There are some things I need to wrap my mind around in this new kind of format of "game" learning.
As a gamer I have this achievement habit, and I don't mean just the "chieves" that are now on consoles. This goes further back. This is the desire to stick with a certain level of a game(like Mario world 5) until I get through it nicely, and then use warp tunnels to never have to deal with that shit ever again. If you go at music like that, you're going to suck.
A song is not a level. A practice track is not a level. You need to keep at them, you need to be able to do them without notation in front of you, and without Rocksmith telling you how to play. That's the point of this, right? You want to learn guitar, not learn how to play a "game". I still go through each practice track at least once a session, and I go through the newest one 100% perfect twice. I focus on not getting it "right" but making it sound good. Making it sound good is just as important. You might think "its a practice track, what does it matter" and I say that if that's your approach, you're making things harder on yourself.
Unlike a certain infamous Guitar Hero episode on South Park, you will not be asked to remember one of those songs to play without the game. That's isn't the point of Guitar Hero. Committing songs and riffs to muscle and mind memory is very important, and doing it with the smaller and easier pieces of the practice tracks is a good start.
Day 10
Had a frustrating day today. I'm no stranger to bends on an instrument. I have particularly strong bends because I typically play bass. I don't just typically play bass, I use Lo-Rider strings that have lots more tension. When I demo a bass at a bass shop, the strings seem like loose springs to me in comparison. I don't know if the game was just having a hard drive detecting them, or they have an insanely tight tolerance for bends. I was so angry at the Bends lesson because rage-quitting and doing something else more productive would mean I have to start the lesson over again. So I finally, with lots of cursing, got to the practice track, completely ignored and worked on some riffs I have been developing, and turned the game off after the save.
The whole day wasn't wasted, I did my usual warm ups, and got new high scores in each of my warm up games. My errors with Duck Redux seem to have been from me fretting too hard. I do not think that's the only problem, I think Duck Redux is flawed in that aspect, but I am able to play again accurately by using a light touch on the E string above the below the 5th fret(towards the headstock is below in music notation).
I'm starting my march toward the chord lessons. Its time to face the beast. I was supposed to start learning songs today too, but I did not get around to it. I got more than my hour in(I've yet to stop at one hour in all the days so far), and I'll get started on songs after or during my chord training.
Showing posts with label Jam session. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jam session. Show all posts
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Friday, January 3, 2014
Is this a game? Also Day 08
Is this a game?
Well, it certainly has "game" in it. The Guitarcade section definitely has some fun games. This is definitely not a Rhythm game in the same sense that Guitar Hero was. Guitar Hero was made for you to feel like.. a Guitar Hero, while hitting buttons according to music track ques. All the games in the Guitarcade are there to have you practice something, so there is not really a way to play Return to Castle Chordead in a more casual non-chord way. You can't get a room full of random people and throw the controller(your guitar) around and have fun. The Song Learner in "easy" setting is mind numbingly boring because its not filled with un-needed taps, every thing you play, even on "easy" is a part of the song. Duck Re-dux is close to Guitar Hero in technique, but there's no cool music to go along with it.
I would say, "do not look at it as a fun game where you learn guitar". I would put it rather, "A way to learn guitar, with some games involved". There's a huge difference there, and I"m worried some people will get it, not find a way to have fun with it, and then give up.
I played Guitar Hero, and even had a version of it. I got some fleeting feelings of playing guitar with it. I saw that ACDC released a whole sub-game of songs for it, and immediately wanted to get it. But then I remembered that I want more. I don't want to feel like I play guitar, I want to actually play guitar, and in the end, playing the ACDC songs that I've always wanted to play will feel hollow. I had a real guitar sitting next to the TV that was like "play with me". I know not everyone really wants to be a guitarist, but I do, and RockBand and Guitar Hero just felt like wasted time unless I was in a group of people just trying to have fun. But that's personal, that's for ME.
