cable. D'oh!!

I did buy a microphone yesterday after work for 9.99. I'm not a singer at all, but I had fun trying to sing some songs, like Breakin' the Law. Then there are background tracks you can make your own songs to, and I tried making one up. The tv show It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia had a musical episode called Day Man. I used that, and changed the lyrics to Day Girl, because I heard a friend who bar tends tell a customer she is the day girl, so I instantly started sing Day Girl to her. I recorded my Bandfuse version with my Kindle, and showed it to some friends at the bar. Very awful, but funny. I started laughing when my dog was barking at my singing.

You can have 50 song saves that you performed on. I'm not sure if the is a way to sing on a track, save it, and use it to play guitar on. That sounds like a ton of fun, not sure if it can be done though. Can you do that on fake guitar games like Rock Band? If so, I might pick that up, I still have my GH "guitar" in my basement somewhere.

[Random]

At George's (and others) request, I've split off the guitar advice into a thread in the Pits to leave this thread for game talk. :)

[Conman]

I am really interested in getting this game and most likely will soon. I already have a couple of guitars( one acoustic electric and a EPI Les Paul Studio)and can play basic cords and even learned some licks. I can play chords along with others on a few songs, but have a hard time with rhythm on my own.

One question I have is how do you guys have your system setup. I have read a lot about lag and using component to run the audio through my receiver. I have a Denon that the PS3 runs to and then a single HDMI runs to the TV. The Denon has a through mode where no processing is done. It also has a direct mode for audio that does no processing. The TV (Samsung Plasma) has a game mode as well for no processing of the video signal)
I am hoping I can get away with strictly HDMI, but if not I should be able to run HDMI and component at the same time from the PS3 (dual audio) and set my Harmony up to select the proper inputs with a Rocksmith activity.

What say ye GTX Rocksmithers?

[animalica]

http://www.retrospelbutiken.se/images/products/2090.jpg

You can use the audio jacks of a old PSX, PS2, PS3 video cable with RCA jacks (component or composite) and set your PS3 somewhere in the setting to analog audio output.

[Conman]

Yeah that's what I'm talking about. You can set the PS3 to use both at the same time, then set the receiver to use the analog audio and pass the HDMI video to the TV. It's what I will likely have to according to the reading I have done. I just don't want to have to switch back and forth for BluRay playing and Rocksmith, so I will make a dedicated Rocksmith setting on my Harmony. I know it sounds weird but my wife and daughter won't switch back and forth if I don't.

[animalica]

I play all those music games on the new 360 which is connected via HDMI to my good tv.
The only instrument that registers right is the keyboard at RB3.

So I put a adaptor with RCA sockets to my new 360 and connected it to my stereo and now it works like it should.

My old 360 that got no HDMI is connected via component to a old flatscreen tv so I got no need to connect it to a stereo.

Will take the old 360 and tv with me for my retraining, so I can learn bass after school.

[Tom Servo]

I was running Rocksmith via HDMI through my Sony receiver and into the TV. There was lag, but nothing too bad. It was fine for most modes, but when it came to the "Score Attack" mode on RS2014, that's whent he lag became noticable, since it was pretty hard to get a "Perfect" timing. I've since switched to component going into the TV and analog going into the receiver, but I haven't figured out a way to do "direct" or "through" mode, so I still have a bit of audio lag. Not much, but just enough to be annoying on score attack. Absolutely no problems when playing the normal "Learn a Song" mode.

Interestingly, if I plug the analog audio directly into my TV, the lag is so bad the game is nearly unplayable.

[Conman]

Tom that means there is some processing going on somewhere. A suggestion I see on some forums is to use powered speakers or headphones hooked directly to the XBox or PS3. That seems to eliminate all audio lag. And just from reading it seems the Xbox has a little more of an issue than the PS3 as far as lag, but that could be skewed by more players using the Xbox instead of PS3.

[Random]

Anyone played with the bass stuff?

[animalica]

I play with the bass but I`m a absolute beginner.

[Tom Servo]

I've done a fair bit with the emulated bass which works well enough to have fun with, and a friend of mine who's a professional player came over with his bass and played along with me one time. In his case, he had a hell of a time with the notation, but he knew how to play most of the songs we played anyway, and the game definitely recognized that. We played Higher Ground and he essentially nailed it.

[Tom Servo]

Tom that means there is some processing going on somewhere. A suggestion I see on some forums is to use powered speakers or headphones hooked directly to the XBox or PS3. That seems to eliminate all audio lag. And just from reading it seems the Xbox has a little more of an issue than the PS3 as far as lag, but that could be skewed by more players using the Xbox instead of PS3.

I've been far too lazy to find some powered speakers, but I do think I might have just figured out how to disable audio processing. Looks like it's a badly named button on the remote that doesn't show up on my Harmony (yet) called "Sound Select". Sounds like I can select 2 Channel Analog Direct which supposedly turns off all signal processing. We'll see when I get a chance to test it.

[Tom Servo]

Sure enough, it did help. I still don't know if it's perfect, but then again, my timing might have been off due to a couple of beers beforehand. I did seem to be getting a lot closer though.

[lostnight]

I hate when I'm using a custom tone playing a song, and it keeps switching my tone back to default as I am playing. How can I keep a custom tone locked in for the duration of a song?

[Tom Servo]

I'm having the opposite problem...the Kinect hears something in the background and swaps out for a random tone.

[Tom Servo]

Re Bandfuse, it's part of Amazon's video game deals of the day, $40 right now. I picked it up, should have it on Wednesday.

Broke another string, so I followed George's advice and have sanded down the saddles on the guitar. Here's hoping I can make a set of strings last long enough that they actually need replacing from wear, not just because they snapped yet again.

[Tom Servo]

Finally got my first master score attack done that wasn't Blitzkrieg Bop. Did Breaking the Law, since that's pretty easy to memorize. It ended up just giving me a good section at one point on a part that's actually pretty easy, not sure what I did wrong there, but no missed sections. Feeling pleased with myself.

Still haven't had a chance to fire up Bandfuse. Hoping to get to do that this weekend.

[animalica]

Now that I started re-training a week ago, I got time to play up to an hour after "school" in my room.
I warm up with guitarcade, then continue the lessons and then I play some songs and I`m getting better. :)

[Godson]

3 weeks since I played last. Going to need to get the calloused fingertips back. Hoping I can get some play time over the weekend before school starts back up on monday.

[Tom Servo]

Got a little bit of time to play Bandfuse this morning. Here's what I've noticed so far.

- The intro, explaining all these things to you, takes WAY too long. Eventually you just get tired of this voice telling you all this crap and you skip it just so you can do something. Then you realize that somewhere in that it explained some of the notation and you're left all confused.

- The tab format is probably better overall because it matches closer to what you'll find outside of the game. It's also nice that it color codes which finger should be on which string/fret. I agree with another user's assessment though, the side-scrolling tab makes it very hard to see what's coming, so if you don't know the song really well, anything like a solo where there's a quick move way up the neck is impossible to plan for, they always catch you totally by surprise. The oncoming note highway makes that much easier to prepare for in Rocksmith.

- A lot of people prefer Bandfuse's tuner. I really, really don't like the tuner. It has you just strum all the strings at once, but all that seems to do is drown out some of them, a lot of the times it just thinks I'm not playing G, and I have to do it over and over again to get it to recognize it. It also forces a run through the quicktuner every single song, just like RS1 did. That's not necessary, especially when you can access the tuner at any time if you notice the guitar has gone out of tune.

- Overall, the song selection I think is worse than RS1 + RS2014, except for the sheer number of songs that overlap between the two. There are probably 2-3 songs on Bandfuse that I like that I don't already have on Rocksmith.

- Some songs are charted way differently between the two, however, Breaking the Law comes to mind immediately. Then again, Breaking the Law on Bandfuse is a live version...one that includes Rob Halford repeatedly asking the crowd "Breaking the...?" and them yelling Law, for something like 20 seconds before the song starts. I see no possible way that this could get annoying when I just want to play the song.

- I had no idea Harmonix helped with it, but you can see it very quickly in that it's got the same star ratings that Guitar Hero and Rock Band had. It's also got set difficulties rather than the dynamic difficulty. I far prefer the dynamic difficulty, if only because then you can make songs change difficulty within the song, e.g., dumb down a super hard solo while playing all the rest of the song at full difficulty.

I like it so far, and at least it hasn't crashed on me like RS always does, but I prefer RS to this point.

[Tom Servo]

Little more:

- It appears to have some bug that constantly logs me out of XBL. Dunno what that is, but any time I play it, within 5 minutes, I'm kicked off of XBL and cannot log back in. If I go back to the dashboard, however, I'm immediately logged back in. Weird.

- I'm having an incredibly hard time adjusting to the tab interface, and I find the notation for things like palm mutes incredibly hard to see. Everything looks really similar right now, so if I don't know that something is a harmonic or muted, I never actually notice it in the notation.

- The problems I thought I would have with the non-dynamic difficulty have appeared. I really like Faith No More, so I'm really pleased that Epic is on there (though I can think of many other songs I would have rather had, at least it's some FnM). However, difficulty 4 is barely a challenge and difficulty 5 is absolutely impossible for me. I also don't see a route to the "riff repeater" or whatever bandfuse has that lets you do things like slow it down and repeat a section to practice.

- I played a bit of the tour mode, there's two really irritating things so far. First is that it alternates between a concert (like three songs in a row) and a challenge to get five stars on a single song. That single song is always the last song of the preceding concert, so if you play through in order, you keep playing songs twice in a row. Annoying. Secondly, during those concerts, it lets you pick the difficulty per song. The only thing is, it doesn't tell you what song you're playing, so unless you remember from when you saw it when you picked the concert, you have no idea what song it is. Also, it doesn't tell you how you've done previously on that song on any given difficulty, so sometimes even if you remember the song, you're not sure what difficulty to pick.

- Lots of live versions of songs. Not sure why, but they tend to have guitar-wankery solos thrown in where the original recordings do not. Probably fun if you're better than me, but frustrating when you suck like I do.

I kinda feel right now like Bandfuse is better if you're already an accomplished player, despite it seeming more game-y than RS. RS I think eases you into things much better, and seems more suited towards practicing things rather than scoring, like Bandfuse is with point totals and cash earned and star ratings. After a while at Bandfuse, I just wanted to go back to RS and played a few songs on there.

It can't hurt to have both, especially since I'm sure there will be songs on each one that I want to play. They also regularly go on sale pretty cheap, so that makes it easy to pick them both up. But right now, I only see me going over to Bandfuse to play specific songs, otherwise I'm enjoying RS much more.

[8400RPM]

Your experience with Bandfuse seems to be similar to mine. Coming from Rocksmith, the song list is a lot smaller and redundant but there are a few good ones to make it worhwhile. I think if you didn't have RS the setlist would be pretty satisfactory.

