MilkmanDan

Since authoring the original post, a lot has happened. Here's the gist of the solution / trick: Standard tuning for a bass is EADG at A=440Hz. Some songs show up in your list as "slightly sharp or flat", which means that they are at A=438 or 445Hz or some small skew like that. Rocksmith coded in a hard cap for the lowest note that could be tuned as a B1 in A=440Hz, the exact lowest note of a 5 string bass. So, you can approach that note, but when you actually reach it that hard cap in software tells it that "that can't be right", and it just sorta gives up. However, there is no hard cap to the skew value for songs that are "slightly" sharp or flat of A=440Hz. So, the workaround is to write the custom song in an alternate tuning that is "slightly" flat of standard A=440Hz... A whole octave lower than A=440Hz. So, you tell Rocksmith that A=220Hz. That makes a "standard" 220Hz A3 into a 440Hz A4, as far as Rocksmith is concerned. And more importantly for us, it turns a B1 (the lowest note of a 5-string bass in standard tuning) into a B2, which is "above" the hard cap in software of a B1. Actually a genius solution to that annoying software cap... Slips my mind who came up with that, but they deserve big credit for an unorthodox solution to the silly and pointless software cap. In my experience, custom songs written using that workaround tune and detect that B1 completely fine. Even some stuff that drops that low B to an A still detects it fine using the workaround. Hence my description of it as pointless -- why have the cap there if the note detection is still working fine? But in any case, any custom songs made with that workaround will tune and detect things fine. Should be plenty to choose from in Ignition.

A few things are conspiring against me this week. It is Songkran week in Thailand and I f*#@ing hate Songkran, combined with massive headache-inducing job drama, and I have been trying to chill out by picking up Skyrim again. Shooting things full of arrows and mashing them into a bloody pulp with a mace relieves some stress for me, but has been working too well in that I have been ignoring Rocksmith. Here's an "entry" at MC Bass: The 85ish Mastery rating is from playing at 75-80% speed. I didn't practice that way before doing this one, this is just from going in cold. Anesthesia / Cliff Burton deserve (and clearly require) more devotion and dedication than that, but I just don't have it in me right now. I may take a hiatus to get my s#!t together.

Woooo for Anesthesia at MC Bass! Can we turn the difficulty ratings up to 11, like Spinal Tap's amps? For the other songs, I've never heard of the Gangsters but sounds like a fun one to try, Blue Oyster Cult I like and really came to appreciate after playing Burnin' For You and Don't Fear the Reaper in Rocksmith -- both really fun basslines -- so I'm looking forward to that, and Pantera is great and I've already got Hollow with several trial plays. So this week I'm definitely back in action, and I'll be doing a cannonball (or possibly a bellyflop with Anesthesia) into the pool instead of sticking in a toe and bitching about the temperature like last week... :D