This Rocksmith, this "game" is exactly what all the guitarists that bitched about Guitar Hero were saying they wanted. Plunk this down in a room of friends, and they're not going to have fun. Get a room full of guitarists and... well, you'll have spilled beer. Taking turns at Guitarcade games will be fun, but I think some people might get self conscious about the amount of guitar stuff they know and suddenly want to use the Jam Session.
Maybe for Rocksmith 2016 they will add a "Guitar Hero" difficulty setting. You could pass the guitar around, and have it so player 1 tries it at 88% difficulty for real, and players 2 and 3 has Guitar Hero difficulty set up for the first string use only?
Just a thought.
Day 08
Wow. This Rocksmith can make you feel like a million bucks.
I did the mission today where you play in three different keys, using the Pentatonic Minor. The game suggests you try the bands Hard Rock, Acoustic Blues, and Garage Electric. I first started with the Hard Rock, and the game gave me this auto-wah, phaser sort of effect. I almost switched over to my pre-set distortion, but decided to give it a go. I felt like Jimi at Woodstock. There is a saying about wah pedals and hammer-ons and feeling instantly like a rockstar, and I never understood it till last night. The band did its incredible thing, and I figured out where the band was going to drop out and just have the beat going, and at that point I started soloing on the highest string... wow. It felt good.
Then I did the acoustic blues, and again, I came up with something I loved. It is almost impulse to grab my recorder. Another hobby of mine is writing, as in words on paper. If you ever have an idea you are encouraged to write it down, just in case you use it later. I've had lots of notes brought back into my writing, so I have this habit of wanting to record every jam. I gotta remind myself that it is just jamming the pentatonic scale, its ok, its not mind blowing.
I know I suck. You know I suck. Chords show I suck. But for a brief time, I'm feeling awesome and accomplished. That's worth the price of admission.
I think I've nailed my warm up routine down to playing Gone Wailin' to get my muscles warmed up. Then Duck-Redux so that my brain is working on the fret layout, then I change up which i play next. Its about 20 minutes of warm up time. Then I do a quick session run of riffs I enjoy playing. Then I decide what to do that day. I have not had to re-adjust my pick in my hand at all lately, and that makes me happy. i'm still struggling with getting the G and B strings confused. I'm a bassist first, and a 4 string player at that, so those new strings mess up my hand's count. All in time, I suppose.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Things to Come and Day 07
There are several things I can write posts about with this game, but in 60 days I will be running out of topics that are purely about Rocksmith. In an earlier post you saw me talk about the History of SG's, and I think I'm going to continue putting up some music related stuff like that. I'd like to clarify why I think they taught the Overdrive, Distortion and Fuzz topics out of order. I'd also like to talk about some common Pedal designs that get copied over and over and resold for ridiculous amounts of money(Ross Compressors, Tubescreamers, and FuzzFaces). Then there is the fact that I think of guitars like samurai swords, and I'd like to talk about the origin and the journey of a few fabled guitars/basses through the years. The way Brian May got his guitar is a very cool one, and then you have the journey of Jaco's recently re-discovered Bass of Doom.
I also have a few personal posts that I plan on having. I have a post already written about my own personal guitar. Its not a "look at this expensive, nice, badass guitar, aren't you jealous?" kind of post, because my guitar wasn't expensive, and I actually have a story that goes along with it. Generally I will try to not have robotic non-posts about stuff that means nothing to me. I either think its cool to know, would like to try and educate, or mean something personal to me.
I will continue my daily updates. I feel like there will be days that are kind of uninteresting. Its the equal of speeding up time in the "My success story" videos on youtube. I will, however, continue to document the general happenings of my day inside the game.
Day 07
Wow, its been a week already?
Well today I messed around with the Riff repeater because the missions had me doing that. I also got diverted into sorting songs and playing something from the 1980's. I chose "Every Breath You Take" because there's not a lot of 80's stuff in this game by default. The song threw an F chord at me and it looked like I had to twist all my fingers and use 2 hands to be able to do it... I'm so intimidated by chords. Anyway, got through the song, got the mission done, not sure what good it did... The Riff Repeater is really nice. Ever wish you could slow down a song in Guitar Hero/Rock Band? Maybe you could, I did not play those games later on. Well you can do that here. You can adjust the difficulty and the speed, you can even have the game alter it as you get better. I'll do a larger topic about it later.
