The Rocksmith bass experiment

[Fogboundturtle]

I register 2 years ago when I acquire an Ibanez SG400 for cheap. Unfortunately, I never really felt comfortable with it and sold it a few months later. I only had about 5 hours of playtime. So its fair to say : I don't know how to play bass. I've been playing guitar for over 20 years but beside giving me a slight advantage on right and left hand coordination, I would have to consider myself at the beginner level.

Today I came home with Squier Vintage Modified Jazz '77 bass in black. I will learn to play the bass through Rockmith song and mini-game/tutorial. I will try to make some video from time to time on youtube so you can check on my progress.

Note : I know this will stir some controversy. This is just an experiment to see if you can really learn some basics through Rocksmith.

[bill reed]

What I have seen so far is most people with a PC get the game but no CD key. there are a lot of people complaing on amazon. take it its just the PC game that there is no CD key.

[Fogboundturtle]

Originally Posted by bill reed

What I have seen so far is most people with a PC get the game but no CD key. there are a lot of people complaing on amazon. take it its just the PC game that there is no CD key.

I am playing on X360. I don't have that problem. The only thing I did was disable some of the audio processing my A/V receiver is normally to reduce lag. It works pretty good. Anyway. I played a full 2 hours. I love the Squier Bass. The neck feels great to me and I think I am getting the hang of it.

[C.Linton]

Have fun. I've gotten RS with the bass add-on too for PS3, and I figure it's going to get me doing something I haven't done with regularity for years - practice and learn songs (both guitar AND bass parts). Having fun so far the few times I've played. I just need to get into a regular routine with it. Oh. and enjoy your Squier, too, I know I''m enjoying both of mine.

[warnergt]

I picked up Rocksmith with bass this week (the bass version
just came out). It's pretty cool. The songs are great and it's a
lot of fun but I'm not sure it's a great learning tool.

I guess it can help you with the mechanics of playing (fretting,
plucking, playing along with other instruments) but I find the
way it presents the notes to be confusing. You, more or less,
have to memorize their string color assignments (e.g. E string
is red, A string is yellow, etc.) to see which notes are coming.
And it is sometimes difficult to read which fret you should be playing.

I think it would be better if they presented the notes more like
regular music -- like Guitar Pro. Instead of having bars
coming out of the screen, they could have put the bars in the
tablature part of a Guitar Pro field to indicate note duration.
I think that would allow you to more quickly/easily identify
the notes to be played.

They should have consulted me for that game.

[Fogboundturtle]

Turn out I am better at the bass then the guitar which is weird as I am been a guitar player for 20 years. What I find frustrating in the guitar is I keep hearing the note I should play but I don't see them on the screen. I guess it easier for bass, they start with the root and they add on from there.

I broke the tip of my index finger on my right hand last summer and I still feel the pain after playing the bass for 4 hours this weekend. The string tension is difficult for me to adjust for now. I guess this is the growing pain of learning the bass when you have very small hands.

[OUT51D3R]

I've had the xbox bas dlc for a couple months. Haven't played it much really. I find it pretty frustrating and confusing. The songs I have previous experience playing(eg slither, are you gonna go my way) I generally double my score by playing looking anywhere but the screen.

I suspect I could train my brain to read the screen faster, but I don't see much purpose in doing so at the moment.

[OUT51D3R]

I've had the xbox bas dlc for a couple months. Haven't played it much really. I find it pretty frustrating and confusing. The songs I have previous experience playing(eg slither, are you gonna go my way) I generally double my score by playing looking anywhere but the screen.

I suspect I could train my brain to read the screen faster, but I don't see much purpose in doing so at the moment.

[GAPendragon]

The CD key thing was a QC mistake. The store I bought my copy from actually emailed me a key before the game physically arrived so I didn't realize there was a problem until later when I saw posts on the official Rocksmith forum. There is a way to contact them to get a CD key listed there if one isn't included in the box. But there are a lot of people complaining about the amount of time it's taking them to respond.

[C.Linton]

I didn't have a CD key to worry about as I'm playing it on a PS3. And I haven't seen the tech problems that some PS3 players are complaining about. I was able to deal with the lag and I've had like ONE freeze.

[Kosko]

It's been about 2 months. I wonder how Fog is doing. I'm currently at level 8 in Rocksmith Bass, I'm really enjoying it; and my playing has improved tremendously.

[Dirtyclinic]

I want to get it for Xbox 360. Is there a bass version or do you just buy it and you can choose to play the bass parts or the guitar parts?

[Robf]

I have Rocksmith for the Xbox and just recently started to play it. For starters, the PC version was unplayable for me due to lag between the screen and audio. Once I switched to the Xbox and using a VGA/RCA splitter, routing the audio to a separate audio source greatly improved the delay issue.

As for the gaming, I only play a little bit on the guitar and then on the bass part of the game. It's similar to the popular rhythm games where you strike a chord or note at the same time in the display, better score if you strike it right on, less if you have a delay or wrong note.

The benefits I see from this is you are asked to strike a string and fret, which is later anchored to a song, not just random colors on a plastic guitar. Keep in mind I'm not a musician, just starting to play bass myself and looking to make it more fun.

Something I should also mention is the bass part of the game, at least on my Xbox copy is not available, only the guitar part. So I had to buy a DLC for getting the bass game. But on the PC version, they were both there, I could be wrong on this. The bass DLC was about $20.

[DarthTainess]

I should inform anybody worried about having to download the DLC that there are two separate versions of Rocksmith available. One is the original version which is just guitar, then there is the new version which will say on the cover that it features guitar and bass.