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line6bassman
11-30-2012, 03:58 PM
Anybody heard of this? I don't remember seeing it. Some may find it usable.

Line6bassmanTR


http://youtu.be/7j3EzN8d1as

DONNIE B
11-30-2012, 05:17 PM
looks cool i don,t know any thing about ps3 or xbox.

Elmeaux
11-30-2012, 08:53 PM
Looks similar to Rockband. I learn a lot of great basslines from Rockband. In fact, I've a recording of one of my practice lessons way back from when I first started the game. I'll post it later. Any way, any how, right?

bassischill
12-01-2012, 08:04 AM
I have Rocksmith since launch and they only added the bass element this past September. It was announced a while back and I couldn't wait for it.

That being said, here is my take on it:

It's a GREAT game and a lot of fun but as a beginner, I found myself throwing any technique I'd learned out the window in an attempt to keep up with the approaching notes. I didn't view that as a good thing. The interface is clunky, loading times are ridiculously long and you have to tune your guitar before every single thing you do. The amount of time it takes from the time you turn on the console and begin playing a song can be nearly 10 minutes. After you finish a song, there are many clicks and load times to get back to the song list and again you have to choose, then tune, then play. It's quite frustrating. I think a lot of the "love" for Rocksmith is because it truly is the only game of its kind and almost got it right. Rock Band Pro requires a specific guitar and has a terrible vertical string layout. Rocksmith lets you plug any guitar or bass in and comes with the cable to connect.

Another issue is that Rocksmith, unlike Rock Band and other games, has a dynamic difficulty thing going on there. That means if you are playing a song and get a phrase correct-- whether perfect or just by the skin of your teeth-- the game thinks you've mastered that phrase and next time it throws even more notes at you.

Again, it's a great game but I have to wonder what exactly they were thinking when they put it together. My initial joy at the game was that there would be arcade like games to teach you techniques: moving around the fretboard, scales, picking different strings, slides, etc., but the geniuses at Rocksmith decided to make them lives based so if you miss a few times, the game ends and you have to exit, go back and wait for it to load up again. These mini games are the perfect beginner's tools and if one could stay in there practicing until they wanted to stop, it would be so much better.

I am better at playing it now than I was when the bass part launched but I still find myself flailing at times so I don't play it too often. There is a new game coming in early 2013 called Bandfuse that looks way more like a learning tool than Rocksmith. It has bass and guitar, adjustable difficulty levels, indicates not only what fret and string but what finger to use as well, and has a very nice, clean interface. I am really looking forward to that.

Elmeaux
12-01-2012, 09:20 AM
Another issue is that Rocksmith, unlike Rock Band and other games, has a dynamic difficulty thing going on there. That means if you are playing a song and get a phrase correct-- whether perfect or just by the skin of your teeth-- the game thinks you've mastered that phrase and next time it throws even more notes at you.

I think this is good and bad. GOOD - it keeps you on your toes. BAD - sometimes you might just want to have some laid-back fun with no added challenges. I haven't tried it though, so I'm just thinking out loud.

:D

TobiasMan
12-01-2012, 11:23 AM
I have been consistently frustrated by all of the band "games". My son had Rockband a few years ago and I honestly tried to play the bass on it. That exercise had everything to do with gamer skills and absolutely nothing to do with playing the bass. I just don't have time for that.

I play the bass, not a game. I get a whole lot more enjoyment out of transcribing the bass part from a new song and finally nailing it than garnering points in a video game. MHO anyway. ;)

Elmeaux
12-01-2012, 03:31 PM
Here is my Rockband play-out of the isolated bass track to Enter Sandman. The bass comes in at about 30 seconds.

I slowed it down to 80%, a workable speed for a beginner - I think I only tripped up on one note, but I must have snagged a piece of it because it gave me 100%. YAY!

After I had created this "practice-track", I used it to teach myself to play the song on my real bass. All you have to do is transcribe the game-notes into real-bass notes and make it happen. You can write them down or just commit them to memory.

Playing the game has little to do with playing the real bass, but it can provide a valuable resource. It's a great teaching tool. If you were trying to learn by listening to the real song with all the instruments, you might not hear the bassline as well as when you isolate the track.

I've mastered quite a few songs this way and I love it. Love, love, LOVE listening to Jason Newsted tear it up!

Anyway...enjoy!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qz7UxB2EQk

bassischill
12-02-2012, 07:29 AM
You were trying to play the five color button bass right? I'm asking because Rock Band later incorporated real guitar and bass into the game but to me they went about it the wrong way. There were two guitars that were compatible: a plastic one with over 100 buttons shaped like strings or a genuine Fender that was just under $300. If you went with the Fender, you also needed an adapter that was another $40.