Played some Ducks Redux. It had an annoying habit of not being able to tell the difference between my 2nd fret on the E string and the first. I re-tuned the guitar, and still, it had that problem. It was not a problem before... I'll have to keep an eye on it. I may have to look and see if others are having this problem.
I had decided that on day 10 I'll force myself to learn a song. Learning theory and application is just so much for fun for me right now. I'm not playing in front of anyone, so its not like I get requests for songs people would know. I'm more interested in what I can do in making my own stuff up. I broke that decision and played some more of "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks. Turns out that song is like a sharp "E" tune, but not enough to be a different tuning altogether. So every time I play that, I have to re-tune for other parts of the game. I felt like I have improved already. The confidence in my fingers to find the correct place and to be able to shift while keeping that simple power chord used in the song has me optimistic. Still going to wait and focus on it after day 10 though.
I also have a few personal posts that I plan on having. I have a post already written about my own personal guitar. Its not a "look at this expensive, nice, badass guitar, aren't you jealous?" kind of post, because my guitar wasn't expensive, and I actually have a story that goes along with it. Generally I will try to not have robotic non-posts about stuff that means nothing to me. I either think its cool to know, would like to try and educate, or mean something personal to me.
I will continue my daily updates. I feel like there will be days that are kind of uninteresting. Its the equal of speeding up time in the "My success story" videos on youtube. I will, however, continue to document the general happenings of my day inside the game.
Day 07
Wow, its been a week already?
Well today I messed around with the Riff repeater because the missions had me doing that. I also got diverted into sorting songs and playing something from the 1980's. I chose "Every Breath You Take" because there's not a lot of 80's stuff in this game by default. The song threw an F chord at me and it looked like I had to twist all my fingers and use 2 hands to be able to do it... I'm so intimidated by chords. Anyway, got through the song, got the mission done, not sure what good it did... The Riff Repeater is really nice. Ever wish you could slow down a song in Guitar Hero/Rock Band? Maybe you could, I did not play those games later on. Well you can do that here. You can adjust the difficulty and the speed, you can even have the game alter it as you get better. I'll do a larger topic about it later.
Played some Ducks Redux. It had an annoying habit of not being able to tell the difference between my 2nd fret on the E string and the first. I re-tuned the guitar, and still, it had that problem. It was not a problem before... I'll have to keep an eye on it. I may have to look and see if others are having this problem.
I had decided that on day 10 I'll force myself to learn a song. Learning theory and application is just so much for fun for me right now. I'm not playing in front of anyone, so its not like I get requests for songs people would know. I'm more interested in what I can do in making my own stuff up. I broke that decision and played some more of "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks. Turns out that song is like a sharp "E" tune, but not enough to be a different tuning altogether. So every time I play that, I have to re-tune for other parts of the game. I felt like I have improved already. The confidence in my fingers to find the correct place and to be able to shift while keeping that simple power chord used in the song has me optimistic. Still going to wait and focus on it after day 10 though.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Best Surprise and Day 06
While it was the Guitarcade that finally got me to get Rocksmith, the best surprise has been the Session mode. The session mode is this hugely versatile area in the game where you choose instruments that will accompany you while you play. There are several types of players that change according to the genre you choose. You could have a chord playing, rhythm guitarist or choose to have that guitar in high gain distortion while it chugs metal power chords. If rock is not your thing(really?) there are some electronic accompaniment, including this really cool 8-bit nintendo style blip and bleep machine.
There is an intensity bar across the top, and the more intense you play the more intense the band will start playing with you. At the start you choose a key to play in, say E, and the fret board will highlight the notes that will work in that key. Your band will keep to the key, and as long as you play the highlighted notes, you will sound "correct" with the band. You can change tempo and set the drummer up as well. If you play the notes to the tempo in the right key, you will find that you will suddenly be jamming with a decent rendition of a band, and that is REALLY cool The Session mode has helped me more than any other part of this game, by far.