Couple of things you missed- Playing a concert in career mode, it does tell you what song is next in the lower right of the screen but it is before the screen where you pick your difficulty so you if you miss it I believe you can just go back one screen and check the song. Also, if you want to practice the songs at a given speed or section ala Riff Repeater, you need to go to 'Shred U' and 'Practice'. As a bonus when you slow down the song the timing doesn't get screwed up like RS does. Works very smoothly.

As far as the tuner, mine is one string at a time and then at the very end they have you strum them all together. Isn't it that way for you? I don't think it's a setting. Also, it does not make you quicktune before each song, maybe that's a setting too?

Career mode is very useless and seems like they took about an hour to come up with the whole thing. And yeah, since each section has a specific genre you're always playing the same damn songs right after each other which can be annoying. At least it's not linear and you can jump around. I just stopped playing the career mode altogether. For me the best part of this game is the Lick Lab and Practice mode.

It does make you miss the dynamic difficulty of Rocksmith, but at least it doesn't fail you. I'm looking at you Score Attack!!

Finally DLC comes out for this on Tuesday, bunch of Hendrix which is cool. Not sure if it's Hendrix only yet. Wondering how much it will cost though.

As far as Rocksmith goes, my disc seems to be unreadable every other time I play these days which is quite annoying.

[Tom Servo]

Ah-ha, okay, I have to keep my eyes out for that "next song" screen, and I probably would have found the practice mode eventually. Glad to know it's there.

That Children of Bodom song in drop C is giving my guitar fits.

That's how the tuner works for me too. What's weird is that I'll strum and it'll basically show e, b, a, and E all having strummed and registering in tune, but g and d both show up as silent (the bar is brownish and the white "needle" doesn't move at all). It works a little better if I strum at the 12th fret, but most of the time I have to sit there and strum a lot of times, always with a long enough pause in between to let the game pick up anything, in the hopes that eventually it'll register all six strings at once. Since that's happening, it's really damn irritating that I have to go through that before every song, even when the tuning isn't changing.

Running into a new issue with it, too. Well, not new, but I thought it was related to some issues I was having with my internet connection back on Saturday. I kept getting kicked off of XBL when playing Bandfuse. Then my internet connection issues went away on Sunday, and it was still happening. And only with Bandfuse, no other games were giving me any issues, I tested like 5-6 of them. Always within the time it takes to get through the first song, I'll get the message that I've been disconnected. If I attempt to connect again from the guide, it'll start saying it's trying to connect, then the whole console will lock up. If I go back to the dashboard, it immediately reconnects me to XBL, only to disconnect me again as soon as I enter the game.

That's not that bad, it's not like you play online or anything, but I'm finding that it's not saving my scores. I'll go look at a song and think "I can't remember if I played this on difficulty 3 or 4 last time", so I'll check my previous scores, and it tells me my best score is zero points on difficulty 1. I also can't see any leaderboards. It's saving my career progress, just none of my scores, which given that there isn't the whole dynamic difficulty thing means that if I want to keep track of which songs I can play okay and which I can't and what difficulty I should probably be doing, I need to have a laptop with Excel open next to me or something.

I put in a post on their support forums, hoping that I'll get something out of that.

[George]

That Children of Bodom song in drop C is giving my guitar fits.

Time to buy a Baritone guitar!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OESz83PEKaY


But honey, I really needed this guitar!

[Random]

Or a 7-string Ibanez. Perhaps the already-detuned Munky signature model? :D

Or for the truly me(n)tal, the Meshuggah signature model 8-string! :hard: :hard:

[Tom Servo]

Stupid question: Tried out the Lick Lab and really like that whole "break the solo down into little phrases and practice", but is there a way you can get it to not speed up if you don't do that well on a playthrough? I was working on a solo and could barely get 50% at 60% speed, and it just says "Okay, now do it at 75% speed!" Seems only marginally useful if it doesn't let you keep practicing at a slow speed until you can at least get most of the notes.

[Godson]

I know on the riff repeater you can turn off the option. I can't remember what it is called, but there are 2 options for it, one for speed and the other for difficulty.

[8400RPM]

Heh, he is talking about Bandfuse (maybe it needs its own thread). There may be a way to select the top speed you want in the Lick Lab before you start the section I can't remember, but you can definitely choose your section and speed in Practice mode but maybe you already knew that. Also, Lick Lab doesn't have every single part of the songs like practice mode does.

DLC for Bandfuse today is 10 songs.
•Blues Traveler – Run-Around
•Boston – Foreplay/Long Time
•Filter – Hey Man, Nice Shot
•Incubus – Pardon Me
•The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Fire (Live)
•The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Love or Confusion
•Lynyrd Skynyrd – Simple Man
•The Offspring – All I Want
•Pantera – Cowboys from Hell (Live)
•Yes – Roundabout

Back to Rocksmith. System of a Down DLC today: Aerials, BYOB, and Toxicity. Not too shabby.

[Tom Servo]

So far, the guy from the Bandfuse studio has not been able to figure out why I get booted off of XBL whenever I play it. I eventually breadboarded it all - removed the kinect, didn't plug in any cable for mic or guitar, and just let the game sit at the attract screen, and sure enough, booted off XBL. I have been assured that I won't lose access to any DLC I buy, however, so I guess it's not that big of a deal, I just don't get to be part of the leaderboards.

[Rob]

Or a 7-string Ibanez. Perhaps the already-detuned Munky signature model? :D

Or for the truly me(n)tal, the Meshuggah signature model 8-string! :hard: :hard:

Neither of those will help with Drop-C unless you intend to tune them UP from factory tunings. A 7 standard is B and an 8 is F#, both lower than C.

Longer scale 6 string is what you need for C although you might be able to get away with a more regular scale and gigantic strings, but then you'd be looking at permanently adjusting the nut and having far too much string pull for any higher tunings so you might as well just spring for a baritone...

Somewhat amusingly, the recently unveiled Ibanez 9 string White Elephant has C for its lowest string, albeit an octave down from what you want.

http://cdn.guitarnoize.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ibanez_rg9.jpg

[Tom Servo]

It looks like my wireless adapter is, for whatever reason, incompatible with Bandfuse. It's a genuine X360 adapter, but Bandfuse just does not want to play nice with it. I ran a wired connection (woot 50-foot ethernet cable) to the router and had absolutely no problems.

In the meantime, I like that in practice mode I can just run a song over and over at 60% speed, but of course it doesn't break it down into short phrases like the lick lab does. I hope in a patch they decide to combine the two.

I'd say we should separate this out into another thread, but at the same time, I expect the actual Bandfuse chat to drop off as soon as I come to grips with the whole thing. The DLC for it is only monthly, so I don't expect a lot of Bandfuse talk in a week or two, so it's probably okay to just remain in here.

[Random]

Neither of those will help with Drop-C unless you intend to tune them UP from factory tunings. A 7 standard is B and an 8 is F#, both lower than C.

Stick a capo on it. :D

[8400RPM]

In the meantime, I like that in practice mode I can just run a song over and over at 60% speed, but of course it doesn't break it down into short phrases like the lick lab does. I hope in a patch they decide to combine the two.

You know you can pick smaller sections in practice mode right? Just not the super short phrases ala Lick Lab I believe.

I agree with keeping both games in the same thread, I don't think there's enough activity to sustain both. (guitar pun intended :))

Glad you're figuring out your online connection, you'll be my only leaderboard friend!


Rocksmith:

Speaking of leaderboards, I see you've got some pretty good scores on the Score Attack Easy boards. I was going after some of them, but I hate Easy mode and it seems you have to play slightly ahead of the beat to get perfects on each note which is horrible. Is it like that for you? Must be due to input lag but it seems like they could compensate for that. At least it's harder to fail now than it used to be so going for Medium and Hard mode isn't so frustrating.

[Rob]

Stick a capo on it. :D

I'm not sure they expected folk players to buy a 9 string and haven't seen any gargantuan capos yet.

[Tom Servo]

You know you can pick smaller sections in practice mode right? Just not the super short phrases ala Lick Lab I believe.

Speaking of leaderboards, I see you've got some pretty good scores on the Score Attack Easy boards. I was going after some of them, but I hate Easy mode and it seems you have to play slightly ahead of the beat to get perfects on each note which is horrible. Is it like that for you? Must be due to input lag but it seems like they could compensate for that. At least it's harder to fail now than it used to be so going for Medium and Hard mode isn't so frustrating.

Yeah, I know you can do that in practice mode, but I really liked the lick lab for learning solos. Really breaking it down and mastering each part seemed like the way I want to do it, and I'm annoyed that it won't let you keep doing it slowly until you learn it. That'll be my suggestion to them, make a manual mode for that, where you only graduate up to the next speed when you ask to.

And yeah, when I first got it I wanted to play all the time, but my main time where I have the TV to myself is when I wake up before my wife. That also means I have to play guitar *very quietly*, so easy mode was the way to go. I do have the same thing with having to play slightly ahead to get perfects, but that was definitely do to the input lag. Ever since I figured out the "Direct analog" mode on my receiver, that fixed the problem for me, it's actually pretty easy to get perfects now. That said, I found that my scores only slightly improved, far less than I had expected, so I wasn't really worried about being a jerk and screwing up everyone's easy leaderboards anymore. I also noticed that since I fixed that input lag, I don't get dinged nearly as often on the bends and slides.

Also, my guitar has gone back to "I'm going to throw all strings out of tune when you retune one of them", so I'm guessing I did something wrong with adjusting the bridge. Will try to deck it more per George's suggestions and hope that that fixes it.

[Tom Servo]

Decked the bridge more, basically as much as physically possible. Seems to have helped, hope it holds.

REM 5 pack for Rocksmith today:
Everybody Hurts
The One I Love
Shiny Happy People
Uberlin
What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

I like some REM songs. Most of these are not the ones I like.

[FaultyMario]

needs moar rawk!

[Conman]

Bought Rocksmith 2014 over the weekend. Love it. I suck, but love it. Getting callouses back on my fingers already. I am trying to commit an hour a day to it. So far so good.

[lostnight]

I'd love it if Rocksmith got some Death From Above 1979 songs. Though they were just a two man group with a drum and bass, I would love to play the repeating riff from Romantic Rights. Nothing complex, but very catchy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=EBtYekFzfAI

[lostnight]

And enjoy Conman, it's a great idea for a game. I love it.

[Tom Servo]

Rise Against five-pack came out. I assume they'll just be minor variations on the couple of songs they've got on there already.

[lostnight]

got me dee Doors, oh yeah!, not exactly a group you think about guitar-wise, but what zee hell, luv me some Doors, trying out Roadhouse Blues, Rocksmith thanks for pumping them out so often

[lostnight]

first attempt at RHB.................rather gruesome, lol!

[lostnight]

Boston this week, nice, bought it. Fun for me to play with.

[Godson]

I need more free time. I haven't touched this since I went to Guatemala.

[Tom Servo]

Hitch a Ride is a blast to play, really enjoying the Boston pack.