Many people who knew how to play already were annoyed that they couldn't just plug their own guitar in and play and many new people from the plastic-only side of the game had to shell out a lot of money if they wanted to get into the pro version. The vertical string layout in RB makes it way too confusing as the on screen notes are shifting left to right but on your guitar that means you are moving up and down. No toggle to switch views. Bleh.

Worse even! No bass support. Since you had to use proprietary guitars to play, they were both 6 string guitars and you could use the bottom four strings to play bass. Just not the same.

Here's a screenshot of a bass track from BandFuse. It's clean and doesn't use any bells and whistles. The colors denote which finger to use.

2656

Hopefully, this game gets it right.

Elmeaux
12-02-2012, 08:39 AM
Yeah, just the standard thingie that comes with the game. The pic you sent looks way more realistic for learning, but I just seem to have a natural knack for Rockband's visual "monkey-see, monkey-do" approach, even though it doesn't resemble a bass at all.

I don't have too much trouble transcribing the game notes to real ones to play on my bass, but the song has to be reasonable to my skill level or I can get in a little over my head.

bassischill
12-02-2012, 03:54 PM
I love playing bass on Rock Band with the traditional 5 button controller. It's what totally got me into wanting to learn real bass!

Noel1983
12-24-2012, 08:30 PM
I first got into the music genre games with the original guitar hero, but I could never get off of the "easy" difficulty with three buttons, and eventually gave up. When Rock Band 2 came out, I got it because I thought that the drums would be realistic to learn, and approachable. I was completely dumbfounded by the bass pedal! I ended up being a singer. Oddly, even though I can't sing, I was outstanding at it. I didn't cheat like most other singers did, while they were just humming the right pitch, I was actually learning the words, and getting into the concerts. Even introducing the other players to the "crowd" during their solos, and putting on a show. It got to be that the people I played with would get their friends into the xbox party just to hear me sing and talk sh*t to the crowd while they played other games.

On Guitar Hero Metallica, I was ranked in the top 50 singers worldwide on the Xbox 360 leaderboards for a while. That isn't as impressive as it sounds, because there were probably only about 500 of us at the time. Eventually everybody quit playing it, and I got bored of singing to myself.

When Rock Band 3 came out, I got the keyboard peripheral and attempted to learn the "professional" keyboards. Again, I went back to singing. The game was a huge disappointment to me. I couldn't assign my bandmates anymore. Setlists were a start and stop affair making it impossible to feel like I was actually on stage in front of a crowd. And I could never have a full 5 man band present. If the song had keyboards, the BASS player got the boot!!!

I was interested in Rocksmith as soon as I heard that it was coming out. Ubisoft is known for quality games, and this was the first, and only, game that let you plug a real guitar in and play it. I didn't buy it straight away because they originally said that it didn't support bass, and they had no intention of including the bass. But I couldn't get this game out of my mind. Eventually, I bought the game, a cheap Fender Starcaster 6 string and gave it a shot. BRIEFLY!!! I don't know if it was the cheap guitar, or their software, but everything that 'Bassischill' ssays about the game is true AND MORE! The guitarcade games that are supposed to be your practice methods are not only slow loading, but they are locked to begin with. You have to unlock them by levelling up your character through actual song play. This means that you will be playing chords in concert LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG before you actually have the chance to practice playing the chords themselves. Obviously my Fender was cheap, I got the guitar, an amp, a stand, a gig bag, extra strings, and a dvd all for $150.00. But I had a terrible problem with that guitar and Rocksmith. It would frequently tell me to play one fret lower than the song actually called for in order for me to be scored as playing the song correctly. So, say the song called for the low E to be played on the 5th fret, the game would not score me as playing the note correctly unless I played the low E on the 4th fret. The guitar was tuned 30 seconds before this happened, and I even switched the cheap Fender strings to Ernie Ball Super Slinky's in case that was the problem.

I just put the guitar away, and gave up on Rocksmith. About 3 weeks later, they came out with the bass expansion DLC. I kicked myself in the ass for weeks. All I had ever wanted to learn since I was a child, was the bass. And I had had a disaster with the guitar and the Rocksmith game. Obviously, anybody that has read this post this far can predict how it turns out, I ended up buying a bass. Actually, my fiancee ended up buying me my bass for my birthday. But I already knew that Rocksmith can be a fun game, but supremely frustrating if you don't know how to play the guitar at least moderately well. So I began looking for online bass lessons before I even started looking for the bass itself. And that is what brought me to TMBG.

