Rodman

better

wow - quite some energy there in that song... opposite that i remember from the boys seing them live quite a few times... hmmm cool

not easy on sightread

well.... @ drand  you scarelessly open doors i would not have come close oh boy oh boy... Now that was really really a lot of work, like 10 hours, and i´ve been rushing every bit there   Bah - a whole song with a ton of guitar lines, bass, drums, quite some parts and haaaard lyrics... no i didn´t strip it down in no way

So ..... that´s already quite a project .... 13 tracks needed. What did i do?
Check the tabs .... go to sleep desperate.
Dreams about arpeggiounicorns that drop the riders over and over...
Midi drumline for a start.... and started recording Clean Guitars.... Bass.... Lead Guitars ... Rhy Guitars .... Missing parts

I followed the original tabs closely until the end, there i had to do some stuff of my own.

Vocals Pah.... before i even started to do recordings my voice began do decay .... really really hard there.

Threw that all into Reaper, heavy mixing - panning on the guitars that are doubled most of the time (not copied, played twice) to open the space for teh voice, experiments on the drums - ended up using that wonderful IK Modo Drums Plugin - chose the Studio Kit for that one.
About no effects used, i really should on the vocals maybe, yeah.

A lil mastering (mainly keeping all safe below cliping)

Enjoy and hit me hard

Rod.

3 hours ago, cacahuate51 said:

Kind of surprised not that many posts this week, I wonder what's up.

Well on my side i´ve been challenged to do a cover of a whole complete song brrrrrr. Scary and timeconsuming

37 minutes ago, drand said:

I went off the rails and did a cover of my favorite song from the Championship so far "Get Out Alive" by Three Days Grace, anyone want to do one too I would love to hear it!!

This is all I hear when I play back my singing  last step is always to lower it a couple dB but was fun making this one

Are you kidding me! HOW! What a cool groove carrying me through that song - i absolutely don´t know the original - and i don´t think i have to ..... but i think come close to your quality work there will be more than a challenge.... however see us suffer and fail!!! BRAVO

COVER OF THE WEEK IS CLEARLY CALLED:
THREE DAYS GRACE - GET OUT ALIVE

3 hours ago, Willyam said:

I liked it a lot. Actually went to youtube to listen to the original just to compare   I really like a retake rather than just a copy, thumbs up!

A little feedback for your sake, do what you want with it:

1) - playing the same chords for 1mn was too long for me, especialy in the age of Shorts . I've found an unplugged performance of aha and he starts singing after 15s.

2) - i would have changed a little the melody to accomodate the singer's voice, it felt a couple of notes were too low pitch for her range.

3) - Last one I'm not sure at all since I've never processed vocals but maybe adding a tiny bit of reverb? what do you think?

Oh thank you! Please keep that coming!!!!!!

1) No - that was on purpose ... it´s one verse and one chorus - we play guitar here so you will be hearing guitar. That the minute there feels a bit long is the tribute to purifying it to 4 chords. I normally would have played the signature piano melody there - but as stated above experiment was as tiny as possible.

2) Yes - and as she sang after i did the guitar recording that would have meant going back to the starts which is always an option. Thx for having good ears and lending them.

3) checking whats on there...

small project overall

on the vocals there is only subtle mixing with a bit of reverb also

Mastering is also subtle mainly avoid clipping and background noises, and a bit of finetune

Yeah... i´m only starting on all that - i shall try to push on vocal effects a bit

Thx

R.

On 5/2/2025 at 11:26 PM, drand said:

Why the scream at 1:49 goes so hard tho?? Deathcore Rod needs to do some Slaughter To Prevail

And the solo is impressive as hell I def can’t pull that off

I figured out how to record Rocksmith with OBS this week and yeah the difference between using a metronome/drum track and just ripping on RS is very noticeable on playback

Hahahaha.... well it was in the middle of the night and i had to be quiet  - so i quietly recorded 3 vocal lines - a "normal" one, a really high one and a growling/shouting one.... as soon as i accepted i was in the shit i was freeeee so the growling one that would have never made it - made it to the show

Yap and thank you - the solo there is my ankor also - it get´s even more impressive when you listen that there are 2 guitars (seperate left and right speaker) and they play very very much the same in the solo section. Not all hope is lost

Rock hard and give us new covers soon!!!