Given the same accuracy, scores in each higher level of difficulty are much higher than the one before it. Even if you're playing a No DD version of the song and therefore seeing all of the notes even on easy difficulty. That continues on in to Master difficulty, which is all the notes PLUS master mode (so you can't see them). If you get a 100% accuracy on Hard and then Master, the Master score will be significantly higher than the Hard one. That all makes sense and is fair, but Score Attack scores in general are a bit flaky. Not exactly arbitrary, but the algorithm that gives you a score rewards some things that aren't necessarily objectively "better". For one thing, getting a long streak increases your score multiplier, on up to x99. If you get a long streak and then collect points at that high multiplier, you can easily get a *much* higher score than a run where you have fewer overall misses, but they are spread out evenly through the song. In that way, Score Attack scores tend to favor getting clusters of misses, preferably at the very end or very beginning of a song. Also, you get more points for being "Perfect!"ly on time for notes, or at least "good". That is sensible, but on the other hand is subject to the vagaries of different people having different amounts of input lag, etc. So, that makes Score Attack scores a decent way to judge your own progress compared to past scores, but arguably less useful in comparing your scores to the scores of other people (who might have an advantage in a nearly lag-free setup, or a handicap from an older system or poor input lag setup). So, for Championship purposes, it was decided that precise accuracy is a better, more objective way to rank participants. It is just a bit confusing, because Score Attack is the only way to get a highly precise accuracy rating -- down to the hundredth of a percent compared to Learn A Song truncating down to an integer value for accuracy. That makes Score Attack better for getting a precise accuracy rating, even though the actual score itself is only a last-resort sort of tiebreaker. I think that is the best way of doing things for the Championship, although it does create a couple of weird edge cases. First, Score Attack has the problem of "strikeouts" if you get a lot of misses in 3 sections, which is annoying. I wish it would let you keep playing even if you "strike out" -- invalidating the score would be fine, but just give us a non-sugarcoated overall accuracy value as usual at the end instead of cutting the song short. Playing a NDD version of the song on Easy can help with that problem -- NDD makes it so that even "easy" has all of the notes (and therefore gives a legit accuracy), but it is significantly more forgiving about how bad you have to screw up to get a strike / strikeout. And second, the rules rank a 100% run on hard (or easy NDD) above a 99% or even 99.9% run in Master. Arguably, there could or even should be some consideration granted to very high (but not perfect) accuracy Master Mode runs. On the other hand, it would be hard to nail down a way to objectively do that; plus there is still a bit of a concession in that a 100% Master run will have the same accuracy and streak as a 100% run on hard, but will definitely win out on the last tie-breaker by having a higher score. Plus I believe Rodman gives some points for Master mode runs on his multi-week leaderboard. ...OK, done rambling. Hope that explains the preference for Score Attack but NOT actual SA Scores, and wasn't too long and boring. :)

Hey! ...The Championship is no place for "gotcha" journalism! :P I guess I should be more open minded. That one wasn't so bad, but Jackass Brigade took me from "on the fence" to: http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/02/nope.gif Still, there are even a few Metallica songs that I have a similar level of dislike for. And I wouldn't want to write off the band entirely over those few...

I'm OK with a max time limit, but I think 9-10 minutes would be my preference. Largely because I definitely also want to see Orion (my favorite song) in the CS sometime... :D I think I'm still going to sit this week out though. Dream Theater is on my "no thank you" list just as much as Fishbone... :P

I think you forgot to share that first screenshot, pops up with the Google Drive permissions page for me

I'm with @@NoonyDeloony on Fishbone. I guess one can "pass" on 1 week in 5 and still maintain diehard status now? I'm doing that whether it works that way or not.

...And might as well do Int while I'm at it since I know/like the song: I had played the other version (not Plum's) before. This one made it harder for me to figure out the rhythm and sound right, but easier to get the 100% I think. Might have to load both back into the list to make sure about which one I prefer (been a while since I've played the other), but off the top of my head I think I prefer the bass in the other one (not that I can point to anything specifically wrong with this one).

Still under the weather, but had to try out @@Nacholede 's version of Justice: Much easier to play (at least in my opinion, went from 95% on the other to 98% here), and to me it sounds much more accurate. Although I'm not enough of an expert to say that definitively. Still, thanks much for the revision Nacho -- I definitely prefer yours to the original/other one. Only negative thing that I would say is that the bass tone is too overdriven/distorted to me, but that is a pretty subjective thing and very easily remedied with a tone switch. I switched to a loud but clean tone, EQ'd pretty heavy to the low end to give it some muddiness (plus turned my tone knob down), and it blends in great to my ear. Thanks again for making your remastered version!

I intended to actually spend some time practicing songs this week, but had some job-related frustrations (nothing too serious) and then got sick. I played MC Bass once earlier but haven't gone back to it with all that happening, and now I don't think I'll get around to it. So, I'll just post that now to keep my diehard streak up: Looking forward to your remastered version @@Nacholede -- again I don't think I'll get time this week but I'm also a big fan of the Justice album so it will be awesome to check out your versions of the songs in the future. Thanks!

Score Attack scores, like that, always count -- even if you get X's. Unless you strike out with 3 X's, anyway. Sometimes people use Dynamic Difficulty Creator and have it automatically generate really short sections (sometimes a section with only 1-2 notes), and then if you miss any at all in those sections it will hit you with an X. If you ever run into a song like that, you can fix it by redoing the DD yourself in the toolkit with longer sections (or just pipe up in here and I or somebody else will fix it!).