The Rocksmith bass expansion dlc is vastly superior to the original Rocksmith game. It suffers from the same stumbling blocks that 'bassischill' already pointed out, and the guitarcade games continue to be locked for some mysterious and idiotic reason. You can buy a dlc pack to unlock them immediately, but why? If they are supposed to teach you how to play a guitar, then it shouldn't be a "reward" to be able to practice the necessary techniques. One definite improvement over my guitar experience is that with the bass, I have never been told that I am playing the wrong fret, unless I am actually doing something wrong. And I do plenty wrong.

One thing that 'bassischill' said that I have to totally agree with is how the game makes me throw everything I have practiced away just to be able to keep up with what it happening in the song. This concerns me greatly as Roy is laying down a strong foundation for playing and then I am picking up bad habits just trying to play around. I uploaded five videos of me playing bass in Rocksmith to YouTube last weekend and included one of them in my blog here to show what I had learned in my first 10 days of practice. When I went back to the game this week to record my second concert, the game had increased the difficulty so much that I won't be able to play the songs reccommended to me until I master at least lesson two of TMBG, and maybe longer than that.

All of this was a REALLY long winded way of saying that Rocksmith is a fun game, but it won't really trach you how to play an instrument that you aren't already familiar with. If you have been playing the bass for a year or more, and you pick it up, you will probably record some amazing scores in a short amount of time. For us noobs, it can be a lot of fun, and it can be smash the guitar on the floor frustrating!

bassischill
12-25-2012, 07:12 AM
LOL. I totally know where you are coming from. The worst part above all is that the arcade games, once unlocked, are based on a 3 lives system like Pac-Man or gives you maybe 60 seconds and the time extends if you do well. Of course, as a beginner, you won't do very well and so you get kicked out pretty quickly.

One game: Ducks is only on the low E string and a duck comes riding down the fretboard and if you strum the right note, a bullet goes up and kills the duck. It's a very nice way to learn to change notes on the fretboard while looking away from the actual bass but if you are brand new and miss a bunch, the games kicks you out.

Super Ducks is the same but uses all strings. That is is much more difficult for a beginner so it becomes an exercise in frustration. Imagine how helpful a tool that would be if you could have the game run for an allotted time that the player selected rather than being under the pressure of having to do well or get kicked out. I believe their reason for this is to enable the better players to compete for leaderboard positions, but a toggle for beginners that disabled the leaderboards would have made that the best feature of the game.

There is another element called a Technique Challenge that will have you playing short pieces to get used to sliding, bending, or just playing off-beat rhythms, but again, you are forced to be conscious of how well you play. Rock Band 3's pro mode makes you play the selection three times at 100% speed before it says you did it; Rocksmith will let you miss a few notes and when it thinks you have it, that mini game just closes with no indication of how you did. You have to quickly pause the piece when there is a second or two left and click Restart to avoid having to go through the whole process of selecting the practice piece, waiting for that to load, tuning, waiting again and pressing A to bypass the video instruction. It's a total pain.

I'm very sad to report that Bandfuse, which looks to be a very promising learning/practicing tool has been pushed back to Spring of 2013. Not sure what is up with that since the game was "completely finished" at E3 so maybe it's licensing issues that are causing the delay.

There are a few songs in Rocksmith that are enjoyable and not too crazy on bass that I like to play on occasion: Drift Away, My Girl, and even Subdivisions but I notice something very interesting: when I play the pieces in the TMBG course, once I know the song, I can play it without the notes/tabs. In Rocksmith, a very easy (by definition) bass song like My Girl I can get about 90% of the notes but if I turn off Rocksmith and try to play it, I get lost after the opening few lines. Not sure why that is.

line6bassman
12-25-2012, 09:01 AM
OK, after all is said and done here on this Rocksmith thing. I have a question for you some what beginners and a little above beginners
here. Pretty soon I'm going to be having a couple of students for bass and guitar, in your opinion would this be helpful to my students
are just as a adding a little more fun and interest to the lessens with the hands on things from me. Would something like this be a bonus
to your lessons are not? I'm guessing I would have to get it and come up with some creative idea of my own. So what's your thoughts
on that? Thanks

Line6bassmanTR

Noel1983
12-25-2012, 09:04 AM
Merry Christmas, bassischill, and the rest of the TMBG community.

I see that you didn't mention the "baseball" note challenge in the guitarcade. It is supposed to teach you about the fret, string, and timing involved in playing a note. The pitcher throws the note at you, and you are supposed to play the right note at the right time to hit the ball. I never once hit the ball in that mini-game. lol I haven't unlocked it for the bass yet, so I can't play it with my good instrument, but the YouTube videos i have watched are hilarious as even moderately skilled players fail that game in an epic manner.

