(RESOLVED!) NOTE DETECTION ISSUE IN ROCKSMITH GUITARCADE

[Fncanuk]

I have played Rocksmith with an acoustic that had a pickup over the sound cover, an electric acoustic, and for the last couple of weeks, an electric guitar (Cort kx300).

I always had trouble with Low E chord detection with a few specific notes on the chord and scale games, with all 3 guitars.

Here is how you can check in a few seconds if this is also your problem (I believe it probably accounts for all note detection problems with working real tone cables).

Start any guitarcade game (think maybe you can do the same when you pause in learn a song). Pause the game after beginning, now in the bottom left corner with be the guitar tuner that just shows you the note you are hitting. All you have to do is tune your guitar as close to perfect as possible, and now hit the 12th fret on each string and see if it is the same note that is also perfectly tuned.

In my case, with my low E string, it was tuned perfectly, but on the 12th fret it was like +35 away from E. If it is out that far, it will also throw off the notes in between 1 and 12, causing major detection issues on a few specific notes.

This is easily solved with electric guitars that can adjust the intonation but lengthening or shortening a screw at the bridge. In my case, I had to lengthen my E string as much as it would allow, and now it is tuned with both open E and at the 12th fret, which instantly solved all my detection problems.

If it is Sharp at the 12th fret, you need to turn the screw in the direction to lengthen the string. Give the screw a few turns, then re-tune the string and check at the 12th fret to see how much further you need to go. Shorten if it is flat.

Another thing that is great about using this little note detector on the pause menu is you can also experiment with how much out of tune the note goes when you press different amounts on the string, or hit the string harder or softer. I was pretty surprised to see how little pressure it actually takes to throw it out of tune. So I tuned all the 12th fret strings to be as close to in tune as possible while lightly pressing the fret. This also made me realize that the many of us probably worsen the problem when it doesn't detect at first but pressing the string and/or hitting the string harder.

I believe anyone playing this with an acoustic will have this note detection problem because you can't adjust the length of the strings (at least not on the 2 that I was using), and to be truly in tune across all frets, all of the strings aren't supposed to be exactly the same length.

Anyone playing on an electric guitar with the adjustment screws at the bridge should be able to solve this problem with what I described.

EVERYONE can at least pause the game and use the tuner note detection to tune their guitar perfectly and then test at the 12th fret to determine if this is indeed the problem or not. If it is, and you can't adjust the string length, then you probably just have to live with it, or get a guitar that lets you adjust intonation with the turn of a screw.

If you can't adjust, maybe worth phoning a guitar luthier and asking if they can tune intonation or not with the type of guitar you have. If your intonation can't be adjusted, there could be a work around that you can use for better note detection, and that would simply be to split the difference.
For example, at Low E tuned perfectly, the 12th fret had +35 db. If this is your case on a specific string, you could tune open E to around -15, so 12th fret will be +20. Both will be a bit out of tune, but close enough for note detection to work on all the frets.

I would imagine many of us pull our guitars out of the box and just start playing, with things like intonation way out of wack. I played for 2 months with this problem and now realize, note detection in the game is perfect, but just because we are hitting the right fret doesn't mean that our guitar is necessarily playing it in perfect tune (just because the open strings are in tune).

Just remember, tune the intonation and guitar to how you normally press down on the frets, and then make sure you don't press too hard during the "intense" moments of guitarcade.

Anyway, I hope this helps at least some of you guys. I had learned to live with the problem and by chance just came across the solution last night. Scale Racer, Scale Warriors, and the chord games are way better 100 times better now.

This video will show you exactly how easy it is to do if you are having doubts.

https://www.guitarlessons.com/guitar-lessons/alternate-tunings-guitar-maintenance-and-jams/setting-your-intonation-on-guitar


Happy Jamming!

[𝙿𝚘́𝚕]

I had such a hard time with note recognition when I started. I blamed the cheap 2hand Stagg guitar I'd been given so I bought a new Fender and it was just as bad! Then I learned about guitar setup and now everything's sweet - even the old Stagg.

For me Ducks Redux was the game that flagged up intonation issues the best. You'll pluck a string and see it shoot up the wrong fret, high or low depending!
It's worth noting that changing string gauge, material or brand is likely to affect the intonation too so if you've not yet settled on a string preference it's doubly worthwhile learning how to check and make the necessary adjustments yourself whenever you try something different.