[lostnight]

Yeah me too. Boston has some fun power chord combos to play with. I've been turning on Rocksmith to know what notes to hit, then plug my guitar into my Peavey Vypyr amp and have a blast making noise.

[lostnight]

My flawless looking Rocksmith disc can't be read anymore by my 360, so I guess I need a cleaner disc or something. So I popped in Bandfuse, forgot how much fun it is. Mostly messing around with Jesse's Girl and Limelight. A shame they pulled the plug on DLC so soon.

[Tom Servo]

They basically pulled the plug on the entire operation. As far as I can tell, they never bothered with a marketing budget, I don't know if I ever saw an ad for it. They posted to Twitter that they are suspending operations indefinitely.

I also haven't picked up Bandfuse since a couple of days after I bought it, FWIW. I really wanted to like it because I wanted it to help me learn tab interfaces, but in the end, I hated the way they did difficulty levels. I like how Rocksmith ramps me up and will dumb down the hard parts but let me play the rest of the song as intended, e.g., I can pretty much play all of Fear of the Dark except for the solo, I still have to dumb that down.

On the plus side, the discs go on sale pretty regularly it seems, I think they make most of their money on DLC just like the Rock Band folks did. Speaking of, this week sees a three pack of Garbage: Stupid Girl, I'm Only Happy When It Rains, and I Think I'm Paranoid. From what I gather they're all pretty easy, which means they'll probably end up in my regular rotation.

[Tom Servo]

Oh, and rumors are swirling that Rage Against the Machine is showing up next week, but they're only rumors.

[lostnight]

I bought the Garbage DLC, then my Rocksmith disc wouldn't read. I forgot to pick up a cleaning disc on my way home from work. Maybe I can find one around the house somewhere, but it's been years since I remember seeing it. I will pick up RATM if it is the DLC next week. I didn't get Bob Dylan, not into his music at all.

I had enough fun with Bandfuse yesterday that I will pop that back in tonight. Practice mode is interesting, learning the intro to Limelight bit by bit. I even srewed around with some singing, but theplayback quality from my mic was not consistant, to be kind. I guess Rock Band is better for singing.

[8400RPM]

Funny I have a perfectly clean Rocksmith 2014 disc that suddenly stopped reading a few weeks ago with no problems reading my other discs. One day it won't read, the next day it reads fine. It's gone back and forth like this for awhile and I have no clue.

[lostnight]

311 DLC this week; Down, Amber, and Beautiful Disaster. I'll buy them tonight after work.

[Tom Servo]

They accidentally released some future DLC info to Steam - you can't buy it yet, but the listings are there.

Three pack of Mastodon: "Black Tongue", "Oblivion", and "Colony of Birchmen"

[Tom Servo]

Sure enough, Mastodon is out this week with those three songs. Two are D standard, one is Drop C. My guitar hates me when I do that.

[Tom Servo]

Speculation based on the hints that they've dropped is that Cake is coming out next week. I'm sure The Distance will be one, and it sounds like it'll be at least four tracks. Should be fun stuff, especially on bass.

[8400RPM]

Cake confirmed. Sweet! Will be buying for sure just hope they select some good ones. Haven't been compelled to get any DLC for awhile. Hope my disc works.

I doubt it will be included but I would kill for 'Satan is My Motor'. It's ok, I can't think of any of their hits that wouldn't be good choices. And yeah, the bass will be pulled out this week.

[lostnight]

I do like their choices. Even the Spin Doctors song is a joy to play with, underrated from a guitar standpoint. I do love me some metal, but it doesn't have to be all metal and aggressive. Songs like Play Guitar by John Mellencamp or maybe some Steely Dan would be fun too.

[Tom Servo]

I'd love to see some more blues, I'm still playing the heck out of the couple of Albert King songs. I also am happy to hear that the Spin Doctors song is fun to play, but seeing as it's one of my most hated songs of all time and I could happily spend the rest of my life never, ever hearing it again, it will have to stay off my list of songs.

[Random]

Classic case of a band that suffered from overplaying of their singles. Some of their deeper cuts are good, though.

Fer example, "Refrigerator Car" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXpvX3HjfVQ) off Pocket Full of Kryptonite just plain rocks.

[Tom Servo]

Cake is out. Songs are:

The Distance
I Will Survive
Never There
Short Skirt/Long Jacket
Stickshifts and Safety Belts

Only I Will Survive and Never There have rhythm tracks for those of you not going the lead route.

[Tom Servo]

It might just be because I've been a fan of the band for a long time, but the Cake pack is really goddamn fun. Can't wait to give it a whirl on bass, too.

[lostnight]

I hear ya, Cake is fun stuff. I don't mind switching to lead if that's what's needed to play a song I like.

[Godson]

I still have intentions to get back to rocksmith. Boards first, then I should have 'some' free time.

[Godson]

Anyone else having problems getting the game to play after the update?


My xbox won't load the game some 70% of the time.

[Tom Servo]

I've only gotten to play once in the past three weeks, but it loaded up fine.

Looking forward to picking up and sucking at Misirlou.

[Tom Servo]

Misirlou is a hell of a lot easier than I expected. I still don't sound as good as Dick Dale, but I can get a lot closer than I thought I would.

[George]

Guitarists who know their way around the instrument already and who can follow another player's hands will enjoy this guy on YouTube, methinks. Sorry this isn't video game related but I really enjoy this guy's lessons - they're really easy to follow. His videos are faster than looking up chords and tab online if you can follow along to get the gist of a long.

https://www.youtube.com/user/privettricker/videos

[George]

Aerosmith made more money from video games than from any one of its own albums (http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/12/aereosmith-made-more-money-from-video-games-than-from-its-own-a/)

[lostnight]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFd2Mi2FTzs

So bad ass, this 10 year old girl just shredding Slayer on Rocksmith while her younger sister screams death metal into a styrofoam noodle.

[Tom Servo]

Her younger sister is awesome.

[Yw-slayer]

SO AWESOME!!!

[Tom Servo]

I like the songs, not sure how fun they'll be to play, but nonetheless, this week's DLC is No Doubt, with Ex-Girlfriend, Spiderwebs, and Don't Speak.

[Tom Servo]

Actually enjoying playing Don't Speak, the solo is just easy enough that I should be able to ace it pretty soon. Next week looks like it's going to be Duran Duran.

[lostnight]

did not get No Doubt, I may in the more distant future. Duran Duran I will likely get. It's weird, I have over 700 songs on i-tunes but no DD. I do like some of their tunes quite a bit though.

[Tom Servo]

The three-pack is Rio, Hungry Like the Wolf, and Ordinary World. Word on the street is that the bass for Rio may be the most difficult bassline yet on RS.

[lostnight]

Yes, holy moly, just watching some DD vids I thought holy crap, the bass on Rio is very impressive. I haven't tried any bass myself, more into guitar. Ordinary World is good but Girls On Film would have made a perfect DD trio to me. I bought it, and am having a lot of fun with this 80s pop rock, my era.

[Tom Servo]

Still need to pick it up, I haven't played at all since last weekend. Was all excited that I managed to actually play a pinch harmonic in a song when I was actually supposed to (on Foreplay/Long Time)

[lostnight]

Yeah, the Boston pack was a good one, lots of guitary stuff to do.

On another note. I went to Guitar Center after work tonight and picked up a cheap backup guitar, a Squier Bullet HH Stratocaster in metallic orange. 129$, but I love the lightness, action, smooth frets, ease of playability, and sound. I must have tried a dozen guitars, what a fun evening!

[Tom Servo]

The Duran Duran pack ain't bad. Pretty easy on lead guitar, but it's nice to have something that doesn't kill me.

Next week appears to be classical pieces arranged for guitar, like Ride of the Valkyries and Moonlight Sonata.

[lostnight]

I may select a song or two from the classics, I'll watch the preview video first.

Here is the new Squier Bullet HH Stratocaster on the left.
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n174/lostnight/769ab6b3-0d82-4bc1-99a9-96daab99e7b7.jpg (http://s112.photobucket.com/user/lostnight/media/769ab6b3-0d82-4bc1-99a9-96daab99e7b7.jpg.html)

[lostnight]

A practice pic as I struggle
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n174/lostnight/200540b8-6315-4e0a-99b4-0c6a2198a9da.jpg (http://s112.photobucket.com/user/lostnight/media/200540b8-6315-4e0a-99b4-0c6a2198a9da.jpg.html)

It turns out the classics pack will have 5 songs for 4.99, no singles though. I've decided to buy it, it can only help me.

[Tom Servo]

Nice, didn't know the good deal on the price.

Far too lazy to write up the setlist, so http://www.theriffrepeater.com/rocksmith-2014-presents-bachsmith-dlc-0826-2014/

[lostnight]

Hmm, very much debating the Sublime DLC. There are are two songs I know I want, not sure about paying 12$ to get the whole 5 songs.

The Bachsmith dlc I love, anything good that keeps my fingers going in different directions helps.

[Tom Servo]

Yeah, the Bachsmith stuff is good. Even if I hate the arrangement of Ride of the Valkyries (not that it's the greatest piece anyway, but it's a little too cheesy on there for my tastes), they are really great practice songs. Even if I thought Sublime would be fun, they've been so overplayed for so many years that I can't even stand to listen to them anymore :/

Surprised there's still no DLC hint for next week. Well, a psuedo one in that one of the RS guys tweeted UbiSoft SF asking if they were going to be doing "three different hints or one big one?", so I'm assuming it won't be a single band pack.

[lostnight]

The guess is Skynyrd - Simple Kind Of Man, Nugent - Stranglehold, and Deep Purple - Highway Star

Not sure if this is 100%.

[lostnight]

Yep, those are the ones. Just singles too, can't buy as a pack from what I can see, 2.99 for each one.

[Tom Servo]

Well, all good things must come to an end. Looks like next week's DLC is Creed.

[lostnight]

I must admit I look forward to breaking my strings on One if that is offered.

[lostnight]

Man, my grip on my left hand gets tired so fast doing fast strumming power chord songs like Blitzkrieg Bop. Can't imagine doing some even faster more intense songs of the same type, then doing it for a long play list; standing up. I'm not worthy and never will be! But I still love this practicing with Rocksmith 2014 and a couple other practice tools I use. Damn, I would blow a nut if they brought some Kyuss to DLC, and for sure more QOTSA. Hooked on that desert fuzz.

[Tom Servo]

Radiohead's Creep is the one that teaches me that a) I don't have the hand strength to keep up an E-shape barre for the whole song and b) my E-shape barre is sloppy as hell.

[George]

An unasked-for and humbly submitted tip for barre chords: don't PULL with your index finger. Instead, PUSH with your thumb. It sounds wrong but works, at least for me, to help make the barre more firm.

[lostnight]

Damn, the only Creed song I really wanted to play, One, and it's not on the 5 song DLC, lol!



Radiohead's Creep is the one that teaches me that a) I don't have the hand strength to keep up an E-shape barre for the whole song and b) my E-shape barre is sloppy as hell.