It is like a drum machine on steroids. If they could somehow package this into something the size of the typical amp modeling super pedal(like a P.O.D.), they will make a mint. It is NOT just a backing track or a drum machine. With those, YOU adjust to THEM. With Session mode, the band adjusts to you.
Day 06
I was going to further get my fuzz sound down to the sound in my head(look up Gearmandude Soda Mesier on Youtube), but I ended up finding what I think is a Fulltone OCD Overdrive replica. I love this pedal. I know technically I could just pick a plexi style Marshall amp and have it, but something about this pedal through the Fender amps in game makes a wonderful tone. I messed around with a "riff" that reminds me of a very silly 80's hair metal song, but holy crap does it sound good to my ears. Every day I seem to come up with some little riff I have to play over and over for 30 minutes.
I focused on doing all the Guitarcade games I had played so far. I spent a full on hour playing Gone Wailin, String Skip Saloon, Ducks Redux, Ninja Slide N, and Scale Warriors. I spent a lot of time in String Skip Saloon so I could get used to the string layout. I got new high scores in everything I played and really had fun with all of them, except Scale Warriors still. I found out I could reverse my string order, so that the highest string(thinest) is on top. This is how things show up in tabs and I think that's why I"m having such a hard time with the games done this way. So yes, I could change and reverse order the strings, but I'm worried this will screw up my non-game, learning portions. I'll have to explore it tomorrow.
TIP OF THE DAY
If you're used to reading tabs, you can reverse your string order. I suggest doing this from the start if it bothers you, as the earlier the change, the less habit forms with the rest of the game.
There is an intensity bar across the top, and the more intense you play the more intense the band will start playing with you. At the start you choose a key to play in, say E, and the fret board will highlight the notes that will work in that key. Your band will keep to the key, and as long as you play the highlighted notes, you will sound "correct" with the band. You can change tempo and set the drummer up as well. If you play the notes to the tempo in the right key, you will find that you will suddenly be jamming with a decent rendition of a band, and that is REALLY cool The Session mode has helped me more than any other part of this game, by far.
It is like a drum machine on steroids. If they could somehow package this into something the size of the typical amp modeling super pedal(like a P.O.D.), they will make a mint. It is NOT just a backing track or a drum machine. With those, YOU adjust to THEM. With Session mode, the band adjusts to you.
Day 06
I was going to further get my fuzz sound down to the sound in my head(look up Gearmandude Soda Mesier on Youtube), but I ended up finding what I think is a Fulltone OCD Overdrive replica. I love this pedal. I know technically I could just pick a plexi style Marshall amp and have it, but something about this pedal through the Fender amps in game makes a wonderful tone. I messed around with a "riff" that reminds me of a very silly 80's hair metal song, but holy crap does it sound good to my ears. Every day I seem to come up with some little riff I have to play over and over for 30 minutes.
I focused on doing all the Guitarcade games I had played so far. I spent a full on hour playing Gone Wailin, String Skip Saloon, Ducks Redux, Ninja Slide N, and Scale Warriors. I spent a lot of time in String Skip Saloon so I could get used to the string layout. I got new high scores in everything I played and really had fun with all of them, except Scale Warriors still. I found out I could reverse my string order, so that the highest string(thinest) is on top. This is how things show up in tabs and I think that's why I"m having such a hard time with the games done this way. So yes, I could change and reverse order the strings, but I'm worried this will screw up my non-game, learning portions. I'll have to explore it tomorrow.