I have seen a lot of reviewers make the exact same complaint that you made about not learning the song in a memorable way with Rocksmith. I'm not good enough to play even the most basic song that Roy teaches us here, but I have watched it played in lesson two and I have a theory as to why you might be able to remember those songs but not the Rocksmith songs.

Roy teaches us (or eventually he will teach me) how to read music as part of this program. And while there is a graphic tablature displayed on screen, most of the practice I envision doing will be with my metronome and the sheet music. Then, eventually, when I am confident enough that I know what I am doing, I will be able to add the band and focus more on inserting what I learned into how they sound.

By comparison, Rocksmith is training me to watch the colored notes and play in time to them while making the actions of the rest of the band irrelevant to me. I am too focused on getting my finger to the next fret in time to hit the string again to enter the "zen-like" state of musical harmony with the other instruments. I believe that will change as I become more familiar with my bass, and become a more skilled player.

To my way of thinking it is a little bit like Pavlov's dog. When the bell rang, the dog knew that it was getting fed, and began to salivate. Rocksmith uses the colored notes as the bell, and we are trained to hit them in order to be fed both points and more notes (ringing bells). Roy is teaching us that we don't need any "bells" at all, we can feed our own musical hunger, albeit with substantially more efort, but the payoff is a greater reward, the ability to recall what you have taught yourself.

As far as BandFuse is concerned, I hadn't even heard of it before I read your posts last night. I went to YouTube and watched some videos, trailers, and interviews. If they can pull off what the developers were saying they will support, then BandFuse will instantaneously become the benchmark for video game guitar tutorials. As a lifelong gamer, I am very wary of games that promise to be everything to everybody. Usually, they end up delivering very little to anybody. However, I am anxious to see how the game delivers on its promises. They definitely have a solid set-list across multiple genres and decades of Rock-n-roll. I don't know why the pushback occurred, but I suspect that broader testing showed that they weren't nearly as finished as they thought they were. There have been horrendous compatability issues making other games play across the various platforms. Maybe they found some difficult bugs.Personally, I would rather have a game delayed and finished properly, rather than rush it out the door with the prospect of future patches. They said "very early spring" and that puts release at around 3-4 months away.

Noel1983
12-25-2012, 09:46 AM
OK, after all is said and done here on this Rocksmith thing. I have a question for you some what beginners and a little above beginners
here. Pretty soon I'm going to be having a couple of students for bass and guitar, in your opinion would this be helpful to my students
are just as a adding a little more fun and interest to the lessens with the hands on things from me. Would something like this be a bonus
to your lessons are not? I'm guessing I would have to get it and come up with some creative idea of my own. So what's your thoughts
on that? Thanks

Line6bassmanTR

Here is my take on it from an absolute noob on an instrument. I believe that Rocksmith is available for the PC, and it is available for Xbox 360 and SONY PS3. I play my copy on a 40" LCD tv, and it is easy to see. I can't say how easy it is to utilize on a PC's smaller screen. If you already own a PS3 or 360, I would suggest that you pick up a copy of the game and try it out for yourself to begin with. However, I wouldn't suggest that you run out and drop $800-1,000 on a tv, surround sound system, Xbox, and the game if you don't already have those things, and don't see any personal interest in getting them.

There are some benefits that your students could potentially get out of having Rocksmith in conjunction with a live teacher. And there are some benefits that the teacher might get from watching their student play Rocksmith. One thing that the game has, that neither bassischill or I touched upon are the "technique challenges". And these are unlocked at the start of the game. They are exercises that aim to teach from the most basic skills to pretty advanced ones. Bassics, two finger plucking, syncopation, octaves and fifths, slap and pop, shifting, sustains, hammer ons and pull offs, slides, bends, harmonics, palm mutes, tremolos, double stops, and power chords all have technique challenges graded on a bronze, silve, or gold level completion that are independent of the locked guitarcade mini-games that bassischill and I have been complaining about. These challenges would potentially provide your students with an interactive method of practicing these concepts.

You could also potentially use the songs to "grade" how your students are progressing. You could observe them playing the challenges or songs to see if they are early, late, or spot on in a more fun manner than just sitting face to face in a room. Also, the game supports split screen multiplayer, so you could actually play alongside your students at the same time, in the same song if you chose to do so.

The biggest problem I could see is that you would need multiple profiles for your students and yourself. I have an XBOX 360, and to be a gold member costs money. It doesn't cost anything to be a silver member. But if each of your students didn't have their own separate profile, then they would have to play either off of each other's progression, or your's. And that would make the song difficulty insurmountable for most beginners. Not everybody has a platform, but most people have a pc, and if this game sells on the pc, then it would solve the profile/cost problem altogether.