Audio source from ...And Justice for Jason? Justice is right up there in my list of favorite Metallica albums, and the Justice for Jason version where they actually make his bass audible in the mix makes it even more badass. And it is sourced/remastered from multitracks of the original studio recording. Honestly I don't know how anyone could tab the bass by ear on the original recording, the bass is SO low in the mix...

I always do. :D

Lemon Song is great, but I'm having trouble working myself up to it -- it is really pushing the limits (lets face it, BEYOND the limits) of my skills. So in the meantime, here's a try at Beginner Lead: And another run on the really really fun Adv Bass song: That ^^^ took a full playthrough in RR at 85% speed before trying it on SA. In the slowed down playthrough, I missed 4 notes total and it easily could have been perfect. But at full speed, it was a mighty effort just to improve from 97.x to 98.16. Shit ton of fun though. B)

Other songs difficulty (bass): Beginner: The Black Keys - Too Afraid to Love You Lot of shifting for a beginner song, plus quick progression through multiple strings. I'd give it a 4. Intermediate: Foo Fighters - White Limo Fast, lots of shifting, slides. One piece of advice -- don't forget that 13th fret on E (red) is equivalent to 8th fret on A (yellow). Most of the song charts that as a very quick shift up the fretboard to play it on E, which makes it hard to get your frethand in the right position after the shift up and back. Then in the outro, it suddenly uses the alternate positioning on A to play that note, but only for the very last time it appears in the song. I'd suggest playing it that way throughout, which keeps the frethand position static. For difficulty, I'd give it a med-tough Intermediate; 5-6. Advanced: Rainbow - Starstruck Never heard this song before, but I've got some specific thoughts on it. First, to Advanced bass players: 9 weeks out of 10 (or more), this would be the hardest song in the list, and therefore placed in MC. But this week, it is definitely easier than the Led Zep song ... so you're stuck with it. :D It is tough, but doable! The riff that I'd call the "hook" (I dunno if that is technically correct, but it is the catchy and often-repeated main or close to main riff), that takes you through 2 fret positions on 3 strings, followed by a quick shift to a note on the 4th string, blitzed me the first several times. Took me close to half of the song before I got it down to an acceptable degree. So, if that seems wicked hard, try RR on a bit slower speed and I think you'll get it. Overall the song is fast paced, with a good amount of shifting and LOTS of string skipping, plus a healthy dose of other techs. To me, felt like a legit 8. It is a good challenge for the Advanced group. Although this is subjective, to me the challenge level here is paired with a really FUN bassline. So give it a shot and my guess is that the fun will easily overcome any frustration with the difficulty. Good luck! Here's my first play on it: Definitely going to be playing more of this one even though I'll be real busy just trying to get a non-embarassing score on the MC song... :lol:

Great minds play alike?: 88% and 74 streak... This one's gonna take some RR and time. Actually, a LOT of RR and time. To me, that feels like a legit 9 or 10 (easier than, say, Anesthesia, but still very top-end), but take that with a grain of salt because I'm the K-Mart "blue light special" of MC bass participants. :) Will be fun to see what I can do with a week of practice on it (although my time will be limited this week also), and even beyond that. Nice selection!

Haven't had much playing time, but did another play of GnR on LAS, and then SA'd this: I'm happy with that for 3 tries; doubt I'll have time to push for more.

Yes, that is due to lack of difficulty levels / DD. It is possible to run the files through the toolkit DDC (Dynamic Difficulty Creator) to generate the difficulty levels for you so they look more like what you're used to. On the other hand, a lot of people (myself included) have actually come to *prefer* not having Dynamic Difficulty. I want to see ALL of the notes from the get-go, saves time turning the difficulty up and never levels down sections that I struggle with. To me, the best way to learn is to see all of the notes but lower the playback speed in Riff Repeater; DD just further gets in the way of that. One more thing that you can diagnose is if you get a custom with the difficulty bar being an orange line like that, but also quite short and crammed all the way on the right end of the screen. If you get one like that, the custom creator both A ) didn't use DDC to make difficulty levels, and B ) didn't put sections into the song either. Usually songs like that are playable, but you can't riff repeat since there are no sections. Also, even if you play the song all the way through the play count will usually be stuck at 0. These are more annoying than the above, but they can still be fixed by running them through DDC in the toolkit -- DDC automatically makes sections in the song. Then, if you don't want the difficulty levels, you can run it through DD Remover.