An early mistake I also made, trying to get notes to register, was to raise the pickup from too low to too high. With the pickups too high the magnets in pull on the strings and interfere with their natural vibration. It took me a while to notice but you can see it clearly happening with that mini tuner in the pause screen. You can see that pitch of the note wavers significantly. After backing the pickups off a bit the notes became a lot steadier.

This was the final tweak that fixed the issue of notes randomly 'missing' as I was strumming the same chord over several bars. Before that, Knocking On Heaven's Door was driving me nuts! And yes, getting angrier and angrier and pressing/strumming harder and harder is definitely NOT the solution!

[Fncanuk]

Yeah Ducks Redux was really bad for me as well. Fixing the detection issue renewed my interest in Guitarcade. Going for dem achievements now lol.

Yeah about raising the pickups, we always assume that the problem is that the game can't hear it, can't be the guitar haha. I was lucky that I found the solution before playing with the pickups, I was considering it.

That's a good tip about rechecking everything after changing gauges and configurations, thanks. The truth is that now I use the mini tuner pause screen to tune, and I'll still hit the 12th frets once in a while just to make sure lol. Such an enjoyable experience when it actually works how you imagine it should!

[𝙿𝚘́𝚕]

The thing is, I came so close to giving up from frustration, thinking either that the game was pants or that my technique was so awful that I'd never be able to get it right.

Most of us starting out will make the not unreasonable assumption that when we get a guitar brand new that, of course it will be set up perfectly from the factory - Not True!!!

We mustn't be fearful of all those little screws on our guitars. They're there for a purpose.
I practiced setting up my (£30) Stagg strat before I moved onto my fender but I needn't have worried. Making the necessary setup refinements is really easy; no different to pumping up your tires or topping up the oil in your car.

And yes, my 'worthless' Stagg plays just as well as my Fender on Rocksmith now Doh!

[𝙿𝚘́𝚕]

...and good luck with those achievements. I could never've imagined I'd come close to bagging them all. The sad thing is seeing how few people who own the game make even the simpler achievements. A lot of people give up pretty quick by the looks of it.

[Fncanuk]

Well, at least you have a good second "controller" for playing multiplayer with a buddy!

You are super close to getting them all. I don't know if I'll end up getting the one for bass or not either. I'm sure at some point I'll just get bored and do it, but it'll be the last one I get lol.

One other thing that I found for guitarcade that seems to help is using a soft pick. I use a harder pick for everything else, but for guitarcade, the softer pick helps keep the notes and chords from going TOO sharp and then not being detected properly.

[𝙿𝚘́𝚕]

That pick tip's a great idea. I'll certainly give it a try for tracks and exercises that emphasis strumming. I tend to use those orange Tortex Dunlops for everything.

I do enjoy playing various bass parts in emulated bass mode and I wish I'd tried it sooner. I thought it would be better to concentrate on 6 string guitar but later I realised that the bass parts in emulation mode are an easy introduction into getting a feel for playing patterns up and down the neck and so is a nice simple preparation for lead guitar, without the complication of the pesky B string. In my view Bass emulation is the best way for a complete beginner to grasp Rocksmith.

I plan to treat myself to a proper bass for my final "I Know Bass Techniques" achievement once I bag Temple of Bends. It's hard though; best score I can manage right now is ~3,000,000) but I have a cheap shortscale hollowbody bass waiting on a wishlist as motivation.

[Fncanuk]

Good to know that Bass emulation is a good intro for beginners, I convinced a couple of friends who wanted to learn guitar to buy Rocksmith while it was on sale. I will definitely let them know to experiment with Bass.

I finished the last of the guitarcade achievements yesterday, the only thing left is to start mastering songs. Should have the rest when my playtime has doubled haha.

I started going through "The Notetrackers" guitar exercises as a warmup, those really seem like great technique boosters if used a little each day! Really nice how they have beginner, intermediate, and advanced exercises. Worth a look if you haven't tried them out.

[Ubi-Thrupney]

Hey everyone! Big thanks to Fncanuk for your insights there. Just posting to say we've got an article about intonation, too - you'll find it here[www.ubisoft.com]. So, we fully support these recommendations!

- Ubisoft Support