So you want to be a rockstar? Rocksmith for beginners.

You've picked out an axe and downloaded the game, now what? You're going to rock this party at a moments notice. One day, maybe. Today is not that day. Today you are going to learn how to combat some of the frustrations associated with using and playing Rocksmith, the tool and the game.

I've never picked up a guitar in my life! Help!

Relax, Rocksmith is here to help.

The first thing you should do is play through the beginner lessons. Some of them are pretty obvious, and just simple videos to teach you how to hold a guitar.

Yeah, I know, you can Crabcore, but watch the video. Before you can freak out on the floor in a tantrum of a solo, (I'm looking at you Angus341) you have to learn boring things like how to attach a strap.

By all means, get your SOAD DLC loaded and play it, you know you want to. Even if I told you not to, you'd do it anyway. Play, have fun, but put some effort into it. You'll be rewarded in the end.

Play the hell out of the practice tracks. That's what they are there for. Watch the lesson, play the track, then play it again. You can skip the lesson content by selecting the "practice track" in the lesson menu. The first time you play it you won't have a clue what the notes are or what they should sound like. The second time you might have a better time of it. The tenth time you might start to get the hang of it. Welcome to the reality of learning guitar.

Your mom always got on your case to take care of your stuff. Lame, right. Right. Do it anyway. Don't leave your cable plugged in to the USB port. Wind it up real nice and hang it up or put it on a shelf, in a drawer, in your guitar case. The number one cause of broken cables is leaving them lying around. A failing cable is going to make your game behave poorly and that leads to frustration.

I know the game videos and media BS show guys sitting on their futon couches playing the game, and it sure looks rad, but please don't do this. There's two reasons. one is that a ton of guitars have the cable coming out the butt of the guitar and that could get jammed in those back killing "cushions" and put a lot of pressure on the 1/4" input, wrecking either your cable, or even your guitar's input. Get yourself a nice chair with no arms, or better yet a good tall stool and let that cable relax. The other reason is that you won't have good posture with your knees up in your chest. Unless you're starting a Crabcore band. But yeah, don't do that.

I know what I'm doing. I can play Blitzkrieg Bop!

Great, you can play a power chord, you're well on your way.

You're going to start to see some errors. Notes you are sure you hit, chords you couldn't have missed because you just played forty of the exact same chord. Welcome to Rocksmith.

Note detection is something every player of this game experiences at one time or another. The reality here is that the game is not perfect and it wont ever be. Its probably safe to say it wont get any better. That being said its pretty damn good.

Most note detection problems are caused by two things: technique and equipment. In very rare cases there have been actual issues with the coding and note tracking of an individual songs.

Your technique may sound great when you wail away on your practice amp, but unfortunately, Rocksmith is a bit pickier than your ears. You'll probably notice your first dropped notes on the E or red string, sometimes called the bottom string. Its a little thicker than the others and that means if you press it down against the fretboard as hard as you can, it will bend way too sharp. The same thing happens if you fret just a touch too much. The same happens frequently on the A or yellow string.

Remember, you're learning how to play guitar here, so technique is very important to that goal. Fret lightly. Your fingers will build up strength and finesse to hit those notes quickly without crushing it down to the fretboard.

Your equipment plays a huge part in note detection. Intonation can cause some notes to be out of tune, relative to the nut, or the open position on the fretboard. CHeck this out, open the tuner. From the main menu open the tools menu with the spacebar. Select the tuner. A nice little chromatic tuner will appear. Now play the open E, or red string. Tune it so it shows an E within +-5 cents. Now fret the same string at the 12th fret. If your intonation is spot on, you should see an E again. Remember to fret lightly, only enough to sound the note clearly. If you don't get an E right on the money, your intonation is off.

I wont get into setting up your intonation. There are too many different kinds of guitars to cover. The short answer is, if the note is slightly flat, you need to shorten the distance between the nut and the saddle, the two ends of the strings. Sharp you do the opposite, lengthen the string. Go to the manufacturer's website. They will have videos and pdfs and all kinds of info about setting up your guitar. Or you could support your local guitar shop. A setup usually doesn't cost too much, and having it setup by a pro will make it play and sound much better. You could have the same pro play the guitar for you, you'll get great results, but it sort of defeats the purpose of learning guitar.

I've done what you told me, despite what RATM taught me, I'm still dropping notes!

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, "what the F does a meatball know about this crap?"

I'm a bit of a nerd for crap like this. I do all my own setups and I've been playing for several years. Not rocksmith, just guitar. I've seen and fixed plenty of problems. I also know spaghetti and thats like a string, a little more floppy, but...No? Not funny? Okay, moving on then.

Your intonation is perfect and you fret like ninja but you're still dropping notes! WTF! There's lots of other things you can check.

The game doesn't know when your guitar starts to go out of tune. It only checks the tuning before guitarcade games, and if you play a song in a different tuning. Or you ask it to. Ask it once in a while. Lots of guitars won't stay in tune for a whole session.

