Mikson

Improvements

Difficult chart to high accuracy, too many details...

On 4/6/2025 at 10:19 PM, cacahuate51 said:

surprised this is rated only a 5.5? seemed a bit difficult to me but oki 

Wow I agree with @ cacahuate51  about the bass difficulty rating! 
@ Rodman  This is definitely harder than 5.5, I see that in the selection sheet this was initially rated 7 and in my opinion it is correct rating (this could be an upleveling song) or at least 6.5. This is fast and tiring for the hands. I don't see much chance of doing 99% here...

I didn't mention it earlier but when it comes to guitars I agree with all diff ratings, this bass is the only one where I felt dissonance.

5 hours ago, jasmith85 said:

Is anyone else having note detection issues with Fire Water Burn?

Yes, the chord detection issue seems to be common there.

Rhythm scores

Start this week

Classic yes, I'm also surprised I haven't played this before.

Technically difficult chart, I've played this before but a long time ago and I couldn't even find a screenshot. Surprised I managed to achieve 90% because my previous score was much lower.

Difficult solo, the rest not so much.

Have a nice week!

22 hours ago, Rodman said:

This is Major Rod to ground control...

Thx @ Mikson !!! Nadszedł czas, aby przyjrzeć się Mistrzowi Bowie bliżej. Trochę się spóźniłam, bo zatrudniłam piosenkarkę - moją cudowną córkę, żeby mnie wspierała. Człowieku, ona jest takim profesjonalistą - jej sesja nagraniowa trwa zaledwie 40 minut, a ona nigdy nie zrobiła czegoś takiego. Dziękuję kochanie!!!! Co zrobiliśmy?
Chciałem zrobić małą wersję, ponieważ ta piosenka jest tak duża. Zrobiłem więc akustyczne odtwarzanie uchwycone za pomocą 2 mikrofonów. Potem zrobiłem partie solowe, poczułem je i... Znowu czuję, że to smutna piosenka, oczywiście niepokojący koniec.
Śpiewał razem z nim i ..... Potem zobaczyłem, jak moja córka zabija go absolutnie na koncercie kończącym semestr w swojej szkole muzycznej, gdzie ma pewien trening wokalny, więc usunąłem moją ścieżkę wokalną i poszedłem na negocjacje, które poszły bardzo dobrze, biorąc pod uwagę umysł 13-latka. Dzisiaj znaleźliśmy trochę czasu na nagranie wokalne.
Wrzuciłem wszystko do Reapera i trochę zmiksowałem i zmasterowałem, czego nauczyłem się w ciągu tygodnia.

Enjoy!

Rod.

Oh what a brilliantly arranged project! You really know how to combine multiple tracks and vocals which makes your covers sound so good. I'm just curious if you play all the guitar tracks by heart or do you have any tabs displayed while playing?

7 hours ago, Rodman said:

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH YES! Now that did work out, Miks! Way cool and a very good sound.
As Reaper is designed EXACTLY for multiple tracks you basically just hit add track, aim that for recording, disarm the other one and you are good to go.

Love that - what did you use for guitar sound?

Rod.

As I mentioned, I just recorded my playing using Reaper, I didn't change any tones, but I thought the default sounded good.

When it comes to recording multiple tracks, I'll come back to this with questions later

Ok regarding the Space Oddity cover it looks like everyone is waiting for me because @ cacahuate51 and @ diceslinger forced me to do it first 
The problem is that I didn't have much time to try to do it, I installed Reaper but I still don't understand how it works, I based it on this short description from Caca's post. Based on that I managed to record one rhythm track, I wanted to add something with Lead (mini solo) and add a Bass track, but I don't know how to combine multiple tracks.

You mentioned that you can't record while playing Rocksmith so I didn't try it, I played watching a YT video.

I'm going away for 2 days so I won't have more time to work on it this week unfortunately. I did anything to start and so you can start presenting your professional covers  

Bonus from Rocksmith

Bass improvements

11 minutes ago, drand said:

beg-int perspective for Muse,

hard to replicate rhythm, can’t do it rn. usually there is a baseline where i either can or can’t do a pattern, I can’t do this one. too fast, not experienced enough to do it right. from what i noticed master class players like you tend to disregard or underestimate rhythm in the difficulty i think bc once you get it, it just clicks so it’s hard to imagine not getting it

Blue Stones,

uncommon rhythm with a semi-complex muting pattern, hard to even comprehend by ear to me what’s going on or replicate accurately 

uncommon double stops combined with some quick timed changes that aren’t as sight readable to me

By comparison the Hallas song has more common chord shapes and easier to understand rhythm, feels more familiar

Thanks for the explanation, very interesting point of reference. I am far from a masterclass player, but you are right that I do not pay much attention to rhythm, if I see a chart built of power chords, where there is no quick change of chords, I am able to play it fairly well by sight without knowing the song and it seems easy to me.