The wild card in my answer to you is the game BandFuse that bassischill is talking about. That comes out in a few months and if done right will be far more useful to your teaching purposes than Rocksmith. This game has a selectable difficulty level instead of an autosaved one. This means that you could have your students play on your own personal profile and just choose the difficulty from novice to professional musician. Also in BandFuse the notes to play will be displayed in tablature form across the bottom of the screen, instead of a vertical highway that "collides" with a set of colored strings at the bottom of the screen. I think that will help you teach your students to read music better than the Rocksmith style note highway. BandFuse is also promising to have a 4 channel music recorder that will allow players to create their own music. All of this is extremely promising if done well, however, this is the first attempt by these guys to create a music game and that means it is hit and miss as to how well it actually works. We will be finding out in a few months.

Yes, you could use Rocksmith to engage your students in a fun way to learn, it could be fairly cheap to add into your teaching methods, and I am sure that your could have a good time with it as well. You might want to wait a few months and see how BandFuse turns out. Or you could check out Rocksmith for now and add BandFuse later if it turns out to deliver on its promises.

I hope that helps. If you have other questions, fire them off at me, I will be glad to assist in any way that I can.

TobiasMan
12-25-2012, 03:16 PM
Gee, TAB (notes) across the bottom of the screen that you can play along with! Wonder where we've seen that before? ;)

To me these really sound like "gamed up" versions of what Roy is doing as a real, trained, bass instructor. If you practice what Roy presents, with an excellent interface and practice loops that always stay at the appropriate level, and a band that you can play with, you'll learn to play bass, not learn to play a video game.

I'm not sure just how a band would react to your audition with them when you brought along your Xbox and said, "here, let me turn this on and I'll show you how I can reach the top stage in the gold level.

Anything that requires you to abandon the technique you've worked hard to develop, just to compete, is negative.

Reminds me of some car race games my son had. The control of the car had nothing in common with actually driving a car and frustrated me no end. My Dad, who flew for years was also almost driven to distraction by "flying" games that did not operate like a plane!

Elmeaux
12-26-2012, 12:56 AM
OK, after all is said and done here on this Rocksmith thing. I have a question for you some what beginners and a little above beginners
here. Pretty soon I'm going to be having a couple of students for bass and guitar, in your opinion would this be helpful to my students
are just as a adding a little more fun and interest to the lessens with the hands on things from me. Would something like this be a bonus
to your lessons are not? I'm guessing I would have to get it and come up with some creative idea of my own. So what's your thoughts
on that? Thanks

Line6bassmanTR

Naaaah. Keep the games as the games and the music lessons as the music lessons. If students want to use games on their own time, fair enough, but it shouldn't be part of your teaching schedule. Make your lessons interesting with your own creative ideas - charts, flash cards, fill-in-the-blanks, and such. You can always talk about the games as things to be enjoyed, but I wouldn't incorporate them into lessons. Apples and Oranges.

IMHO

Noel1983
12-26-2012, 05:21 AM
I'm not trying to start an argument with you all, as you know far more about playing bass than I do. However, as technology advances, the capabilities of video games advances along with it. Racing games utilize real world physics, and the cars behave appropriately. It will never teach you to be a world class driver, but there are very few world class drivers left that don't practice the tracks in videogame form to remind themselves of their marks, and the track layout in advance of getting to the venue.

Rocksmith is NOT a game in the same way that Rock Band is a game. It doesn't even pretend to be. Every review that I have seen starts out: This is NOT a game. Having said that, I agree that it would have limited value as a teaching method. And I clearly state that it is ABSOLUTELY USELESS as a teaching tool without a verifiable teaching source used in conjunction. However, since it would be inappropriate to advise someone to pirate Roy's TMBG course, I merely suggest that the home practice time could be made more engaging with the use of Rocksmith, or potentially BandFuse when it comes out. And it would also give a teacher a way to be able to verify exactly how much effort their student has put into practicing at home.

Elmeaux
12-26-2012, 08:40 AM
I'm not trying to start an argument with you all


:p

What??? No argument?? (grumble)

:p


Hmmm... makes me think I would like to give this Rocksmith a try. Except I don't think they have it for Wii.

:(

line6bassman
12-26-2012, 10:03 AM
Well the reason I brought this up on my end is because you are some may know the way young people now a days love to play these video games etc it keeps their attention span going for a good while. My students will be kids ages from 10 (maybe older) down to somewhere around the age of 5. Also will be having group sections with 5 students and one on one with this age group. This should be fun!!! But of course I can be my own creative self as usual and maybe we can even use the TMBG course for bass also. Just putting my thoughts together for this because all of this should begin within a month!! What's really crazy about all this is coming from a person (me) who hated years ago dealing with kids. And now enjoy dealing with kids and I always remember to put kids (are anyone) that might
be in the place that I was having a tough time at learning music and had to put out a lot of more effort than most to learn something and retain it. So I'm very patient in that area. OK, so I think I might look into this Rocksmith thing a little deeper here, who know? And go from
there. Maybe when I get into this I'll make a little video of our teaching session and group with the kids and put it up. That might be kinda cool!!