I struggle with Alive (Pearl Jam) and all it's barre chords, which show up on the very low difficulty levels. Some day I will have to slow it down, and grind through it on slow speed. I think it is important for my progress as a guitar player to stop avoiding them and start learning them. Today is not the day though,:)



An unasked-for and humbly submitted tip for barre chords: don't PULL with your index finger. Instead, PUSH with your thumb. It sounds wrong but works, at least for me, to help make the barre more firm.
I must try this, if it might help, I need to.

[lostnight]

Got Greenday instead of Creed. It's more like the Ramones, trying to learn Blitzkrieg Bog so I can jam with a friend who plays the drums. Figured Greenday will help build my strength, endurance, and shifting for playing the Ramones.

[Tom Servo]

George - just trying to do what you're saying lead me to keep my thumb a little bit further up the neck when doing a barre, which seems to have helped with the barre itself. It hasn't fixed the fact that I'm sloppy with my ring finger on E-shaped barres, just too far back from the fret, but it has helped with the rest of it. Now, have to get myself into the habit.

[lostnight]

Shinedown is the next DLC. Not into them.

[Tom Servo]

Oi. A while ago they said that Coheed & Cambria were in the pipeline, but no idea when it'd happen. I'm becoming impatient.

[Tom Servo]

Next gen versions confirmed for November. Doesn't sound like much in the way of features, just sharpened up visuals and presumably better loading times. PS4 will have PS Vita support for basically showing tabs, it sounds like, so you can have it in front of you and practice. Also both will have built in support for recording and sharing performances. DLC will carry over from 360 -> XBone and PS3 -> PS4 but, obviously, no cross-company portability (too bad, as I think I like the PS4 more). No idea on pricing, presumably it'll be in the normal price range.

[lostnight]

I also read that the DLC is going to be strong with mega-hits for the fall/winter cycle. The liaison dude on the forum there, Dan Amrich (or something) said he was very excited about the upcoming DLC in the next few months, he said that just tonight in a thread I posted in. We shall see.

[Tom Servo]

This week's selection should be amusing.


Autograph “Turn Up the Radio” – Eb Standard
Billy Squier “The Stroke”
Dio – “Holy Diver”
Poison “Nothin’ but a Good Time” – Eb Standard
Winger “Seventeen” – Eb Standard

[lostnight]

Yep, bought them all. Billy Squire and Dio are the 2 I want to play most.

[Tom Servo]

Interesting about this pack, everyone seems to be stoked about a couple of them but have one or two they don't care about. I'm mostly just into the Dio, but the Billy Squier one is the one I care about the least. Probably get it anyway though.

[Tom Servo]

Picked them up, but didn't get a chance to play the Poison or Autograph songs yet. Also picked up Surrender (which turned out to be much easier than expected if a bit of a finger stretcher) and 25 or 6 to 4. Lots of fun so far, though the Winger one is significantly tougher than I would have expected.

[George]

Off-topic comments about "25 or 6 to 4" and other stuff hidden below spoiler tag so as not to disrupt the thread about Rocksmith/Bandfuse too badly.



Once you learn 25 or 6 to 4, it shouldn't be a stretch to add two more to your repertoire. They use the same chord progression.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UXb8ZDuICCs

I played this one 53,697,109 times in my long-time cover band in the '90s. Well, maybe not quite that many times, but it seemed like it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZjWz6mJtdg

We've all heard the Zeppelin version enough by now, I'm guessing, so how about this version from Great White? I'm thinking this was MTV Unplugged but don't know for sure.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAerqUwADe8

And, unrelated to the above and just 'cause I love the original Chicago band before they became "smooth pop" or whatever in the '80s, here's a favorite of mine with the late Terry Kath on guitar and vocals.

Guitar geek bonus points for anyone who can identify the guitar riff at 4:39 - 4:43. Hint: it's a "quote" from a song by a popular rock guitarist/singer/songwriter.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8vY3vAbAdQ

[George]

Got Greenday instead of Creed. It's more like the Ramones, trying to learn Blitzkrieg Bog so I can jam with a friend who plays the drums. Figured Greenday will help build my strength, endurance, and shifting for playing the Ramones.

Hey lostnight - missed your comment earlier. Have you tried the Ramones' version of "Spiderman"? Careful - you could blow a gasket in your wrist trying to strum along. :eek:

Video below spoiler. Maybe that will keep this thread loading quickly and not an all-day wait like the "What are you listening to?" thread in the Pits with all those videos.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3F2y2hRP4o

[Tom Servo]

Hey, just the man I was hoping to run into, since I'm having some guitar issues with the Les Paul. Lemme know if you feel like answering a lot of idiot guitar questions!

I think Holy Diver will be the second song, along with Fear of the Dark, that my wife will quickly get very sick of.

[George]

Hey, just the man I was hoping to run into, since I'm having some guitar issues with the Les Paul. Lemme know if you feel like answering a lot of idiot guitar questions!

Always! I'm in quite the guitar mood right now as my gang of geriatric guitar jammers has planned an all-afternoon jam on November 2. I haven't done anything of a social nature and just fun for me (other than bicycle commuting to work) instead of "fun with the whole family!" in a very long time. Don't get me wrong; I love my family but need to get out and just be a guy doing something cool rather than all the important stuff in life.

All your Les Paul questions answered:

No, you do not need Zakk Wylde pickups. Or EMGs.
Do not have it routed for a Floyd Rose.
Do install straplocks and use a wide leather strap because them is heavy sumbitches.
Never forget you can solve all your problems by switching to a Fender Telecaster. :up:

[Tom Servo]

Hah!

Okay, well, here's what I'm running into right now.

G string is giving me fits. I just do not seem to be able to get the intonation right. I can get it tuned right playing open, but it's always sharp at the 12th fret. I've moved the saddle back and forth and it really doesn't seem to do much of anything. Don't have this problem with any other string.

B buzzes. A lot. I can't see that it touches any frets, but it loves buzzing.

Finally, wondering if this is normal. I was playing, then had to put it down for a minute, so I just put it on the floor on its back. Headstock touches the ground and I can hear the strings go flat. Is it supposed to flex that much just from sitting on the ground?

[George]

Reply to Mr. Servo is “spoiled” since it’s not about the video games, and it’s really long and boring for most folks, I’m sure. Even with a couple of Batman-style effects in the spirit of Zing!, Pow!, and Zowee!, this is dull stuff.




G string is giving me fits. I just do not seem to be able to get the intonation right. I can get it tuned right playing open, but it's always sharp at the 12th fret. I've moved the saddle back and forth and it really doesn't seem to do much of anything. Don't have this problem with any other string.

That’s weird, but not unheard of on guitar internet forums over the years. I don’t have an easy answer for you. Here are a bunch of rambling thoughts that might help, or might not.

I have a little experience with Tune-O-Matic bridges, but I’ve never had your problem. I googled to find anything specific to Les Pauls and G strings. This is worth reading IMO. I’m sure you can find similar discussions.

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/epiphone-les-pauls/79099-me-my-sharp-g-string.html

Ask any electric player and they’ll probably tell you the G string gives them more trouble than any other string. G strings are always a little funky with classic electric guitars because in the early 1950s string sets were thicker and came with a wound G string, as acoustic guitar string sets still do. Strings have gotten thinner in the passing decades and now a plain G is the norm but we’re still using 1950s bridge designs. Just for grins you could put a wound G on there and see what happens. Most guitar stores sell single strings. Just ask for their thinnest wound string if you feel like experimenting. It won’t bend as easily as a plain G but it might (probably will) sound really good. Get on the neck pickup, roll the tone down some, and play some jazz on that guitar as Les Paul himself intended. But, a wound G might be too fat for your G string nut slot. More on nuts later. Still, I’d spend a buck for a string if I were you just to say you did it. It would be like putting cyclocross tires on your new Trek – probably not what you want to ride on every day but possibly fun for a little while.

Along the same lines of trying a wound G, you might try a thicker plain G. In fact, that might be the first thing to try, now that I think about it. LPs have shorter scale lengths than Fenders, so if you’re using the same strings as you were on your Strat, you might try going up a gauge, like to “tens” if you’re using “nines” now.

Do you have a fresh set of strings on when you’re trying to check and set intonation? Old strings that have been stretched and bent and dented underneath by frets and covered with the oils from your skin get worn out and eventually don’t intonate properly. That’s how I know when it’s time to change strings – not because a digital tuner says the 12th fret is off, but when I start hearing chords that sound out of tune even though the open strings are in tune. Also, very rarely you might get a “bad” string out of a pack according to internet forums, but I never have. But then again, I don’t go through strings like guys who play guitar a lot do. I was always the bass player and bass strings can last for years.

But assuming your strings have been changed somewhat recently and they aren’t caked with beer and sweat, and you didn’t get that one manufacturing error in a million, you should hear the pitch of the 12th fret note change when you move the saddle back and forth, as you know. When you say it doesn’t seem to do much of anything, I’m thinking it’s so very sharp that your tuner is showing sharp no matter what you do with the saddle. Hopefully you can hear the pitch change as you move the saddle even if your tuner is telling you it’s some degree of sharp. I’ve never had that problem on a Fender bridge, but in that link above you’ll see guys talking about flipping the T.O.M. bridge around and talking about an aftermarket product with greater saddle adjustment room. Those are possibilities if all else fails, I guess, as is taking the guitar to a professional guitar tech for a setup if your LP is a “keeper” and you don’t mind spending a few bucks on it.

You are de-tuning the string a bit before moving the saddle, and then tuning back up, right? Don’t move the saddle with the string at regular pitch. It can be done, but the scraping of the saddle under a tight string can’t be good for the string.

What about the other frets besides the 12th? Try frets all over the neck and see if they get consistently sharper as you get to the higher frets, or if there’s some variation. If it varies, such as flat in one place and sharp in another, the string could be getting pinched in the nut slot, which is a job for a professional guitar tech, unless you want to buy a set of nut files (pricey!) and learn by trial and error. From personal experience, I can say with confidence that most nuts are not as good as they could be straight from the factory, or at least in guitars in my price range (middle-of-the-road pricewise, and below). Usually nut slots are just a little high which makes the action high at the low frets and can make the notes at the low frets sharp even if the open string and 12th fret are in tune. This can make chords sound like crap on a guitar that is supposedly in tune.

I don’t bother with nuts on cheap guitars if they’re “good enough” but I have had new nuts made for two basses and one Telecaster neck that I’ve moved around to various bodies and it makes a difference in how in tune the instrument plays all over the neck. I wouldn’t have a serious “keeper” guitar without a nice nut made or at least checked and had the slots polished by a pro. But that’s just me. Maybe you have five decent nut slots and one that’s funky. You might take an old guitar string and rub it back and forth in the slot(s) to make sure there are no burrs or rough spots in them. You can use fine sandpaper for the wider slots, or emery cloth.

