Anyone having problems on the low E string?

[Rockgod96]

I mostly play bass guitar on Rocksmith and I notice something happening: Almost every time I try to play a note on my low E string lower than A (fifth fret) the game almost never picks it up.

Is anyone else having this problem, and if so, how can I fix it?

[Buck]

low frequency detection can be a bit iffy. firstly, replace the battery if your bass is active. Recalibrate, raise the cable input level in the Windows sound applet. make sure your bass is in tune and intonated correctly. Raise the pickups slightly, or even replace them if they're not good quality. make sure that all/both pickups are active as well. pluck/pick directly over the pickups.

[aardvark]

low E string has always been the easiest to tune for me in game, both on my guitar and bass. Always had problems tuning in game to G though on bass and guitar, but seems to register fine while playing.

Do you have a real tuner? Use it to tune your guitar first before going in game.
Are your strings ancient/heavily used? The game picks things up much better with newer strings. But before that you should look at your setup. String height and proper intonation, if either are off could cause issues.

Edit: Don't forget to calibrate your guitar in game as well.

[M4YH3M1]

I've had issues with playing the game after tuning perfectly, then hitting the notes in the game sometimes doesn't register that I've hit it. It's almost always when playing a song in a Drop D or similar tuning.
This happens quite often on my active bass and occasionally on guitar.

[Buck]

Originally posted by aardvark:

low E string has always been the easiest to tune for me in game

Really? My experience is the opposite. I find that the tuner is very picky about the E string. The meter tends to bounce wildly from end to end. I work around this by just continually plucking the string until it tunes. I've had this behaviour on every system and every bass I use Rocksmith with. I've found that the tuning and detection gets progressively worse with lower notes (Drop tuning and the B-string), but it's not catastrophic and can be worked around.

Originally posted by thejohnnewton:

It’s possible your nut is too high on that string causing notes near the nut to be sharp.

That doesn't seem likely, but it's plausible.

[sundog]

Sounds like your guitar needs an intonation. If you use a tuner on the E string, and then hold down the E at the 12th fret, you should get the note one octave higher. If you do not, then you need to have the guitar intoned. This is usually accomplished by adjusting the bridge/saddle depending on the type of guitar.

[hexenfree]

Whenever my E string isn't being detected, it's usually windows turning the cables volume down.

[FredEffinChopin]

Originally posted by Buck:

...raise the cable input level in the Windows sound applet.

Originally posted by Jed:

Whenever my E string isn't being detected, it's usually windows turning the cables volume down.

I'm curious, how do you two get windows to retain the setting? It always resets to whatever it wants once I start Rocksmith. I even tried turning off audio exclusivity and it still happens.

I just experimented with the settings (for the first time since I got the game) to try to figure that out, and had some bizarre results. When I started, Rocksmith kept resetting the Realtone volume in Windows settings to 35 or so. At some point (I can't recall if it was the first of several times I toggled the audio exclusivity or when I turned on the dB override) though, Rocksmith started resetting the volume to 17 instead. Now that I've reset all the settings to the way I had them, it still resets the Windows Realtone mic volume to 17. None of it seemed to have any effect in-game.

Originally posted by Rockgod:

I mostly play bass guitar on Rocksmith and I notice something happening: Almost every time I try to play a note on my low E string lower than A (fifth fret) the game almost never picks it up.

Is anyone else having this problem, and if so, how can I fix it?

Personally, I've not had it fail to detect low notes on the bass, but on a couple of my basses, it only detects E or lower for a brief moment before it immediately stops detecting it, presumably as the note's volume resonates and becomes lower. It has caused difficulty in tuning when I use those basses. In those cases,I can see the tuning circle for that string fill up maybe 20%, then it just resets. The way I found around it was to just strum the string firmly, steadily, and at regular intervals until the circle fills up. Doing it too frantically wouldn't seem to do the trick, but just hitting the string again right as it's about to go below the volume threshold for the tuner to detect it does the trick. If you turn up all of the volume knobs on your bass and can get it to register for even a moment, this technique may do the trick for you. It won't effect you in songs, either. You will notice sustained notes drop out very quickly, but RS doesn't score you on whether you complete the sustained note, it just wants to know that you hit it at the right time. Hope that helps a little.

[hexenfree]

Originally posted by FredEffinChopin:

Originally posted by Buck:

...raise the cable input level in the Windows sound applet.

Originally posted by Jed:

Whenever my E string isn't being detected, it's usually windows turning the cables volume down.

I'm curious, how do you two get windows to retain the setting? It always resets to whatever it wants once I start Rocksmith. I even tried turning off audio exclusivity and it still happens.
e.

That's what I wanna know, I keep having to turn it back up to 100.

[Buck]

Originally posted by FredEffinChopin:

I'm curious, how do you two get windows to retain the setting? It always resets to whatever it wants once I start Rocksmith. I even tried turning off audio exclusivity and it still happens.

You kind of don't. Windows sets the gain to 17 by default, but then exclusive mode apps can set their own gain which for RS gets set when you calibrate. The game tells you to turn the instrument volume all the way up, which is why most people end up with it defaulting to 17 or some other low #. IF you were to lower your instrument volume Rocksmith would select a higher input latency, but this may have the impact of the game feeling the input is TOO loud if you turn the instrument volume up, which can impact detection.

Originally posted by Jed:

That's what I wanna know, I keep having to turn it back up to 100.

100 is probably too much ,esp with an active electronics instrument. I personally like to set it to around 70, but even at that level the game often complains that the input is too loud, which again, can at best, cause distortion, or at worse, can impact detection.

[hexenfree]

Originally posted by Buck:

Originally posted by Jed:

That's what I wanna know, I keep having to turn it back up to 100.

100 is probably too much ,esp with an active electronics instrument. I personally like to set it to around 70, but even at that level the game often complains that the input is too loud, which again, can at best, cause distortion, or at worse, can impact detection.

After calibration 100 is fine for me. Though 68-70 after calibration is also fine.

[Rockgod96]

Calibration doesn't work for me. I have pluck my E string INCREDIBLY hard to get it to play at the volume it wants, and that's WITH my volume and tone knobs all the way up. Even then, it still doesn't always play at the volume it wants me to. It just simply won't pick up the note.

Some people on here say I need to raise the sound in a Windows sound app. How do I do that? Where do I go on my computer?

[Rockgod96]

I just now adjusted the pickups on my bass. I think that might have done the trick

[Rockgod96]

Originally posted by Rockgod:

I just now adjusted the pickups on my bass. I think that might have done the trick

That did the trick. I tested it on BOC's "Burnin' for You," a song mostly played on the E string and the only notes I missed were the ones I actually did miss (which, I don't like admitting I missed notes, but at least now it's fair).

[Mumpy240]

Originally posted by M4YH3M1:

I've had issues with playing the game after tuning perfectly, then hitting the notes in the game sometimes doesn't register that I've hit it. It's almost always when playing a song in a Drop D or similar tuning.
This happens quite often on my active bass and occasionally on guitar.

When you tune annd it goes to the song pause it and use the tuner at the bottom left of the screen. That helps that problem alot