There’s evidently quite a few guitarists on here. It’s something I always wish I got into and I was thinking about having a proper crack at it. In fact I was already asking around trying to find a local teacher.

Then I found out about Rocksmith. If you’ve ever looked at the worldwide phenomenon Guitar Hero and thought that it would be amazing if you could use a real guitar, well it now exists. There’s load of stuff online, especially on Youtube but I can’t really check it out at work.

Has anyone used it? It looks pretty impressive to be fair. I can imagine plugging away at it for hours. Cheaper than a teacher and a million times more entertaining than a book. With a few pointers from the other two options I might do alright.

Any thoughts?

Yeah … it’s good but…

Thing with learning guitar is you are naturally drawn to song/bands you like and rockmith has a limited playlist.

Others may say this is a good thing and you should learn other styles, guess it depends whether you have any ambitions of getting out of the bedroom hero phase (not sure I do)

But give it a go.. together with justinguitar.com, other youtube vids and books, it’s all good

I agree with that, the playlist is really too limited and extra tracks are expensive (and still limited). I quite like it, it’s a good motivator and it does work, but it’s more of a near miss. (if the “riff repeater” was easier to activate, and if it was faster to replay songs/exercises, I’d rate the whole thing more highly, but the UI is pretty crap at times.

(oh, and some of the tracks have crazy difficulty spikes which are really offputting, one I remember starts out really easy, then suddenly simultaneously throws in a new chord, a new technique, and a 50% tempo increase with a single “level up”- I’ve been playing for years on and off and was noodling through it out of curiousity and I just about threw the guitar out the window from frustration, I can’t see many noobs enjoying that experience.)

Still, it made me practice, and try some new things, and actually fixed some basic technique errors that I’ve been playing round for years.

I found it a nightmare. thought it would help me back to playing whole songs again and I found it laggy and hard to deal with. Granted I play lots of metal, but I can play war ensemble at slayers live pace, but just can’t play it with rocksmith.

I think the best way to learn properly, unless you are just naturally gifted, is getting some lessons early with a teacher whose teaching style suits you

Yeah, I wouldn’t compare it to proper lessons- but then that’s a bit unfair as it’s cheaper. I think it would have worked better for me than book lessons and online vids etc (I’m self taught, it took ages and worked out messy, lots of bad habits and gaps)

There’s a lot of controls to try and sort lagginess though, that’s supposed to be mostly about graphics and sound hardware, did you try that stuff?

The other thing is, it’s quite a good modelling amp. Again the UI is piss poor so it’s time consuming to set up options, pedals etc but in use with decent headphones it’s a lot better than most entry level amps.

Thanks for the reviews. Some good points. Good idea but not perfect, maybe wait for the next version.

I didn’t assume it would be a one-stop-shop for becoming a guitar genius. I just think it would force me into the habit of repetition, repetition, repetition. I imagine it would get my completely useless left hand back into action and loosen my fingers up ready for some proper lessons.

Does it contain any exercises? Like scales and chords, or is it just playing along to songs? Can you learn any theory from it?

Trying to play all alone in your bedroom as an absolute beginner is pretty dull! The thing that always stopped me before was I’d be trying to work something out and hit a dead end, and not have anyone to ask questions or explain anything. This was obviously pre-internet days. I like a lot of the music on the game so that would decrease the tedium somewhat.

I might grab a copy and report back in a few months.

It’s a complete pile of shiiit, the tabs are backwards for a start which is massively annoying, once you’ve learnt a song you will never be able to Play it without the game.

the tabs are backwards for a start which is massively annoying

Yeah 🙁
This is what got me. Just before launch the publishers took a few xboxes, screens and rocksmith ‘rigs’ in a tent on a festival tour. I turned up just before closing as the night was starting – picked up the guitar from a coiffured, tatoo-adorned photocopy, put on a song I knew and… got… really.. confused. And to top it off, I thought I’d just improvise a solo over it instead, but… no… it started clipping the audio and I… gave up 🙁 It was strange warm up to the gig later that night

@sharkattack, it does include a fair number of lessons with tested exercises. They’re a bit variable, I found them annoyingly slow mainly, think they’d be better with shorter drills that repeat fast but they’ve gone with more interesting short tracks which unfortunately are a wee bit slow to restart. Probably a bit more engaging but less good, maybe that’s a reasonable option to keep people’s interset. It’s probably still useful but I think the most flawed bit of the “game”- good enough to really show the potential but not as good as it could be.

You can reverse the tabs guys! First thing I did and IIRC it tells you how to do it within about 2 minutes of starting it up for the first time.

Don’t agree at all that it won’t teach you how to play without the software tbh, for the songs I messed about with you’re quickly learning and pre-empting the tab track on screen, I reckon you’d have to be a better player to do it all reactively guitar-hero style rather than learning the song.

Playing along to the songs it is effectively just a very clever tab book with a backing track, so personally I don’t think you’re any less likely to learn than you would with tab.

The 2014 edition is MUCH better than the original, the lag issues are more or less sorted for starters (actually… that is the main improvement).

I do agree with the limited songs comment, and expense of buying what others are on offer, but it is all in all rather fun. Haven’t had a play on it for a while now mind, time has been at a premium

That’s a thought. Can the people with the complaints clarify which version they were using? The ones with the lag and the crappy UI, were you on the 2014 version? Because that’s what I’d be buying.

There are still issues with the 2014 edition – would be nice if it could give you a traditional TAB layout rather than the “back of the fretboard” type view that it does provide. It does make some sense, but a rolling TAB would probably work better.

But generally it seems pretty good. (This is the PC Version btw – no idea on consoles)

I’m on 2014- no lag (and lots of tools to fix it if you get it, because hardware lag’s always possible). But the UI is still not great. It’s fit for purpose mind, does what it has to but is clunky and unintuitive at times.

2014 for me… took quite a bit of set up/messing about with options to get it to run smoothly (but then I’m running it on a pretty old laptop and useless with tech) but all good now and the Tab layout doesn’t bother me in the slightest, you soon get used to it.

Get it… it’s about the cost of one lesson.

I’ve got a PS3 so no clunky old laptops or anything.

Get it… it’s about the cost of one lesson.

You’re absolutely right. Going to get it this week some time.

I’ll report back.

2014 on PS3

I’ve been very impressed actually

Don’t touch the song sections at all

Mainly use the Jam Room which is really quite excellent for extending scales and playing modes over a meaningful backing

Used the beginner mode and lesson to kick start my bass playing again which I thought from a beginners point of view were really well thought out and useful

it’s good, but as with all teaching tools, I wouldn’t rely on it solely – books and youtube videos are also useful, I wouldn’t rule out a lesson or two from someone pro to make sure you’re not picking(ho ho) up any bad habits

the other tried and trusted method is to put the radio on and play along, some tunes you’ll know some you won’t but it builds good aural recognition skils

You guys know that you can reverse the display to be more like traditional tab?

I love it, it’s great fun, but as others have said, it’s best used with other methods rather than being the sole training tool.

The cable is also great to plug into your PC with something like Reaper (a free digital recording studio) which has loads of free plugins for guitar (and loads of other instruments) – just search free reaper plugins.

The game is OK, but as others have said gets a bit frutrating