One quick way to check overall nut health is to put a capo on the first fret. Always check your tuning after you put on a capo. If chords suddenly sound in tune with the capo where they didn’t before, your nut needs attention, regardless of what’s going on at the 12th fret. You don’t play only 12th fret notes, so it’s important for the guitar to play in tune all over the neck and especially down near the nut where most of spend our time playing chords.

I set intonation standing up, with the guitar strapped on in playing position and plugged into a tuner, or with a Snark tuner clipped to the headstock. I figure the guitar should be in playing position and not sitting flat on a workbench. As you’ve seen from resting your guitar on the headstock on the floor (*CRINGE!*…but more on that later), most guitar necks are made of wood and wood moves. I also don’t use the 12th fret harmonics to check intonation. I want the fretted note to be in tune, since I play fretted notes far more often than harmonics, and the 12th fret note is right, the harmonic will certainly be close enough, if not dead on. That’s my opinion. Others will disagree and set intonation with the guitar on its back on a workbench and by using harmonics. To each his own.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of a tuner are you using? You can get strobe tuners like the Peterson brand for super-accurate work as pro guitar techs and serious hobbyists use, but any digital tuner made in the 21st century should be good enough for basic intonation at the 12th fret. I use a Snark lately, but for years I set up instruments with an old blinky-light Sabine that I bought in 1990 and it got the job done just fine. It still works fine but isn’t as convenient as modern designs. It looks like an antique from 1960s Star Trek compared to Snarks and some of the cool new tuner pedals these days.

http://www.studio1525.com/store/images/Studio1525-7-21-2011%20020.jpg

There are also smart phone and tablet apps for strobe tuners. I’ve heard good things about the Peterson strobe app for iOS and would own it, except I haven’t yet coughed up $100 or more for an interface to let me plug a guitar into the iPad. One of these days, maybe…

[George]

More, believe it or not...




B buzzes. A lot. I can't see that it touches any frets, but it loves buzzing.

George: My bike makes a clunking noise sometimes when I stand up and pedal hard. What’s the problem?

Tom Servo’s likely response: You need to isolate the where it’s coming from. RD? BB? Pedals? Chain? Frame?

And that’s my answer to you. Where is it buzzing? Put a capo on the first fret. Does the buzzing go away? Put the capo on the 12th fret. How about now? Pluck the string normally but also in between the capo and the nut. You might have a high fret, or corresponding low fret(s), somewhere. The capo should show you that pretty quickly. The nut slot might be too low, so the B string is buzzing against the first few frets. I've heard of people shimming nut slots with a tiny dab of superglue to fix this until they can have a new nut made. You might also raise the treble side of the bridge a tiny bit, using the thumbwheel, if that doesn’t put your high E string in the Stratosphere. Stratosphere. Get it? I crack myself up.

You might also need to adjust the truss rod. Put the capo on the first fret and your finger on the low E string way up high, like maybe the 15th or 17th or 19th fret. The pros will tell you to use feeler gauges to determine how much relief (distance between fingerboard around the 7th fret to the underside of the strings) the neck has. I simply sight down the neck as if aiming a rifle. You should be able to see a little relief but not too much. How much is too much? Time and experience will tell, or you can use feeler gauges and go online to find LP setup guides that will give you someone’s idea of optimum relief. If you see the string(s) touching all frets for the whole length of the neck, your neck is either too straight or possibly has a slight back-bow. Too straight a neck can cause buzzing and a back-bow certainly will. That’s what a truss rod is designed to correct. I’m sure google will get you better info than I can provide about adjusting Les Paul truss rods.

Oh, and while you’re aiming the guitar and sighting down the low E, flip it over at least once and eyeball the high E also. In rare cases, a neck can have a twist and you might see relief on the bass side but a back-bow on the treble side, or vice-versa. That’s quite unlikely, but it’s easy enough to look down the high E and see what you can see as long as you’re at it.

Finally, before I start scolding you for gross abuse of your guitar, you might find taking your guitar to a professional guitar tech for a setup is your best bet. I’m sure there are more good techs (and incompetent ones too) in LA than anywhere else other than possibly Nashville or NYC so you can probably find one who will do a good job. Just like bicycles, new guitars need to be set up for the individual who will be using them. A good setup can turn a guitar you tolerate into one you adore.


Finally, wondering if this is normal. I was playing, then had to put it down for a minute, so I just put it on the floor on its back. Headstock touches the ground and I can hear the strings go flat. Is it supposed to flex that much just from sitting on the ground?

Supposed to? Probably not. Does? Yes. Surely.

Watch this. Skip to 4:15 to hear it if you’re in a hurry. This is how solid body electric guitarists can fake whammy bar sounds, and is the same reason your LP is going flat when resting on the headstock. *WINCE!*


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYsnB3tN_hM

Google “broken Gibson headstock” and you’ll never set your guitar on its back again. Set it on the front, strings down, if you must, but not on the back, please. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t set a Gibson string-down either because the pickup selector switch might be at risk. Gibson’s tilt-back headstock design is inherently more fragile than a one-piece maple neck on a Fender. If you set a Fender down on its back, the headstock will be above the floor since it’s straight in line with the rest of the neck.

That’s not an admitted Fender fanboy cracking wise about Gibsons – it’s just a simple fact. Acoustic guitars have tilt-back headstocks too but since their bodies are so fat, the headstock usually doesn’t touch the ground *SHUDDER!* like it does with a slim LP or an even skinnier SG.

Get one of these guitar stands, or a similar one. They’re small and cheap. They’re annoyingly flimsy on stage or at a jam, but they’re fine around the house if you don’t have kids or multiple cats.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/accessories/musicians-gear-tubular-guitar-stand

Or, get a Telecaster and set it on its side!

http://www.livinginmedia.com/upload/editor_files/donnelly_guitar.jpg

Seriously, though, best of luck with your LP. Let me know how it goes if you figure it out. I'd like to know for future reference.

[Tom Servo]

Heh, well, in my defense, the LP spends the vast majority of the time on a stand, I don't store it laying down like that. I put it down when someone called and I was too lazy to walk over to the stand, but now at least I know to put it down the other way.

I've got a snark tuner and pretty new strings. As far as strings I think I swapped them out a couple of weeks ago, they actually don't have a lot of play time on them right now. They're tens, and as expected G is unwound.

Sounds like I need to get myself a capo at some point. Thanks for all the advice, and I'll let you know what comes of some of the messing around.

[Tom Servo]

Next week is The Killers. No word on the songs, but it sounds like one should expect a lot of Eb standard.

[George]

A LP on a stand with pretty new (but not BRAND NEW and still stretching out) "tens" and a snark tuner sound like you're doing everything just right. This just might be one of those weird things that you'll have to figure out. Maybe if you stand on one foot and hold your mouth just right...

Something else I thought about that probably isn't the problem but might be worth looking at to consider every variable is the stop bar height. Too high, and the strings could be "floating" on the saddles without really getting a good bite on them. Too low, and the strings might be getting stretched too hard over the saddles. Either extreme might cause problems. I don't know but I thought I'd mention it.

[Tom Servo]

The big news this week:

A five pack of Tom Petty got leaked on Steam. Songs are Free Fallin', I Won't Back Down, American Girl, Refugee, and Learning to Fly.

A 12 pack of Jimi Hendrix is coming mid-December. If you upgrade to the Xbox One or PS4 version of the game, all 12 songs are free. If not, it's $30. Note that you'll have to buy it for the next-gen console for it to be free, and if you do so, it will not be playable on the PS3/360. Songs are


Bold as Love
Castles Made of Sand
Fire
Foxey Lady
Freedom
If 6 Was 9
Little Wing
Manic Depression
Purple Haze
Red House
The Wind Cries Mary
Voodoo Child


Also, Killswitch Engage came out this week. Thought it was going to be Slayer. Am disappoint.

[Tom Servo]

The previously mentioned Tom Petty pack comes out tomorrow, one of the Free Fallin' arrangements requires a capo. Guess it's finally time to get one.

[Tom Servo]

Really enjoying the Tom Petty pack. I don't think any of the songs are particularly difficult, which is just fine by me. Noticing that somehow the Open tunings appear to break the sorting by tuning. Seven Nation Army is open A and somehow gets its own group while overriding Eb standard, so all Eb standard songs show up in the listing as open A, while Won't Back Down is Open G and it just falls into the E standard tuning. Doubt that will be fixed, as they've made it pretty clear that there's a significant money outlay to get patches for consoles that they don't want to go through.

Today brings the first repeat appearance in a pack, Foo Fighters, with 5 more songs.

Monkey Wrench
Rope
Long Road to Ruin
The Pretender
Learn to Fly

Probably pick that up as well.

[lostnight]

That is weird, no Sonic Highways songs, but also no I'll Stick Around,, This Is A Call, or Big Me. Still a good pack, but makes me think even more FF could be in the pipeline since they've broken the seal.

[Tom Servo]

Really liking the FF songs, couldn't be bothered to get Bullet for my Valentine this past week. Next week: Bon Jovi. No idea what songs yet, and while he's not my favorite my wife is going to be thrilled.

[Tom Servo]

And it's a five-pack.


Blaze of Glory
It's my Life
Livin' on a Prayer
Wanted Dead or Alive
You Give Love a Bad Name

[George]

Gotta have a Strat to play those Richie Sambora licks! :devil:

[Tom Servo]

This implies that I'm only missing that one ingredient to play those Richie Sambora licks :)

[lostnight]

Maybe the hat too.

I never bought any Bon Jovi for myself, but I did buy Slippery When Wet for my sister, Christmas of 1986. Nevertheless, I did buy this DLC. Being familiar with their music helps me when it comes to learning guitar, and there is something satisfying about playing stuff I've heard for so long. Plus, Living On A Prayer is a blast for me to practice (lead). I enjoy practicing the 2 and 3 string chords, at least on the lower difficulties, don't know how many strings the chords are on harder levels. But the is a good amount horizontal and some vertical movement with the chords, right now that challenges me and feels like good practice. I want to pound that, get really good at it on this song before I boost the difficulty.

[Tom Servo]

Next up is Rage Against the Machine, and we already know that Jimi is coming after that.

[Tom Servo]

The Rage songs are stupid fun to play. These will be in regular rotation despite 4 of 7 being in non-standard tuning.

[Random]

Fun on bass, too. :up: Tim C rocks.

[lostnight]

I bought RATM, agree it is stupid fun. Haven't tried bass yet though.

[Godson]

I need to get back into this game.

[George]

Just a warning in case you guys are thinking about downloading the Christmas Carol Pack...

"Why Does Every Christmas Song Have So Many Chords"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7ouzVdDMJCM

[Tom Servo]

Did they bring that one back? They used to have a free Christmas pack, but they'd taken it off the store when Seth Chapla left the company to go work on Bandfuse.

They're actually pretty fun, I'm glad that I got them when they were available.

I suck at the Jimi Hendrix tracks, but I can't really say I'm surprised by this.

[lostnight]

at least I'm not the only one having a tough time with JH, but the awesomeness should be tough. Loving it.