I'll play the Korn song in A on my 5-string later for a screenshot. I've played it before but haven't gotten around to it for this week yet. Babymetal is a blanket NO THANK YOU for me, so I'll skip that one... :) Advanced and MC Bass are both easier than standard fare for their classes, but their sequence/order is correct (Megedeth song easier than GNR). Adv: I like that one. A bit boring for long stretches of rapid-fire notes, but even so it sounds good and can be good practice for timing and the strum patterns in sets of 3/5/longer. For difficulty I'd call it a 4. MC: Notably more tricky than the Megadeth song, but not hard. I'd encourage all the Advanced bass folks to try this one also. For difficulty I'd peg it at a 6, roughly. Mainly because I think that if it was selected as the Advanced song, a good percentage of participants at that level could hit the 99.5% advancement threshold. One of those songs where (in my estimation) it would be a little tough to get a full-on 100%, but pretty easy to get 99%+; there are a LOT of easy stretches with a lot of notes, with just a few very brief trickier parts that amount to a drop in the bucket of the total number of notes. Both of those are fun, and again I'd encourage pretty much everyone to try them out (even if you're not in MC/Advanced class)!

Took a day and a half break from playing, then dove straight into Hotel California on Score Attack. No warmup, no other songs played first, just straight in. Worked out pretty OK: I don't play the frethand mutes / dead notes properly, but they sound good without the muting anyway. Hotel California is an extremely popular karaoke song here in Thailand, so if I was really suave I'd practice it on Master Mode and then plug in to an extra mic port at the next school admin karaoke event and play along instead of inflicting my singing on everybody... But I'm probably too lazy to actually make that happen. :)

Johnny B Goode (Chuck Berry OR Marty McFly version from Back to the Future) has a tough but good walking bass line. The BttF version was a song selection for the "Master Class" division of the Rocksmith Championship here on Customs Forge a while back. I think the Championship here is a great way to get introduced to new songs every week, and there are 4 difficulty level divisions including Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Master Class. So, each week you will pretty much be sure to find something that is appropriate to your skill level. New players are welcome all the time, so check it out if you're interested! Here's links to the Johnny B Good customs in any case: Chuck Berry original - http://customsforge.com/page/customsforge_rs_2014_cdlc.html/_/pc-enabled-rs-2014-cdlc/johnny-b-goode-r671 Marty McFly BttF - http://customsforge.com/page/customsforge_rs_2014_cdlc.html/_/pc-enabled-rs-2014-cdlc/johnny-b-goode-r8896

Try the version I repacked: No DD - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2zn16tt1XjNc01wQW1ROVE4Wjg/view?usp=sharing -or- With DD - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2zn16tt1XjNb09rc2JlQnBEM3c/view?usp=sharing To me, I only noticed bugs in the *Mastery* percentage with that original version that your screenshot is from -- but it is possible that the accuracy display is borked also. Either of those versions ^^^ should fix those issues, so try and see if you get about the same accuracy with either of them. (If you need another platform like Mac let me know)

That's awesome progress, from 80 to 87 in a couple plays -- keep it up and see how far you can stretch it! B) Are the missing note issues fixed in my update? I don't think I had that problem in the original, but if it was some weird thing with section difficulty running it through the DD Remover might have fixed that also.

Non-critical, fixed Mastery bug versions of Hotel California are done: DD Version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2zn16tt1XjNb09rc2JlQnBEM3c/view?usp=sharing No DD Version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2zn16tt1XjNc01wQW1ROVE4Wjg/view?usp=sharing I have tested both (on bass at least), both working correctly and fix the Mastery display bug. They can live in your DLC folder with the original version of the custom, and you can tell them apart by the song title which includes "(Championship DD)" or "(Championship NDD)" on the end of it. However, you should choose only one variant (DD or No DD) because I didn't update the song ID twice, so they will collide and Rocksmith will only list one of the two if you put them both in the DLC folder.