TIP OF THE DAY
If you're used to reading tabs, you can reverse your string order. I suggest doing this from the start if it bothers you, as the earlier the change, the less habit forms with the rest of the game.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Bass cheat and Day 03
I have mentioned that I am much more of a bass player than a guitar player. I can play several genres of music in bass, and a bass in my hand feels natural. In Rocksmith 2014, there are 3 career paths you can choose from: Rhythm, Lead and Bass. At any time you can switch between them easily on the main menu. I did find a flaw with this... your missions are not career specific. This kind of sucks because Missions are sort of your road map of how to learn. Also, this means I can essentially cheat. If there's a mission that is hard for me to get correct with Lead guitar, I can switch over to bass and fly through it(at least now at the beginning). I will have to keep myself in check, and also I will need to make more accounts so I can learn the others separately later...
So the bass is pretty awesome. I recognize the amps that they have modeled for bass. They do not have my particular amp(Thunderfunk), but they do have Eden, SWR, and a few others that are descended from the amp mine is descended from. I was able to dial in a close enough tone to what I generally play with, and was able to jam pretty successfully with an in game band. Really fun, and only a few issues. The audio lag is more noticeable for me on bass, but that's because my amp is one of the quickest response amps ever made, so I feel the lag much more on bass(I really need to get my cable situation set up to reduce this lag). Also the tracking of my note playing is behind, and this could be a software issue, because I don't think I play all that super fast on bass.
Still, bass was fun, and they do have some fun bass songs available for DLC. If you want to do more than chug your E string to the rock offerings of the original set, then download the Soul Classics pack.
Day 03
I decided to warm up with jamming in the Session menu, and ended up going through a lot of the missions. They showed me what I had already discovered, that the scale shape can stay the same moving up and down the neck, and you just change the key you play in. Next they had me choose several types of bands to play with. I really liked the Electronic Campfire whatever band, I can't remember the name, but campfire will get you there. Its sort of a folksy/electronic band with a clean sound from the guitar, I had a lot of fun with it. I sounded like crap with the Grunge band.
They keep giving me missions to play for 10 minutes with various bands, and at first you might think "omg, I just came in here to warm up" but then you remember, you're memorizing the scale shape, and also learning how the notes in each key sound and what works. They had me play with the tempo, and change keys while jamming. Once it started having me play with the Vintage Rock band, I started having a blast. I liked what I came up with in the sessions so much, that I played well over the 10 minutes, and even grabbed my phone.
Yes, I recorded myself. No, I'm not prepared to have them on the blog yet... unless for some reason I get the request from those on my G+ and Facebook account. Anyway.
So the bass is pretty awesome. I recognize the amps that they have modeled for bass. They do not have my particular amp(Thunderfunk), but they do have Eden, SWR, and a few others that are descended from the amp mine is descended from. I was able to dial in a close enough tone to what I generally play with, and was able to jam pretty successfully with an in game band. Really fun, and only a few issues. The audio lag is more noticeable for me on bass, but that's because my amp is one of the quickest response amps ever made, so I feel the lag much more on bass(I really need to get my cable situation set up to reduce this lag). Also the tracking of my note playing is behind, and this could be a software issue, because I don't think I play all that super fast on bass.
Still, bass was fun, and they do have some fun bass songs available for DLC. If you want to do more than chug your E string to the rock offerings of the original set, then download the Soul Classics pack.
Day 03
I decided to warm up with jamming in the Session menu, and ended up going through a lot of the missions. They showed me what I had already discovered, that the scale shape can stay the same moving up and down the neck, and you just change the key you play in. Next they had me choose several types of bands to play with. I really liked the Electronic Campfire whatever band, I can't remember the name, but campfire will get you there. Its sort of a folksy/electronic band with a clean sound from the guitar, I had a lot of fun with it. I sounded like crap with the Grunge band.
They keep giving me missions to play for 10 minutes with various bands, and at first you might think "omg, I just came in here to warm up" but then you remember, you're memorizing the scale shape, and also learning how the notes in each key sound and what works. They had me play with the tempo, and change keys while jamming. Once it started having me play with the Vintage Rock band, I started having a blast. I liked what I came up with in the sessions so much, that I played well over the 10 minutes, and even grabbed my phone.
Yes, I recorded myself. No, I'm not prepared to have them on the blog yet... unless for some reason I get the request from those on my G+ and Facebook account. Anyway.
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