Line6bassmanTR

TobiasMan
12-26-2012, 11:29 AM
. . . Racing games utilize real world physics, and the cars behave appropriately. It will never teach you to be a world class driver, but there are very few world class drivers left that don't practice the tracks in videogame form to remind themselves of their marks, and the track layout in advance of getting to the venue.. . .

There's the key. They have independantly developed all the skills, knowledge and experience to actually drive a vehicle, then simply use the game as a quick layout review for specific tracks.

I do not believe that, because in the game they find they can drift a car through turn #3 at 115mph, in 3d gear, full throttle and then lift off just before the apex to avoid losing it on the off camber turn that is coming up, that they will simply go out and do that at the "REAL" track with their car.

I'm hearing it now, "Gee, sorry I trashed your car in the first turn and ruined your chances for the Manufacturer's Cup, but you see I learned to do that in a video game, so I knew it just had to work here!":(

Learn and practice your craft, and use games for enjoyment/review and enlightenment as to where they fail compared to the real world.

By the way, the simulators used by the air force to allow pilots to learn to do prohibitively expensive things like crash land disabled planes safely, ditch them in the ocean, eject from aircraft in dangerous situations, etc. cost multi millions of dollars each and require more than a PC or a game console to run them.

Basslad
12-26-2012, 02:58 PM
TobiasMan, you sound rather disturbed by this whole game idea, and I agree with you for the most part. I never used Rocksmith, Rock Band, or whatever else there is out there. I don’t intend to, either. I know the idea is to keep kids engaged, but when it comes to learning music and instruments, the real thing is the way to go.

No matter how sophisticated the game is, it may lead to distraction, and development of bad habits, as well as the inability to think outside the game framework. Trained adults may see advantages and disadvantages of the game and use it accordingly, but kids may tend to drift away, lose themselves in the game, and in the process, lose the real focus. This is pure speculation on my part, considering computer games in general.

I think there are too many options nowadays and people tend to jump from one flower to another. Give them a good, structured method to learn something, and at first sign of difficulty they’ll turn to something that supposedly appeals to them more, and in their mind is easier.

Having said that, I think that with proper guidance any game’s drawbacks may be overcome. I usually try to keep an open mind, even though I may have strong opinions on a thing or two. People will do what they think is right, anyway.

Now a bit of contradiction on my part. I will agree with Noel1983 on the advanced technology and sophistication of the games. I love Bridge, Chess, and when it comes to flight simulation both the Flight Simulator X and X-plane are pretty good. X-plane, by the way, can be used for pilot training and putting in flight hours. Current PC and Mac hardware are capable of supplying enough computing power.

I couldn’t afford real flight lessons, let alone a plane of my own or even renting it on a regular basis. My son took an intro flight, and the instructor allowed him to land the plane. I wasn’t too happy about that, but I knew that engaging in flight simulation on even a PC level had something to do with it.

Perhaps I should’ve freaked out on the instructor, but I experienced flight simulation on my own, and I was pretty impressed with it. The only thing it doesn’t simulate is the actual G forces your body experiences. For that you would need a full-fledged multimillion dollar simulator. That’s one important aspect that shouldn’t be underestimated.

However, we are intelligent human beings, and I think we can bear that in mind and compensate accordingly when we sit in a real plane. My son had a second intro flight a year later and this time the instructor wouldn’t let him land the plane because they had passengers on board.

Bottom line, I either don’t even waste my time looking at something, or make my own judgement (like we all do I suppose), and if I’m wrong, I’ve learned another lesson. Sorry for this long convoluted post, but this thread turned into a very interesting debate, and I just couldn’t resist.

line6bassman
12-26-2012, 07:43 PM
So if if was a skiff we'd all take a boat ride!! No matter what way I go I have enough guitar and bass instruction material to open
my own music store!!! So I'm good to go!!! So we shall see.

Line6bassmanTR

Basslad
12-26-2012, 08:27 PM
My previous rambling aside. Good luck and have fun teaching the kids L6B!

DaveB
12-26-2012, 11:22 PM
Perhaps I should’ve freaked out on the instructor, but I experienced flight simulation on my own, and I was pretty impressed with it. The only thing it doesn’t simulate is the actual G forces your body experiences. For that you would need a full-fledged multimillion dollar simulator. That’s one important aspect that shouldn’t be underestimated.