[Godson]

So...I popped this game back into the xbox, and now it won't play at all. Disc unreadable. I have played it maybe 10 times. Disc looks brand new. I'm a bit saddened by this.

[Tom Servo]

Haven't been all that into the last two DLCs, which were:

Linkin Park
- Bleed it Out
- Guilty all the Same
- In the End
- Numb
- One Step Closer
- What I've Done

and Soundgarden:
- Black Hole Sun
- Fell On Black Days
- Jesus Christ Pose
- Pretty Noose
- Spoonman

But, this week's is shaping up well. Sounds like a five pack, but only three have been guessed so far...
Styx - Renegade
Dio - Rainbow in the Dark
Rick Derringer - Rock And Roll Hoochie Koo
Edit: Just added Motorhead - Ace of Spades
Edit: Now we know the fifth. Warrant - Cherry Pie

[lostnight]

I bought 4 of the 5, skipped Warrant. I also bought the Soundgargen pack, but skipped Linkin Park. # Days Grace is next. Don't know if I'll get their whole pack, but they have at least two songs I would like to try playing.

[Tom Servo]

There's a guy who goes by toymachinesh, he shows up on reddit, the ubisoft forums, and runs his own blog talking about all sorts of music games. I've never seen him not be supportive of whatever DLC. Three Days Grace is the first time I've seen him actively express his displeasure.

I do agree something he said later in the thread: They are the very definition of "eh...they're okay, I guess."

[lostnight]

Is he the riffrepeater dude on YouTube? 3 Days Grace I hear sometimes on one of the radio stations I listen to. I used my Music ID phone to identify them, they do sound similar to a lot of groups, so I guess that makes them rather formulatic and over produced sounding.

Never bought them on i-tunes, but two of there songs have crunchy catchy power chords that don't sound overly complex and might be fun for me to practice with.

[Tom Servo]

He might be, his blog is called The Riff Repeater, so that'd make sense.

[Yw-slayer]

Linkin Park? Might as well learn how to play it on a real guitar, it's probably easier. :lol:

[Tom Servo]

YW knows that this is with a real guitar, right?

[Tom Servo]

Next up is Power Ballads just in time for Valentine's Day. Sounds like we know all but one of the songs, but we know all five bands.

Boston - Either "Something About You" or "Amanda"
Cinderella - Don't Know What You've Got ('Til It's Gone)
Extreme - More Than Words (God, I fucking hate this song)
Poison - Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Tesla - Love Song

[Phil_SS]

One of my all time favorite albums is Tesla's Mechanical Resonance. So I would be all over that.

Amanda is based around acoustic guitar, can you use one with the program?

Edit: Yes I know that Love Song is on The Great Radio Controversy. Just sayin I'm a fan of Tesla especially Mechanical Resonance.

[Godson]

In my experience you really need a decent/good pickup with an acoustic guitar or the game doesn't hear it too well.

[Yw-slayer]

YW knows that this is with a real guitar, right?

Sorry, yeah, I'd somehow conflated Rock Band and Rocksmith in my head. :lol:

Yes, I actually have Rocksmith and have hooked it up to my guitar before, but couldn't get my head around it being the reverse of tablature. That, and no time, no space, etc. etc.

[lostnight]

EEeww, ballads, wretch. Skip. I paid lifetime membership to Ultimate Guitar, got the pro tabs for Mongoloid by Devo. Spent a while practicing that before the Superbowl with my little Orange amp and Swollen Pickle pedal.......just a simple good time.

[Tom Servo]

YW, you can flip the display in-game to be more like tablature. For me, the two forms of notation are different enough that I don't really have a problem switching between them, but I know a lot of people who do flip it.

I also haven't heard a lot of success stories with acoustic, but in theory anything that has a pickup should work. I saw something recently about someone getting their violin to work with it.

[Tom Servo]

I picked them all up except for More Than Words, because I might have to blow my brains out if I hear that song.

They're actually pretty fun so far. Love Song is the toughest for me so far, like Ace of Spades it has a chord that you need to use your thumb on low E for. Swapping between that (it's basically an open D + fretting the 2nd fret with your thumb on low E and playing all the strings) and an open G is really tough for me. I think they're overall hovering right around my skill level, which is nice. Basically, still interesting solos but not nearly as fast, so I might actually be able to keep up.

[George]

https://i.imgflip.com/hbkll.jpg

:lol:

[Tom Servo]

Last week was Seether (who I know absolutely nothing about, I just keep thinking of the Veruca Salt song), but an accidental enable for a short time on PSN leaks what is presumably next week's DLC.

Jane's Addiction:
Been Caught Stealing
Jane Says
Mountain Song
Superhero
Just Because

I'm not sure I'll ever get over being burnt out on Been Caught Stealing, but really looking forward to Mountain Song.

[lostnight]

Cool, I love Jane's Addiction, bought Nothing's Shocking on cassette at Tower Records in San Diego in the late 80s. Pretty good playlist, but I would have dumped Superhero and Just bECAUSE AND REPLACED THEM WITH oCEAN sIZED AND sTOP. sTILL BUYING THE PACK THOUGH. Stupid caps lock, d'oh!

[Tom Servo]

Yep, with you, I'd love to have all of them come from Nothing's Shocking.

[8400RPM]

Yeah same here. My friend made me a cassette of Nothing's Shocking when it came out and I wore the shit out of that thing, easily their masterpiece. This song list is really disappointing, even Jane Says is a crappy choice as it's so repetitive for guitar players. Probably just get Mountain Song, like Swervo I'm pretty burnt out on Been Caught Stealing as well but it does have some cool chords.

It sucks, because they seem to have picked a lot of songs for the original on-disc release because they were interesting guitar songs, while most of the DLC is just song popularity.

Update to my earlier post: I was able to convince a Gamestop employee to let me exchange discs (even though I'd bought it a year earlier) since mine all but stopped reading, been fine ever since. Cool guy.

[Tom Servo]

One of the RS guys was responding to that criticism not too long ago, that they were picking the popular songs rather than the interesting to play ones. I'd have to find it again, but I seem to remember him saying that they'd tried to go the "interesting" route but people just weren't buying them, so they figured they'd give the fans what they want.

I do think there have been some really good DLC songs recently, including some stuff that I'd never heard of before that was pretty good. It seems to be alternating for me between popular/boring and less popular/more entertaining. I am really enjoying Ace of Spades, for example.

[Tom Servo]

I just nailed the intro to Flogging Molly's "Drunken Lullabies". I am feeling rather accomplished at the moment.

[Tom Servo]

Really enjoying the Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys from this week's "Shamrock" pack. Next week is Anthrax, don't know the songs. Love the band, but afraid that'll be another set that I'm just not capable of playing.

DLC for the two weeks after that got accidentally leaked on XBone.

Spinal Tap:
Big Bottom
Gimme Some Money
Sex Farm
Stonehenge
Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight

Bush:
Comedown
Everything Zen
Glycerine
Swallowed

[lostnight]

The Shamrock pack is fun, tried playing some of it on SPD in between bar visits. I look forward to getting Anthrax, even if I can't play it well at all. I'll at least get Everything Zen from Bush.

[Tom Servo]

Yep, Anthrax:
Madhouse
Caught in a Mosh
Got the Time
Indians

I love all those songs, but watching the videos I'm pretty sure they're too fast for me. That's my big problem with Rocksmith now - almost all the songs I really love are too complicated for my skill level.

[Random]

Got the Time! Have fun with the bass part on that. :D

[George]

Indeed! I know I'm always posting about how I used to play bass in cover bands, but I really did, and "Got The Time" is FUN to play on bass!

The lead guitarist and I had a long-running friendly argument about whether we played the Joe Jackson version or the Anthrax version. As he played a pointy-headstock Jackson guitar, you can probably guess which side he was on.

The Joe Jackson studio version is just a little slower. Since the bass player starts the song and sets the tempo, I always made sure we played the JJ version. :D


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTIPCc1nKYQ


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be7iNHw8QoQ

[Tom Servo]

Glycerine may be the most boring song to play of all time.

[Yw-slayer]

Oh dear. I thought it was an Anthax original. I'm no better than my friend who went around raving to people about Madonna's awesome new song, American Pie, which apparently demonstrated what a brilliant songwriter she was...

[George]

Oh dear. I thought it was an Anthax original. I'm no better than my friend who went around raving to people about Madonna's awesome new song, American Pie, which apparently demonstrated what a brilliant songwriter she was...

:eek: Madonna covered American Pie?! :eek:

/runs to YouTube

Well...um, that was unexpected.

Yw-Slayer, if you haven't heard much of Joe Jackson's early work, I highly recommend his two 1979 albums, "Look Sharp!" and "I'm The Man." Both are high-energy pop/rock albums with clever lyrics and great playing.

Here's another tune I've been lucky enough to have played with a couple of bands. It's no more difficult than John Cougar's "R.O.C.K. In The USA". I just love bassist Graham Maby. The other musicians could stop playing and I bet the audience would still be dancing whenever Maby gets going like he does here.

Guitarist Gary Sanford has an interesting style - he seems mostly to stay out of the way of the other three monster players in the band, yet he plays neat stuff. He reminds me of two of his contemporaries - The Edge and Andy Summers.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el66jnuItYc

[Yw-slayer]

Thanks George, I'll add those albums to my Spotify trylists. Although "I'm The Man" sounds uncomfortably similar to ska, which I hate even more than "experimental" jazz and fool-on-a-stool singer-songwriter pop crap like Mars, Mraz, Blunt, etc.

As for Madonna's cover of American Pie, in my view, the less said about that, the better.

[Tom Servo]

Inspired by George, I went ahead and picked up the Anthrax pack specifically for Got the Time. Turns out it's not nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be...it's fast, but it's pretty much just power chords all near each other. Really fun song.

[Tom Servo]

Oh, and Thin Lizzy is next. Three songs, only "The Boys are Back in Town" is confirmed.

EDIT: Other two songs are

“Dancing In The Moonlight (It’s Caught Me in It’s Spotlight)”
“Jailbreak” – Eb Standard

Boys are Back is also Eb Standard.

[21Kid]

A little bit off topic, but I didn't think it deserved it's own thread. Disney's Fantasia is on sale at the Best Buy (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/misc/deal-of-the-day/pcmcat248000050016.c?id=pcmcat248000050016) today for $10/$20 for Xbox 360/One. My kids love playing it, and I think it's pretty fun too. It's like Rock Band mixed with Fruit ninja. You basically act like a conductor and have to hit certain movements.

[Tom Servo]

I got Fantasia for Christmas and very much enjoyed it. Harmonix definitely know their music games.

Anyone try out the Thin Lizzy pack? Worth picking up?