Rod

tallica

way better

+ lead

oh yes ... havent heard that forever - very cool tune, Fatboy forever!!!

cool song

ok... definitely a few big lessons learned....

LISTEN AT YOUR OWN RISK - BAD RECORDING!

So... i only share this because it holds important educational info for me, and i spent 10 hours or so that week trying to somehow get things together there. Failed.
Well, that song caught me, and after spending those hours competing on it i could play the riff, the rhyrthm, the bass quite well, everything except the solo (which does in no way matter here). So before going to sleep i just hit record, did 2 or 3 takes on lead, 2 on rhythm, 2 on bass playing along with RS and sang some bad lyriclines for fun.... and was happy.
When i sat down that changed .... Recording without starting clicks makes it a pain pain pain to sync the START of each track - when things start late (bass, vocals) and you have a song that has no (like here) clear 1-beats to hold on you are out in the shit from the beginning... i think it was 2 hours until i THOUGHT i had the tracks matched up.... then i added drums and was very very unhappy how not in tempo my guitar lines and even more the bass were thats because there was NO METRONOME while recording .... playing along RS made me think i am quite well following the rhythm, and as i am playing over my amp with hearable volume all the time - live it sounded really ok - but matched with any 2nd track it´s unusable to have a synced recording. Brrrrrr.
So i tried everything - low volume bass, rhythm, with any of the lead tracks - no decent result whatsoever possible. Sometimes i´m late, sometimes i am way earlier than the other track... ok - so to close the file i downmixed (no effects, no mastering or whatever) 2 lead guitar lines with vocals and drums, (and a bit brass at the end) to always remember

RECORD WITH METRONOME
START YOUR RECORDING WITH WHATEVER CLICK OR NOISE SO THE TRACKS CAN EASILY BE MATCHED

Rod.

1 hour ago, drand said:

What a vibeee   but I have to say I do love a good ballad!!

 Y'all really made it your own here, always impressed with your ability to understand a song beyond the tabs and get creative, I think Izz is on to something though I think there is room for a little more razzle dazzle on the guitar 

No doubt about that!

updated with @Daz40 OzzGuitar Excercises! 

Thx m8

On 4/22/2025 at 1:07 PM, Shroud said:

I am having second thoughts... maybe I should pick up my guitar more often and try out some of your exercises 

How do these work actually? Do you put them in the game the same way as normal CDLCs?

Do you slow then down from riff repeater and then gradually increase speed, or does each exercise include different speeds and you pick/repeat one section appropriate to your level?

NO!
I made them in so many speeds so you don´t need the Riff-Repeater. Just put them in the dlc folder (you can use a shred subfolder if you like), they will show up and - the upside of not RR-ing is they will show you your progress by acc%

Rock and tell us about your progress!
Rod.

On 4/21/2025 at 2:21 PM, Yolo321 said:

Following Bernth routine and exercices have skyrocketed my technical level to something i never was able to reach. After stoping for a long time, i don't really have the motivation to start it again and stick to it. Somehow, starting rocksmith is giving me this energy and consistency, i'm glad i can find these exercice here, Thanks for doing these !

Sure thing - keep us updated - maybe you can share a video of where you are right now for motivation and from time to time track the progress showing us your fingers fly over the fretboard!

Rock, Rod.

On 4/28/2025 at 1:26 PM, Daz40 said:

I thought I wrote out a whole routine for you.
You want better technique I guess
you need a metronome and get your timing down . there Is no instant gratification as satinuke said You have to enjoy and endure the boring stuff to get better 

I don't know what level you are at but I was 20 years In when I thought F!!! this time to get serious .
I went completely back to basics and rebuilt my whole technique 
A good teacher Is always going to help you progress faster but they are hard to find especially in these days of Every other person on youtube Is trying to sell you their bullshit!

