Rocksmith

[Cagliostro]

I did the first download for Rocksmith that I have in a long time. I found out they had a Jeff Buckley Pack, and had to buy it. I'm really enjoying getting to play those songs.

[Zarathustra]

I've been pretty much just using this game for the session mode lately. Now that I've taught myself all the main scales/modes (Lydian, dorian, etc.), this feature is a blast. You can choose which scale and key you'd like to work on, create a band to back you up and then improvise in that scale to really learn it in the context of a song. You can even have it change up with different scales to jam across key changes. Jamming is so much fun. I could do it for hours. I wish I'd had all this knowledge back when I was in a band. It has changed the way I look at the instrument.

[Cagliostro]

I've fiddled with that a few times, and I think I'm too self-critical. I need to just take some time and just see what sounds/feels good. So, yeah, I plan to mess with it more when I get a bit more developed.
I just got my bass "set up," partially because there has been a buzz on one of the strings until I hold it down, but also because I understand it typically makes it easier to play. I notice I don't have to hold the strings down as hard, and that it stays in tune much better. And just sounds a bit better. So I hope to get some serious time in with it soon.
While it was away getting set up, I've been playing around with my two other guitars (acoustic and electric), and found I'm playing a lot better on those (when I don't get onto the wrong string, or completely off fret-wise). I also found yet another tool call Yousician that is free (although you can pay and get more time each day). It's kinda the same thing and works off of your computer with a mike (mine automatically detected the web cam and works off of that mike). It's ok, as it has a hard time determining pitch as well as it should to be effective. It has a feature I wanted to try which was to put your own music into the thing, which I took to mean "put the CD in and it will convert it." But alas, if it a certain tab file that you need which doesn't have the music I particularly want to play with (or I haven't found it yet).

[Zarathustra]

There is a free patch for this game. I haven't connected my Xbox to the Internet in some time, so I didn't realize until now. It came out October 2016. It's called Rocksmith 2014 Remastered. It shortens the lag between input/output, makes riff repeated much easier to use, and lots of other improvements.

I'm VERY pleased that there are 5 more Rush songs, for a total of 10 now (I think). Freewill and La Villa were are must-haves for me. Closer to the Heart is nice, too. Working Man is epic. If they kept adding Rush, I'd keep buying.

They have also added some great Yes songs: Starship Trooper, Seen All Good People, Roundabout, Owner of Lonely Heart, and Heart of the Sunrise!! My god, these are fun to play.

I really wish there was a "play by ear" mode, where you could do the same thing you do in Riff Repeater--slow down, loop sections--except with the ability to isolate the audio for individual tracks or instruments. The track information has to be on there, otherwise the game wouldn't know you're hitting the right notes for each track. It seems that would be easy to do.

[Vraith]

Well, things converged...after the long-ass delay, I got the game, an xbox, and went to work/play. Then I remembered this thread.
Bad news...my crappy old bass I'll have to at least do surgery on the wiring or maybe replace the pickups. [or, more likely, get a better instrument...it's really not worth investing in fixing]. Simply will not work.
Good news...my semi-crappy Washburn guitar works fine...and I'm literally a better guitar player after a month than I ever was before [[though I never was good, the progress is significant...I'm currently [till I get bass, which I know something about] just hacking through a song till I get around 50%, then going to a new one...with occasional forays into riff repeater for things that seem cool and technique/arcade stops for a change of pace.
I love it.

[Cagliostro]

I've been playing a lot of Rocksmith, and buying a lot more songs. I guess they decided to put to rest the DLC for this current generation of consoles, but it sounds like they are amping up for something on the next generation (pun intended). I just wish they'd put the DLC on sale. Oh well.

I'd say the songs I'm most enjoying at the moment are ones with lots of notes, but not too heavy on the strumming. I can't seem to strum fast, and really am overdue for learning to be an effective fingering of the bass player. I see that this is the best technique for quick strumming, but I learned with the pick and I'm having trouble moving away from that. Maybe that will be my next phase of learning is losing the pick.

With that said, I love songs that have notes all over the fretboard, but pickable. I am completely in love with the Stevie Wonder songs because the bass is so much fun to play with that. I've never bought a single Stevie Wonder album and never thought much more than, "Yeah, he's alright." But I'm loving playing these songs, even though so far I'm kinda slopping my way up to the 90% on some of them, and 70% on the harder ones.

I've found looking up the songs on YouTube and seeing how they play is the best way to shop. Look up the songs and you can see how difficult they will be at their hardest, and judge from there. I've ruled out several songs I like simply because the bass part was boring, and was thankful I did not buy them. And looked up some songs that I would normally not buy, but realizing that the bass parts are awesome. I also love playing Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay.

I wonder what the next iteration of this "game" will look like.