In my absence at Yosemite, the alt-rock pack has come out this week:

Dinosaur Jr. - Feel the Pain (Capo required)
Fuel - Hemmorage (In My Hands) (Eb Standard)
Lit - My Own Worst Enemy (Eb Standard on bass)
Stone Sour - Through Glass (Eb Standard)
Yellowcard - Ocean Avenue (Drop D)

[Tom Servo]

Next week is Dethklok:

Awaken
Thunderhorse
Go Into the Water

Sounds like all three songs are in C standard. Given the tuning and the fact that I probably can't really play them anyway, can't see me picking this up.

[lostnight]

I did not pick up Thin Lizzy yet, the selection kind of bored me, made for radio stuff. Was hoping for Thunder and Lightning, thtat one would keep me busy for eons. I might still pick it up due to the familiar songs which should help me learn them to some extent.

On the last pack I only bought Lit, because I like it and play it on thr jukebox sometimes. Thinking about Dethklok, that was a screwball pitch thrown in there.

[Tom Servo]

Next week is a five pack of blues songs. One "featuring King" (Albert King maybe? He's already shown up a couple of times, though B.B. King has also shown up already).

Should be fun though, I enjoy playing the blues songs so far.

[Tom Servo]

Wrong on both King guesses.

The pack is out:

Bobby "Blue" Bland - Ain't No Love In the Heart of the City
Freddie King - Hide Away
Howlin' Wolf - Spoonful (E standard A446)
John Lee Hooker - Boom Boom
Johnny Winter - Be Careful with a Fool

[George]

Speaking of B.B. King, apparently he is in home hospice care. :(

http://www.bbking.com/news/

[Godson]

Johnny winters!!!!

[Tom Servo]

All That Remains this week.

Six - D standard
This Calling - D standard
Two Weeks - C# standard

[lostnight]

Slayer 5 pack next. A must buy for me, even though I'm not nearly as into them as I was 20+ years ago. I do have some a little bit of Slayer on my i-tunes.

[Tom Servo]

I love Slayer. I doubt I can play any of the songs, but if I'm lucky Seasons in the Abyss and South of Heaven will be on there, at least those are a little slower than most Slayer songs.

[lostnight]

I'm also hoping South Of Heaven will be on there, love that one. The JP cover Dissident Aggressor would make me very happy. Hell Awaits, I could see that one in there.

[8400RPM]

Raining Blood is confirmed. Anything off Reign in Blood or South of Heaven is fine with me.

[Tom Servo]

Awesome, awesome selections. All Eb Standard.

Angel of Death (!!!)
Dead Skin Mask
Raining Blood
Seasons in the Abyss
South of Heaven

[Tom Servo]

First playthroughs are dropping me off at around 40% or so (with the exception of Seasons which I had practiced offline for some time, that's up around 55%). The solos are going to be hell, but overall the main riffs aren't too bad. I think War Ensemble was much harder than what we've got going here.

[lostnight]

I noticed that the 24th fret is used in at least one of the Slayer songs. None of my guitars went that high up. I did want st least one guitar that went that high. I also wanted a real travel guitar. Guitar Center has the Ibanez Mikro on sale this weekend for 119, down from 214 supposedly.24 frets and short scale, kills two birds with one stone. Hot mine in white. Would have loved the purple one, but they did not have it in stock. I like to check it out and play for a while before I buy.

Most of the Slayer chords look simple enough, it's just the speed that kills. The solos look crazy though.

[Tom Servo]

FWIW, Rocksmith will count anything above the 22nd fret if you just play the 22nd fret (e.g., if a note is on the 24th and you play the 22nd, it'll give you credit). Kinda wish they'd done that with the 21st as my Fender only has 21 frets, but whatever. I only noticed one note up at 24 so far, but the solos aren't leveled up very high for me.

[George]

Once again, you need a Telecaster. :D

You can use a Strat neck pickup as the 24th fret, but it's easier on a Tele with smooth chrome pickup cover and without those pesky raised pickup poles you find on most Strats. Just press down (hard!) between the fingerboard and the end of the neck. The string will rest against the edge of the pickup just like it does against a fret. The guy in the video calls this a "mod", but really it's just having your neck pickup high enough to get the string to rest against it and still vibrate.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ozoePFXD3I8

[Tom Servo]

Gotta be tough to do a bend at that point!

Next bunch are some songs with the word "love" in the title. I think they were having a tough time coming up with a theme.

Bill Withers “Lovely Day”
The Cure “Friday I’m In Love” – E Standard: A456 [Lead/Rhythm] / Drop D: A456 [Bass]
Steve Vai “For The Love of God”

[Random]

The amount of emotion Vai gets out of his guitar in that song is amazing. Been one of my favorites since that album came out.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okLDkcexiVg

[8400RPM]

Really happy with the Slayer song selections although I have yet to download it, really busy lately.

Lostnight- Playing anything above the 20th fret on a short-scale guitar- good luck. Those suckers are tiny. I did get to guitar center last weekend and try that Ibanez Mikro, pretty good build quality for the price I must say. Are you liking the sound of the pickups? I tried to play one through an amp but the store was so busy I couldn't hear a damn thing. I was thinking of picking one up for my gf.

I've been on a bit of a guitar binge lately on craisglist- picking up 4 guitars in the last few weeks! I did sell one and trade one though so just a net gain of 2, all fairly cheap too. Scored a nice '92 Ibanez RG550 (poor mans Jem). Should get the Vai song just for that!

[Random]

It occurred to me to wonder what, if any, changes they had to make to Vai's tune for the game since he plays a seven-string. Hmm.

[lostnight]

Really happy with the Slayer song selections although I have yet to download it, really busy lately.

Lostnight- Playing anything above the 20th fret on a short-scale guitar- good luck. Those suckers are tiny. I did get to guitar center last weekend and try that Ibanez Mikro, pretty good build quality for the price I must say. Are you liking the sound of the pickups? I tried to play one through an amp but the store was so busy I couldn't hear a damn thing. I was thinking of picking one up for my gf.

I've been on a bit of a guitar binge lately on craisglist- picking up 4 guitars in the last few weeks! I did sell one and trade one though so just a net gain of 2, all fairly cheap too. Scored a nice '92 Ibanez RG550 (poor mans Jem). Should get the Vai song just for that!

I think the pickup sounds pretty decent. It doesn't seem to stay in tune for too long, don't know if it's just mine or if it is a common issue with that model. I like playing it though. It's my first guitar I decided not to put fret numbers on (besides my acoustic-electric), It's a way to ween myself off eventually. I'm in no hurry though, I play for fun and learn what I learn along the way.

Quuen Of The Stone Age is the next dlc, so excited, they are my favorite group. Love that desert fuzz guitar sound. No One Knows is confirmed, a good way to start a 5 pack.
I'm hoping from among these songs:
Song For The Dead
Song For The Deaf
Little Sister
Regular John
The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret
You Think I Aint Worth A Dollar But I Feel Like A Millionaire
The Sky Is Falling
Mexicola

[Tom Servo]

Songs are listed:

"3's & 7's" - C Standard
"I Appear Missing" - E Standard
"Little Sister" - E Standard
"Make It Wit Chu" - E Standard
"No One Knows" - C Standard

So, you got one of 'em. That C standard business is pretty much going to kill those two for me though.

[8400RPM]

Yeah, you almost need a dedicated guitar for those low tunings. I've been meaning to set up one of my guitars to D standard for some System of a Down/Motley Crue action, wouldn't be as far to go to C from there.

I'll probably get this pack, have always wanted to master 'No One Knows'.

Got the Slayer pack the other day. The tones they created for those tracks are really horrible, way too much distortion and not EQ'd very well.

[Tom Servo]

Heh, I just assumed I was playing it wrong. I will chalk it up to the tone and make myself feel better.

It does sound like if you really want to do C standard, you need thicker strings than I normally use, which requires re-setting up the guitar (and makes E standard pretty tough to play). I enjoy both those songs, but just not ready to go through that just yet.

[lostnight]

I can't believe that of all the QOTSA songs I have on i-tunes, only 2 are on this pack. Oh well, I played all 5 both parts, and there seems to be enough to keep me busy and interested. My C tuning hasn't given me much of a hassle on this pack, surprisingly.

[Tom Servo]

What size strings do you have?

[George]

Ideally you need thicker strings and also a longer scale when tuning down more than about a full step, or things start to get strange. Intonation at the higher frets will be off too, which might explain why some things aren't sounding right if while soloing while tuned C to C.

My baritone, for example, is tuned B to B and it has a 27" scale length (instead of the usual 24.75" Gibson or 25.5" Fender scale lengths). I'm running a set of 13-62 strings. By comparison, I use 9-42 for regular electric guitar tuned E to E.

It's the same in the bass world. When five-strings started becoming common, with a low B string added, a fifth lower than E, many builders extended the scale length from 34" to 35" so the B string wouldn't feel as floppy as it apparently did on some 34" scale basses.


...if a note is on the 24th and you play the 22nd, it'll give you credit.

Your bandmates won't. :P

[Tom Servo]

My bandmates will be so busy trying to come up with the most amusing way to kick me out of the band that they won't notice that one note :)

[8400RPM]

I bought a set of 11's to put on my dedicated D standard guitar, and I will definitely use one of my 25.5" scale guitars for that and not my 24.75". Mick Mars tunes to D standard and uses 10's, at least that's what the internet says. :)

I don't play enough in C standard to warrant setting up a guitar for that so I will just retune my D standard when I want to play some Dethklok, QOTSA, etc...

Can't wait to dig in to 'No One Knows', hopefully tonight.

[lostnight]

my string are wharever came on my epi sg400 at gc. loving the qotsa pack so far.

[Tom Servo]

I think I finally may have nailed the intonation on my Les Paul - the Snark tuner says that each note above the 12th fret is right on the correct note (or at least a hell of a lot closer than it was). Looking forward to putting it to the test soon - Mr. Brightside is one that I've had a lot of trouble with, any notes on the G or B strings up in the higher frets always miss.

Looks like the next round is a 5 pack of Rockabilly, only song we know so far is Carl Perkins' Blue Suede Shoes.

I need to figure out how to learn some of the solos. The only one I can pull of regularly is More Than A Feeling, and that's not particularly hard (and also seems like it's charted wrong right near the end of the first solo, just before the final four chords leading into the harmonics). Oh, I guess I can do the Ace of Spades one pretty well too.

[lostnight]

I haven't tried to conquer a solo yet, but QOTSA song I Wanna make It Wit Chu has a solo that's more obtainable than say, Slayer!

[Tom Servo]

Forgot to post last week's and just got this week's, so combined post time.

Last week - Rockabilly 5 pack
Brian Setzer "Rock This Town (2010)" - E Standard
Carl Perkins "Blue Suede Shoes" - E Standard
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps "Be-Bop-A-Lula" - E Standard
Ricky Nelson "Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart)" - E Standard
Queen "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" - E Standard

This week: 'Player Request 4 pack'
Accept "Balls to the Wall" - E Standard: A446
Edgar Winter Group "Frankenstein" - E Standard
Free "All Right Now" - E Standard
Tesla "Modern Day Cowboy" - E Standard

[8400RPM]

Accept!!! Oh hell yeahhhhhhhhhh...... Had to figure Balls to the Wall but I'll take anything.