Rhythm path in Hallas song is also not complicated, but this chart itself seems more complex to me, the riff is repetitive but has to be done quickly, although I see that players have no problems with this.

I've played this so many times (counting tests while doing CDLC) that it's enough. I can't play this better, because I always get a few misses on the riff, but most of all I can't play the solo well enough...

Some players are close to 99% here, congratulations, too much for me.

49 minutes ago, drand said:

This is beginner? That's wild

I don't quite understand what's difficult here  This chart is basically power chords and double-stops. I'm surprised that players have more problems with Muse and The Blue Stones songs than with Hallas song 

Let's get back to something I can play

I'll raise diff rating here to 5.

This playing was shameful  Cosmic level...

Improvements

Bass

18 hours ago, cacahuate51 said:

I think this song wasslightly easier than vektor song because the fast riffs don't appear that much and its probably doable with practice, still fun though/ probably the song i enjoyed most (might check his work out cause ive seen videos of him but dont really know his songs other than "technical difficulties")  

Here I used a simple rule. The hardest parts of Fuzz Universe are the fast riffs which are harder than the hardest parts of Destroying The Cosmos. It is known that in Fuzz Universe there are a lot of straight streaks of the same notes, which makes it easier to improve the overall % of accuracy.

Rhythm

7 hours ago, jasmith85 said:

Black Holes I found more difficult compared to Star Rider, because of the chords. Some belters though.

I'm a bit surprised that Black Holes was harder for you. This is basically just basic chords (in partial or full), the only difficulty is frets changing. As for Star Rider, however, Rhytm should be rated a bit lower as I initially think. So I'll slightly change the ratings to 3.5 for Black Holes and 5 for Star Rider.

Scores from testing

Lead

37 minutes ago, cacahuate51 said:

ah no problem! I actually dont have any amps either, and didnt like using my interface for recording guitars cause it would always delay so much that it made recording guitars 10x harder ( i got that fixed though) so i used rocksmith cable on my daw for most of my time.

Download Reaper:
 https://www.reaper.fm/download.php
You'll be using the free trial version which last 60 days ( seems like its 60 days mins only count if you have it open but emmy also claimed its like winrar once the trial runs out you can still use it, i still havent reached that time so idk i only downloaded it cause it is used for the drop pitch in rocksmith, stilll havent learnt but wanna try to figure out this week)

setting it up- press ctrl p or options preferences make sure audio system is direct sound. ( other drivers might be more beneficial but this is how i got the cable to work)

Now you need to add a track (this will be where you record guitars) press ctrl t. Select the red dot button to tell the daw that you want to use that track to record and now press ctrl R and strum away (assuming you nhave your guitar connected with the rocksmith cable)

whats cool about reaper is if you keep ctrl r it it wont over write the guitar audio instead itll put it in a different lane this way you can slice the best takes. I think ableton also added that feature but you have to press some buttons so this is more intuitive i might use it lmao. This is usually refered as comping.

ok but what about amps?

theres lots of free ones.
id recommend guitar rig player 7
 https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/guitar/guitar-rig-7-player/?srsltid=AfmBOooLNg3T8UEEfv-wW76RI5LXsL0mS2Uw-6kpcJfRaT599fkrMVeG
if you download the komplete start bundle it will also give you other virtual instruments that are neat
if you want a delay plugin:
Replika that comes with the komplete start bundle is great! also Raum (reverb plugin) is fantastic

Valhalla supermassive is neat
https://valhalladsp.com/shop/reverb/valhalla-supermassive/?srsltid=AfmBOooXtFy47I6fBkL3p3VfVXDDuPPNq2REXSgoqjEcETz-dRhkoeqZ
or 
deelay can get you some wonky results cause theres a randomizer button which always makes stuff fun imo
https://sixthsample.com/deelay/ 

once you download one or all when you record a guitar track in reaper all you need to do is select fx button and then find the vst 

what about drums?
theres free ones aswell
id reccomend spitfire, SSD or just any yt video

 

Sounds a bit complicated to me, but I'll check it out  

16 hours ago, cacahuate51 said:

Thanks for creating this week @ Mikson  !! love me some space songs and can't wait top see some covers of space oddity/ maybe miksons first cover?

