Bentron

v0.1 v0.2 I haven't touched these files in almost 5 years now, so I have no clue what state I left them in. Unfortunately I don't have time to work on it these days, but if you or anyone else wants to pick it up and complete it, feel free. The link to the chart I was working from appears to be dead, but I have a few different gp5 files saved locally. I'm not sure how accurate they are, but I can upload them somewhere if they'd be helpful to anyone.

More progress: http://i.imgur.com/WTj2dCh.jpg There are still a lot of places where I'm not really playing it cleanly (mostly just not playing fast enough), but the game is super forgiving when the song is as fast and note-dense as this. I think I have a little more room for improvement without actually slowing down and working on the couple difficult spots, but not too much more. I may break down tomorrow and really focus, but there's probably not enough time to really get it down solidly before the week is over, having kind of slacked off so far. Difficulty-wise, I don't know that this is quite a 9. Most of the song isn't that hard beyond just plucking speed. That six note pattern toward the middle is really difficult (for me aat least), but with the rest of the song in mind, I'd say probably only an 8 overall, maybe even a 7.

Slight improvement today: http://i.imgur.com/YVilcLy.jpg

MC Bass: http://i.imgur.com/BjZcIc4.jpg This was after a run through LAS (first run was around 85% I think) and some time in RR to figure out the more difficult parts yesterday. I'm still nowhere near playing that one section toward the middle cleanly at full speed, but I guess it's close enough to not get strikes. It definitely didn't feel like it when I was playing though. I feel like this song would be worlds easier with a pick too. It's not played fingered originally is it? Unfortunately there's not much here I find particularly interesting to play, so motivation to break it all down in RR for focused practice is kind of low. The one riff at the end is pretty fun though. I'll probably just grind out score attack runs and figure out more comfortable hand positions this week. Once I'm more familiar with it, I might be able to hit 96-ish%, but I probably won't put in enough real practice time to offer any serious competition for the top spots this week.

Well, I managed to get tuned down to B Standard, and everything seemed to be going well. I got my cold run through in LAS and was looking forward to digging in: http://i.imgur.com/GdT0zNc.jpg I spent 15-20min in RR to figure out the more difficult bits before going through score attack and all seemed fine. Then I took a break to start laundry going, and I guess in that time, the neck had straightened out quite a bit. Now anything between the first and fourth or fifth frets is basically unplayable (strings get dampened by the fretboard with the lightest touch) :( I don't really want to mess with the truss rod or string height, especially just for one song, so I guess this is my final score for this week. @@Anderi suggested a pitch shifter, which would solve my problem I'm sure, but there's not really room in the budget to buy new gear unfortunately. Not for this week anyway. Over all, the track did seem pretty easy for MC (compared to last week anyway). Playing it on a 5-string I think would only make it easier too.

I'm fairly certain tuning down to B Standard is impossible with the strings I have. I seem to recall trying to tune down to C for some thing a while back (might've been D drop C for chop suey actually), and even that was so loose as to be unplayable. I'll give it a shot later, but I may need to take a pass for this week.

Today's progress: http://i.imgur.com/7CLiA6V.jpg Every run after this one has gotten progressively worse, so I think I'm spent for today. It's always a little annoying when I have playthroughs that feel really solid, with longer streaks and higher scores, only to see at the score screen that the accuracy isn't actually better too. I'll probably give it some more time tomorrow, but I have no expectations of catching up to @@fiddlesticks or @@albatross213 this week.

Very minor improvement (still sounds like a mess), but at least I broke into the 90% range. http://i.imgur.com/XGyc3hi.jpg I did end up going with the 3-6 position for the long, easy section, which helped immensely with left hand fatigue. And the GFDGFD bit I'm playing hD-G-pF-hD-G-pF-hD etc. It's still not quite there, but I feel like I'll be able to get it up to speed eventually. Mostly the song is just exhausting to play though.

I hadn't thought of that. Either option may help a lot with the fatigue. I'll have to give it a try tomorrow. That one I did try earlier today actually, but it didn't feel significantly better/easier. The riff as written is good practice for accurate and consistent shifting anyway, which I do need to work on, especially in that part of the neck.

Ugly is the only word I can use to describe it, but I finally managed to get a score attack run without any strikes. I did end with a x5 multiplier though... http://i.imgur.com/lnA0rPm.jpg And it turns out, in a full play through, the G-Bb-G-Bb-etc section is actually causing the most trouble. It's easily the simplest part of the song, but my hand feels like a clump of wet noodles after getting through it for some reason. So I end up botching everything that comes after pretty badly. On the plus side, the main groove from the start feels pretty manageable at full speed now. Still a lot of misses though, mostly on the shifting and when transitioning between some sections. The GFDGFD riff is actually giving me some trouble too, now that I've got it up to full speed. Might need to resort to pulling off to the F after all, or maybe hammering on the D. I'll have to see what feels better. I'll be shooting for the 90s by the end of the week, but still a lot of work to go. It's not feeling completely insurmountable anymore at least :)

Well, I guess it's reassuring that this isn't an easy week for MC at least. I definitely feels like a bigger jump in difficulty than between intermediate and advanced though. I think I agree about he chord sections. They don't feel super challenging technically or anything. It's more that I just never use those muscles, so my hand gets fatigued really quickly. That riff definitely seem like a nightmare at first. But once I started thinking about it as GFDGFD with the first D as a pickup note, it just sort of clicked for me. The plucking pattern made way more sense after that for some reason. I don't remember if I've tried it at full speed yet, but out of the whole song, that riff is probably the one I'm least worried about at the moment. Transposing to a different string could work, but I know it goes directly into the main groove again in at least one place. Making that shift back in time might be a bit tough, especially from the 15/17/22 range.

So, it turns out masterclass is hard. My first run through in LAS was somewhere in the low 60% range (didn't screenshot for obvious reasons), which was actually surprising given how horribly I played it. Where does Rags and Bones (just for bass) rank on the MC difficulty spectrum? I haven't done a full run through the song since, but I've more or less gotten everything up to 80-85% speed in RR, with a handful of misses here and there. Getting the main groove up to speed is going to take a lot of of work though. And even then, I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to hit 80% overall accuracy with the power chord sections killing my fretting hand as much as they do. Hopefully I can build up some endurance for that/stop fretting so hard by the end of the week though.

Figured I may as well join the 100% club this week too. http://i.imgur.com/f1Cxxe6.jpg I still felt a little sloppy in a couple places, but I don't think I'll go back and try again at this point. My right index finger's pretty sore now and starting to form a blister, so I'll probably go easy for a day or two.

Can I vote to save myself too? http://i.imgur.com/HiE4P7D.jpg I was really kicking myself when my finger slipped on the one note right at the end. I do think it's on the easy side for advanced, but at this point I don't think I qualify as an impartial judge. MC is a scary place :)

Some improvement on Cholly today: http://i.imgur.com/0YQk21u.jpg