The most important thing that it doesn't simulate is the "Pucker Factor." I have spent hundreds of hours playing with computer flight simulator programs such as Microsoft Flight Simulator. I have also had the privilege of flying (simulated landing) the Space Shuttle Simulator at Johnson Space Center (the actual one the astronauts train in, not the arcade things at the visitor center). The stress levels in simulated flight are nothing compared to what I experienced when I soloed in a Cessna 172 back in the early '90s (I took flying lessons back then and have over nine hours of solo flight time). You know when you are in a simulator that if you make a mistake it's no big deal (that's what they're for). You also know that when you are on your own landing a real airplane and you make a mistake dire consequences may ensue, thus the elevated stress (Pucker Factor).

As for having a computer or game console monitor your bass playing technique, my experience has been that the computer does not "listen" as well as a human. When I bought my first bass several years ago, I also purchased a computer based bass instruction program. The way it worked was that there was a video of the instructor demonstrating a particular technique and then the student would attempt to play the lesson material and the computer would assess the accuracy of the students playing (the student's bass was plugged into the computer). Even back then I could tell that my accuracy was not as good (by far) as the computer was assessing me. The human ear is much more discriminating than any PC or game console program. Beginners would be much better off having someone listen to and critique their playing, or recording and critiquing their own playing than relying on a computer or game console to do it.

Ditto
12-28-2013, 01:20 PM
I got it for Christmas this year so I made a little video for you guys... here it is



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YBr4lAeJLg&feature=youtu.be

TobiasMan
12-28-2013, 05:08 PM
Thanks Ditto.

I had tried a few of those games a few years ago (my son got one for the guitar so we used it quite a bit) but was entirely frustrated with the disconnect between the way I play and the way those games present the info to follow (had to hit the right coloured bar on the guitar and had nothing to do with how one would actually play anything and I don't remember what it was even called).

Looks like they may have improved some but since they just seemed to raise my annoyance level, I'll likely just keep playing with my band. :)

DONNIE B
12-28-2013, 05:48 PM
i think it is cool iam for anything that will teach music to any body. every one learns different so what ever gets the job done and keeps people playing music iam for it.it brakes my hart that the schools have dropped the music programs.so i hope that we all will someday get the chance to play it forward and get to teach some one to play and the love of music of all kinds. so to me it is cool:cool:

Elmeaux
12-28-2013, 06:39 PM
Great video review! Have never tried this game. Can you purchase songs online? What comes with the kit?

What you said about the visual transfer from eyes to screen to strings is relevant to the way we learn. You're learning neck positions rather than note names (which would better help with fretboard memory). I think it would be nice if they posted the name of the note as well as the fretboard position. You'd be memorising them without even thinking about it. It would also help with common chord progression patterns. When you go back to your TMBG lesson, you'd have seen the chord progressions from songs you already know and love.

Any game that contributes to your education is a worthy thing!

line6bassman
12-28-2013, 08:31 PM
Am I getting this right? That the top string is the E and not the bottom as usual? Mentioned it before around here how the way it looks in Rock Smith is so much easier to do!! In my brain just looking at video my fingers were going to the right spot!!
I like it but don't think I'm buying just yet because I'm thinking on other things?? OK, I'm thinking to much...

Noel1983
12-29-2013, 11:58 PM
@line6bassman

In the options menu you can choose to invert the strings so that they present more in tablature form. The "note highway" will still be present, but the "red" E-string will be on the bottom. Also, there is a "lefty" option for people that need the fret board to be "backwards". As a side note, DR Strings actuall offers a "Rocksmith" set of strings that are red, yellow, blue, and orange for anyone that wishes to have their strings the same color as the in game presentation.


@Elmeaux

Yes, Rocksmith 2014 offers online DLC. All of the songs published for the original Rocksmith are playable in Rocksmith 2014, and Ubisoft continues to add new music every two weeks. As a result, there are nearly 300 additional songs to be purchased and played. Since I owned the original Rocksmith, when I initially set up my Rocksmith 2014 file (xbox 360) I was offered the opportunity to also import the 50 or so songs that were on the original Rocksmith for $10. As a result I have almost 120 songs available for playing and nearly 300 other songs to purchase if I so desire.


@TobiasMan

Rocksmith 2014 uses a real bass and not a cheap plastic peripheral. The "game" comes with a 1/4" to USB cable and you plug directly into your system or computer and play. While you are 100% correct that 'Guitar Hero' and 'Rock Band' offered nothing even close to real guitar play, the products today allow you to pick up your own personal bass and play along to some of the greatest music ever recorded note for note to the original score. For me, a beginner, it is frustrating, head pounding, guitar smashing, throw the tv out the window hard work. But I imagine that it could be tons of fun for someone that actually knows what they are doing!