5 hours ago, diceslinger said:

+1 to @ Mikson 's first cover! 

Unfortunately I don't have the conditions to record covers, because basically I only have electric guitars + bass connected via Rocksmith cable. I don't even have a guitar amp  Basically I could just record my playing in Rocksmith but that's not a cover 

This week is over! Thanks for competing!

New championship week started here:

Time for a cosmos-themed week!  

I had already tested some songs with this theme, so the selection went pretty quickly.

Muse - Neutor Star Collision - a song from the Twilight soundtrack. This is an old CDLC like most CDLCs of Muse songs, but I couldn't find a better chart for beginners, and the quality is good.

The Blue Stones - I didn't know this one before. Interesting sound and good quality CDLC. The lead chart is mainly chord-based and would fit even beginners if not for the a bit tricky fingerstyle chords.

Hallas - Star Rider - this band is one of my best discoveries of the last year. Great vibes and atmospheric sound of combined guitars and synths. The charts of both guitars are pretty similar, rhythm is basically an alternative lead, with an alternative riff. Bass is not difficult but it has one more difficult lick.

Vektor - Destroing The Cosmos - heavier trash rhythms as befits the destruction of the cosmos  The charts of all payhs are fun to play and you can't get bored.  Lead has a decent dose of tapping at the end.

Paul Gilbert - Fuzz Universe. Man this is a real instrumental masterpiece! Over 7 minutes of solos and riffs, kudos to anyone who achieves over 90% here. Bass chart is also fun and has some fast riffs. I made a CDLC of this track pretty quickly (last 2 days), so if there are any problems I'll try to fix them.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But that's not all!
@ Rodman  asked me as the host of this week to pick a song to cover. I thought for a moment about picking something related to the theme of the week and the first obvious song that came to mind was...

David Bowie - Space Oddity 

I hope it gets accepted!

So let's get off the ground and take off!

Lead:
- Beginner: @ Willyam (61)
- Intermediate: @ Satinuke (93)
- Advanced: @ cacahuate51 (97.5)
- Masterclass: @ shaggy_malagy (96)
- God of Guitar: @ shaggy_malagy (97)

Rhythm:
- Beginner: LOST TROPHY
- Intermediate: @ Vodka (96.58)
- Advanced: @Mikson (97.34)
- Masterclass: @ cacahuate51 (94.79)
- God of Rhythm: @Mikson (97)

Bass:
- Beginner: LOST TROPHY
- Beginner Bonus: LOST TROPHY
- Intermediate: @ loudly (99.5)
- Advanced: @Mikson (98.48)
- Masterclass: @ JobwanMojo (98.99)
- God of Bass: @ jimmy655 (99.4)

Lead Path:
Beginner: Muse - Neutron Star Collision (3*) (E Standard)
Intermediate: The Blue Stones - Black Holes (Solid Ground) (4.5) (E Standard)
Advanced: Hällas - Star Rider (6) (E Standard)
Masterclass: Vektor - Destroying The Cosmos (9*) (E Standard)
God of Guitar: Paul Gilbert - Fuzz Universe (10) (E Standard) [Week 1 of 2]

Rhythm Path:
Beginner: The Blue Stones - Black Holes (Solid Ground) (3.5^) (E Standard)
Intermediate: Hällas - Star Rider (5*) (E Standard)
Advanced: Hällas - Star Rider (5) (E Standard)
Masterclass: Vektor - Destroying The Cosmos (8.5) (E Standard)

Bass Path:
Beginner: Muse - Neutron Star Collision (3*) (E Standard)
Beginner Bonus: The Blue Stones - Black Holes (Solid Ground) (3*) (E Standard)
Intermediate: Hällas - Star Rider (5.5^) (E Standard)
Advanced: Vektor - Destroying The Cosmos (7.5^) (E Standard)
Masterclass: Paul Gilbert - Fuzz Universe (8) (E Standard)

(N) - difficulty rating
(N*) - highest difficulty rating for the class (promotion to higher class possible)
(N^) - difficulty rating higher than the highest for the class (promotion possible)

Ok last improvement

39 minutes ago, cacahuate51 said:

what do you mean a long ways ?  You are right next to me you can pull it off !!

This 1% is already a really big step for me, maybe I could do it with many attempts but I don't have time. Besides, you would beat me anyway 

This was a great attempt, I lost a bit on the solo, but I probably won't play it any better, and it's still a long way from @ cacahuate51  score. He is on a different level of possibility so GG 

I'll play some more bass and then start preparing for the new week, so I think it will start in about 2 hours.