I believe that's the first time Accept has been in a music game?

[Tom Servo]

A while back, just before Activision handed the GH franchise off to Neversoft and Harmonix went off with EA, Harmonix had one more contractual-obligation game, GH Encore Rocks the 80's. I believe that had Balls to the Wall on it.

[Tom Servo]

The wife got me a bass for my birthday. Looking forward to trying out some of the songs on bass now!

[lostnight]

That's cool, I thought about getting an inexpensive bass as my next purchase. Maybe when I get my Guitar Center card paid down some.

Didn't get the rockabilly pack, not my thing at all. But this latest pack I'll get all 4 songs.

[lostnight]

Motherofgod, we got Dragonforce next week. Not even close to being ready to tackle any of that.

[lostnight]

Whoops, I was wrong, it's Primus not Dragonforce. Much more doable for me.

[Random]

The wife got me a bass for my birthday. Looking forward to trying out some of the songs on bass now!

Whadja get?

[Tom Servo]

An Ibanez GSR200. A friend of mine claims it's one of the best beginner basses out there and I figure his opinion is significantly better than mine. Definitely having a hard time getting used to playing with my fingers, but I'm trying to force myself to do it the right way from the start. My fingers hurt like when I first started in with the guitar.

And just in time for Primus, which I'll never be able to play. Hoping for songs off Frizzle Fry and Sailing the Sea of Cheese more than the later albums.

Now that I have a guitar, bass, and drums, eventually I'll get to where I can be my own not-totally-shitty-yet-not-at-all-good one man band.

[Random]

:up: That's what I was looking at before I happened across my used MIM J-Bass.

PHAT-II bass boost! :hard: :D

[Random]

Re: Primus--really depends what they pick. "Tommy the Cat" and "Is It Luck?" Forget it. :lol:

[Tom Servo]

Judging by RS' tweet a few minutes ago, Jerry Was a Race Car Driver is definitely one of the songs.

[Random]

Have fun with that!

[George]

Congrats on the new bass! Fantastic. Every band and/or jam session needs a bass player.

But forget Primus, dude.

Signed,

The former owner of a fretless bass :lol:

[8400RPM]

Yeah what George said, forget Primus. I can't even play most of his basslines on my guitar.

I am a huge Primus fan though, and even if the songs are too hard I'll still buy them. Tons of songs I could wish for, but realistically hoping John The Fisherman is one of 'em. Like Swervo said, anything off Frizzle and Sailing would be preferred. Also Winona's Big Brown Beaver would be cool.

And see, what they really should do with a Primus pack is pick a couple of easier songs to play like "Too Many Puppies" or something but they always have to pick by song popularity 'cause that's what people buy unfortunately.

Anyone ever buy DLC for the wrong console before? :eek: I bought Balls to the Wall and No One Knows the other day while I was looking at DLC on my Xbox One, I went to play them on my 360 yesterday and couldn't figure out why they weren't in my song list. Doh!! Had to rebuy them crap. No One Knows is quite fun, love the solo and the fills. My short scale Agile Les Paul didn't complain too much about the standard C tuning. Super easy to bend notes as many steps as you wish!

So after playing that song a few times I tuned up to D standard to play some Tame Impala (and some Motley Crue on the side), then up to E-flat to play some Slayer. I left it there.

Still need to set up a dedicated guitar for lower tunings.

[Tom Servo]

Yeah, as you found out, if you buy DLC for the XBox One, it won't work on the 360. It is supposed to work in the other direction though, DLC bought on 360 should work on XBone.

[Tom Servo]

Well, not everything I'd like, but better than nothing. All appears to be E Standard

Jerry Was A Race Car Driver
Theme from South Park
Tommy the Cat
Wynona's Big Brown Beaver

Oh, and I guess it's a pack, but costs what a 3 pack normally costs. Guessing the South Park theme is probably a freebie thrown into the pack.

[8400RPM]

Figures, very predictable once again. So we have a throw away short song, and then Jerry and Tommy which very few will be able to play. Plus Tommy the Cat has a pretty sparse/boring guitar part.

I thought I would buy the whole pack, but might just get Wynona only.

[Tom Servo]

I am actually surprised we didn't get My Name is Mud. That was by far the biggest radio hit I heard for Primus. Not that I particularly wanted it, just surprised.

[Random]

If you beat (learn?) all four, they should give you "Hamburger Train" as a bonus. :D

[lostnight]

I bought the pack, went directly to the reverse of what I can do, and played Tommy The Cat on emulated bass with my Epi SG. Tried to play with my thumb like I saw on tbe video. Got 12% mastery, which was way better than I thought my performace was, because it got downright horrific.

I love having the South Park song on there, it's a great little warm up song to drill on.

[lostnight]

I am actually surprised we didn't get My Name is Mud. That was by far the biggest radio hit I heard for Primus. Not that I particularly wanted it, just surprised.

Me too, "My name Is Mud" I've air guitared to more than any other Primus song.

[lostnight]

Eww gross, classic country 3 pack next.

[Freude am Fahren]

Primus Sucks.

[lostnight]

Primus angers me.

[Tom Servo]

Pretty big change of mood after Primus, it's a 3 pack of classic country, all E Standard.

Hank Williams "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"
Roger Miller "King of the Road"
Willie Nelson "On The Road Again"

[8400RPM]

Christ there they go again.

I love me some classic country and those are all great, classic songs but for guitar not so much. On the Road Again is the only one with a true guitar solo in it, not sure if they'll transcribe the slide guitar solo in the Hank Williams song but won't be the same anyway. Good lord how about a good Don Rich or Pete Anderson (Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam) song at least. Getting really tired of the popular song choices that ignore guitar-interesting selections.

When I heard classic country was the theme I'd figure I'd be getting it for sure, now I'm not sure I'll get a single one of them.

[Tom Servo]

On one hand, I do think there's a place for not-so-interesting-to-play songs because those are the ones that most of us can master. It's nice to have a few songs that are pretty simple that I can actually play well. On the other hand, I agree, I wish they would pick less obvious choices sometimes. The RS guys that post to Reddit have made it reasonably clear though that they tried to do that early in the game and found that the "more interesting but less obvious" choices just didn't sell.

[lostnight]

Well, since I'm not in to country, I may pick up Dethklok, that'll give me a few more C Standard songs in addition to the two from QOTSA. Once you dive down to that tuning, it's nice to have a little more variety.

[Tom Servo]

Next up is Volbeat, which I've never heard of but appears to be a Danish metal/rockabilly band. 5 songs, no idea what they are yet.

[lostnight]

Cool, I already had a couple of their songs on my i-tunes. Lots of power chords in a lower tuning, not as many blistering solos, decent vocals. I will either cherry pick or buy the whole pack, but I will get some Volbeat.

Despite my general dislike of country music, I'm going to get the Hank Williams song. I'm a sucker for slide guitar, and once I saw they put that in, I decided to pull the trigger on it. Plus the other parts looked kind of fun to play as well. The other two country songs didn't have anything extra that appealed to me.

[Tom Servo]

Volbeat 5 pack, all songs in D Standard

A Warrior's Call
Fallen
Heaven Nor Hell
Lola Montez
Still Counting

[Tom Servo]

Next up is a three pack of Lynyrd Skynyrd, with the album title "Second Helping" as the sub-hint (that apparently at least one song is off that album)

[lostnight]

I got both Volbeat and Skynyrd, happy with them both. I kind of been guilty of dismissiing Skynyrd as played out redneck rock (though I really like Simple Man), but now I have a new found appreciation of just how skilled they were. There is plenty in their 3 pack to keep me challenged and growing for years. Volbeat is good for when I need my confidence bolstered.

[Tom Servo]

Speaking of, the three songs (all E standard) are:

Call Me The Breeze
Gimme Three Steps
Tuesday's Gone

(Sorry for the delay, my internet's been out for the past 40 hours or so).

[Tom Servo]

Next week is a "Regal Singles" five pack. Common thread are band names or song titles with words related to royalty. Only song known so far is The Toadies - Possum Kingdom. Also, four out of the five artists in the pack will be making their RS debut.

[Tom Servo]

PSN accidentally leaked three more of the titles.

Queen – Another One Bites the Dust
Queensrÿche – Silent Lucidity
Stevie Wonder – Sir Duke

Not that excited about that. Also, they could have picked almost any song off Operation Mindcrime and I would have been thrilled, but instead they pick possibly Queensryche's shittiest song. Feh.

[Random]

AOBtD is "fun" to play along with the original...either they altered the recording or the band just tuned to each other and not a tuner, because the guitar parts are about a quarter step off. :lol:

Agreed on the QR tune...if you must pick a song from Empire, "Jet City Woman" is pretty decent on guitar. Not super interesting on bass, though, lots of 8th-note pumping. edit: there're actually several other pretty interesting songs (musically) on that album, but, uh, "Silent Lucidity" isn't one of them, as noted.

[Tom Servo]

Looks like the PSN leak was accurate.

Queen – “Another One Bites the Dust”
Queensrÿche – “Silent Lucidity” – Drop D [Bass]
Stevie Wonder – “Sir Duke” – Eb Standard [Alt. Bass]
The Subways – “Rock & Roll Queen” – Eb Standard
Toadies – “Possum Kingdom”

[Tom Servo]

Now I'm excited. Faith No More 5-pack next week. Don't know any of the songs (though I think we can be reasonably assured that three of them will be Epic, We Care a Lot, and Midlife Crisis), but I'm holding out hope for Zombie Eaters and The Cowboy Song.

[8400RPM]

Ooh Faith No More nice! I concur with Zombie Eaters, but I sure hope We Care A Lot doesn't make the cut as there's not much guitar to it. The bass part is pretty simple too. I'm sure they'll have to include a song from the new album, I'm doubting Motherfucker makes the cut. :P

Last weeks pack was pretty good too, I have yet to get it. Might skip on the Subways and Queensryche though.

Still waiting on the Southern Culture on the Skids pack....

[Tom Servo]

Yeah, as we know, they've found that not including the big name hits hurts sales even if the songs suck to play, so I fully expect We Care A Lot on there.

Speaking of, I saw FNM live a few months back, and as they were finishing up Epic, I thought "Huh, I wonder why I never tried keyboards on that on RB3?" Then I found out it's because they don't have keyboard support for that song. Lame.

[Random]

Does anybody outside FNM fans know that "We Care a Lot" is FNM?

[Tom Servo]

Probably not, but it's still one of the few older songs they play at pretty much every show.

[Random]

Which amuses me, since that was pre-Patton.

[Tom Servo]

Epic's definitely confirmed.

[Tom Servo]

Well, I stand very, very happily corrected.

Faith No More 5 pack - all songs E Standard
Digging the Grave
Epic
Falling to Pieces
From Out of Nowhere
Midlife Crisis


Still would have loved to see Zombie Eaters, but overall I'm very happy.