Noel1983
12-30-2013, 12:07 AM
Since this thread was originally started Rocksmith has come out with a new version, Rocksmith 2014, and after a year's worth of delays, Band Fuse: Rock Legends has been released. (I now realize that Ditto reviewed Rocksmith 2014)

I have both products. I tried to present a comparative review of both products, but it got too long for the forum page to post. After spending three hours writing the review (and losing what I wrote), I just gave up and didn't write the review again.

Anyway, it is the same story for those products. They continue to be extremely hard work. Each of them have different strengths and weaknesses. Neither of them are perfect, and, in my opinion, neither of them are really capable of teaching a player to play the music that they offer from memory to a person that is a beginner with their instrument. Rocksmith 2014 comes closer, but the crazy auto leveling system continues to handicap its teaching abilities.

Rocksmith 2014 has a lot of great technique challenges that range from beginner classes to master classes. Band Fuse's technique videos are an embarrassing joke. The entire bass lesson "library" consists of Bootsy Collins talking across 7 videos that have no interactivity. And the longest video is still less than 5 minutes.


The most brilliant and innovative part of Rocksmith 2014 is the "session mode". In session mode you can choose the instruments you play with and it has everything from a banjo to a rainstorm. Then you choose which scales you want to use as a rough guide. Then you decide what key you want to play in, and what tempo you want to play at, and whether or not those choices can change on the fly. Finally you can choose whether you want the "room" to sound like various sized clubs or arenas. Once you start the session, and all of those choices don't take but five minutes, you just start to jam on your bass, and the "band" that you chose just jumps in and starts playing along to your lead. It's really cool.

Noel1983
12-30-2013, 01:58 AM
Even though it is slightly off topic for the 'Rocksmith' forum thread, I thought that I would post a video of Band Fuse: Rock Legends since I mentioned it here.

In contrast to Rocksmith (which is the better product overall), Band Fuse presents in tablature form. The different colors suggest the finger that should be used to play the note:
Purple= Open
Green= 1st
Red= 2nd
Yellow= 3rd
Blue= 4th

Also, Band Fuse has 5 static difficulty levels:
Level 1= Absolute Beginner
Level 2= Beginner Gaining Confidence
Level 3= Advanced Techniques Being Introduced
Level 4= Expert Play
Level 5= Note for Note
Plus you can turn all the notes off and play from memory.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTrjCJGMn4c&feature=youtu.be

This video was recorded on level 2, because I am a beginner just gaining confidence. I'm sorry that the audio isn't great and the bass gets lost but at least you can see the differences in presentation.

Elmeaux
12-30-2013, 06:57 AM
Good job! I like the idea of using a real bass versus a toy controller, but all bass is good bass. I'll take it all.

KGT
11-09-2014, 12:49 AM
I purchased Rocksmith about a year ago on the advice of a friend in order to learn a few new songs on the bass. I used it for Boston's "Peace of Mind" and eventually did learn to play it, but for the first couple of weeks I was learning and dealing with the new program more than I was actually learning the song. Once I got used to the software I found that many of the runs presented really weren't the most efficient way to play this song and actually added to the difficulty level in order to get it up to speed. Still, it's a great tool for beginners. I had a lot of fun jamming with the virtual band on bass and guitar.

kimgee
11-10-2014, 09:39 AM
I bought Rocksmith 2014 around May of this year. I have never had so much trouble getting a program to run properly. After hours on the phone with the tech support people and installing it on multiple systems........it still would not work reliably. I finally got it to function, most of the time, but was then disappointed with the way it's laid out and the interface in general. I am sure some people find it very useful, but that has not been my experience. I should probably give it another shot though. My opinions on many things have changed significantly from what they were when I first stated learning to play the bass guitar and I haven't loaded up Rocksmith in months.

TobiasMan
11-10-2014, 12:07 PM
I hate those "game" based, computer "simulations".

99% are nothing like playing a bass guitar and they simply frustrate the life out of me. My son had one a few years ago. Tried it and I soon had a head ache.

I think the basis of my issue is the way they present the next note to play - totally non-intuitive to me. I never see my music coming down the path towards me like the typical game presentation.

Play a bass, not a game. . . . :eek:

Elmeaux
11-10-2014, 08:29 PM
I still love Rockband. Has nothing to do with simulating REAL bass, but it's a great game. Once you learn a song on Rockband, it can actually make it easier to learn on a real bass. I think the game is settling out from its heyday, but I have hundreds of songs to enjoy, so I'm not worried.