I would start here
I use to spend 6 hours a day doing this stuff

Start with downstrokes 1 note per click maybe 60BPM  try to get the metronome click to disappear. then 2,3,4,5,6 notes per click
do this also with upstrokes  start slow and after a time speed it up

do the same with alternate picking on single string up to 10 notes per click
Practice this on all strings everyday 

Trill with the left hand single finger and all finger combinations 
try for 1 minute on each do a few different combo's a day 

I run through chromatics most days, I will run though spider exercises when my hands feel stiff 
Ladders on bass everyday
I will run through some scale shapes on most days
if  I'm really on It I will go through all Interval and numeric combinations, and scale triads seventh's, forwards backwards, up and down Then coils 
I actually find grinding exercises fun (sick I Know)
Oh and I am finally after years starting to crack sweeping, 

But mainly I'm trying to up my time On RS my sight reading sucks!!
my RS plan
1. Championship
2.play through all old Championship songs
3.play all RS1 songs sorted by difficulty all paths
4. Play all bands in collection with over 10 songs and rate by difficulty
5.Play all odlc and dlc from 2014 by difficulty.

For your last part i just wanted to point out / make sure you know there is a list with all all all all all all ever ever played songs in the CS with difficulty rating.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HzgY90kLwyGqzJ-R64v8lmpeQMMhhxwGwUlenepIgms/edit?pli=1&gid=714157890#gid=714157890

nicely sortable by diff class or diff rating each class, updated every week

Most important points yes - to point out - you will not progress in days or single weeks, it´s multi-months - so you gotta fond a routine that is FUN also while practicing or you will stop. So - playing the Championships plus downloading and doing an hour of Shred excercises from here:

-= Rodmans Shred Course =-

(i am also trying to collect other charters files there, hope i will update that weekend thx @ Daz40  )

... is a very good start or even routine forever. Youtube might help as well as distract you (there is a flood out there), a teacher might help but does not take away the practice you gotta do every day.
You need to make the way your goal.

Rod.

If anyone else finds the forum unreadable sometimes for popping up ads:

https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

(that´s the Firefox ver... search for your used browser)

Brrrrr

6 hours ago, cacahuate51 said:

i think this one is my favorite of the ones you made so far! Im always a sucker for 4 chord songs lol. Never would've imagined this song to be simplefied to that extent or without the main piano melody but it works! goes to show that a song with good lyrics and melody can carry itself.

very nice work Rod and your daughter. (btw does she play gtr/ participate in rocksmith championship?)
 

Thank you mister!

Well - when i showed her the arrangement she was let´s say the opposite of happy - she went "argh, that´s slow.... ah, and are we into metal or what - that´s a ballad, Dad.... ah... and what´s that playing - even i can play like that, and when do i even start, i don´t wanna sing to that!" (exact words) In the end i asked again.. she said: "Its not metal, but it´s no ballad at all, it´s good, it was fun" pfeew... the brilliance of that song kept me alive

Well - she had some guitar lessons in primary school and now from tome to time fires up Yousician, but no - she doesnt really play guitar, never tried RS.

Rod

.... yay here we go.

Well - my belief is that you cannot butcher a top song to death any easily and on the other hand you cannot bring a bad one to life - in other words you will not bring a Ricky Martin song to glory whatever you do and as we have one of the greatest written songs of all time on the table - any cover will bring the vibe.... So ... i wanted to make that the smallest version possible - acoustic guitar and voice only, i stripped it to a 4 chord song - i swear, and not even the chord intervals are exact, only verse-chord, no pauses, no extras. I think i´m right.

Rod.

i got too many versions.... think i played the wrong one...

+

slayer!

BOC yeah, ultra hard with the tech notes