Strings get worn out. They wear in a bunch of different ways. They get weak at pressure points, the saddle, the nut and at the tuning machines.They can also get worn at the frets. The get these little kind of micro stretches in them that can fail suddenly, who hasn't broken a string? You haven't? You will.

Replace your strings frequently. Some people do it once a month. Pros will do it for every show. I do it maybe every three months depending on how much I play. They will start to sound kind of dead. They should sound nice and bright. If they sound kind of muddy and muted, you need new strings. Want to prolong string life? Stop changing the tuning on your guitar all the freaking time! Going to Drop D and back probably won't kill your strings, but going to D Drop C and back to E standard to A445 Drop D to Eb is like murduring your whole string family. Try to keep it in one tuning as long as you can. If you're a rich bastard, buy another guitar to keep in an alternate tuning. While you're at it, buy me one too. I'll take a nice Gretcsh White Falcon.

Some people swear that you will get better note detection using your bridge pickup. They are typically a bit hotter, they put out more signal. I'm not totally convinced. Try it though, you might get results.

Speaking of pickups, if you went and got your guitar setup at the shop, your pickup height will have been adjusted. If you went the DIY route, you might need to check this. Each guitar is designed to have each pickup a certain distance from the strings. Again, your guitar's manufacturer can help you with this. All you need is a ruler and a screwdriver. Its so easy a bass player singer could do it!

A real stupid thing to check is that your Real Tone Cable is securely connected at the breakaway connector. They work themselves loose for some reason.

If your guitar has active pickups, check the battery.

Update: Tuning: for guitars that are not hot pink race cars that cost more than a house.

There is a trick to tuning within the game. And a few tricks in general that will help you get the most out of your guitar and game.

Tons of guitarists swear that the best way to tune is to tune up to the note. If you're slightly sharp when you go to tune, really bring the note way flat, then tune up to the desired note. I think I mentioned it above that your strings can do all sorts of funny things, like stick in the nut or have slight little bends or kinks, and tuning up to the note will help work against those problems.

If you're tuning outside the game, tune up your strings as you do, then go back through and check that they stayed in tune. Your strings will slightly bow your neck when they are tightened and this will cause some of the lighter top strings to lose a touch of tension. Just a little, but it can make your chords sound a little mushy.

In game, I'll try to put a video up to demonstrate, but basically, when you do the double check on your tuning, the game should score the hit right away. Its hard to describe. If when you strum and the game kind of hesitates for a half secong before showing the string is in tune, it might be slightly off, and cause note detection issues. The longer the pause, the more likely you are to drop notes. I shoot for a nice crisp response. I usually just pick through the strings like an arpeggio from Tom Petty's Good Enough.

As promised, a video!

Check out 2:04 in the video below. This section has some good tips.

More updates!: Useful links

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[Mewshmallow.exe]

"Don't leave your cable plugged in to the USB port."
That's the good tip.
My cable was constantly plugged in to the combo amplifier. After the combo amplifier fell to the floor several times, my cable broke, because this thing is heavy af. We all learn from mistakes, but REALLY, be careful with your cables.

[Mephilis78]

Also, if you have latency issues going through a TV, try using the headphones instead, it fixed it for me.

[Mephilis78]

I've been playing guitar for twenty years now. Rocksmith takes a little getting used to, if you've already learned things the traditional way. For starters... the was the strings are represented in game are a bit backwards. You can either look at it as a tab that's been flipped so the low E is on top... or you can look at it as you would trying to watch your lefty friend showing you riffs on their guitar. Just a tad bit counter intuitive at first. Biggest advice is to definitely use the practice system that lets you break a song into segments {space bar}, at least until you get used to the flow of the interface and graphics.

[k33th]

Thank you!

[the_ruthless]

Great stuff! :D I'm just using a borrowed early-eighties Fender-alike P&J bass and a glam-grunge era Peavey Predator guitar, trying to figure out this stuff... Great tips about tuning and how the game actually works. :)

[Laz_Blasphemous]

thank you so much for this helpful guide holy fuckin shit that was incredible.

[mahashma]

@sidrat wait til you don't pick up your bass for a month... ayee.

A note on tuning for bass: the lower the note the more trouble RS has with it. DLC in funky low tunings (looking at you, Slipknot and your Drop B) will give you conniptions just tuning them. I've found hitting the harmonic of the note a lot of the time can dial it in where ordinary strumming will have you cursing and swearing.

[rundmk]

@sidrat yes your finger tips are in for a shock, they will toughen over time

[sidrat]

This is my first day of Rocksmith and that's a wonderful guide. The 12th fret tuning is going to be really helpful as I was getting incorrect results from the game making me doubt myself despite being able to count to 12 (also by looking at the two dots) and three strings down.

Looking forward to day 2 of my guitar journey - Is it normal for finger tips to be tender or am I pressing too hard during the bend practice?

Great guide, going to check out the link after sleep.

[Kid Meatball]

Thanks Robo! I appreciate the feedback.