MilkmanDan

About 5 tries in a row of 99.87 (1 miss) on Obstacle 1 (Adv Bass). Misses don't come in consistent places, and seem fluky to me. Got a bit better after tuning about 5-8 cents flat; I think my intonation could be better, especially in Drop D. Then, I put together a great run. Got to the last few bars of the song still perfect, seconds away from the end... And then I suddenly popped to the desktop with a window saying "Windows has downloaded updates and needs to restart. Would you like to restart now or postpone?" Alt tabbed back, and wasn't fast enough to get hands in position when resuming the song, so bye-bye 100%. *&%^*$! I'll try again tomorrow -- your record is safe (from me anyway) for now @. Hope you are having a happy birthday! :)

Me too: That's exactly one note missed, same accuracy as yours. I was a little slow on the slide down there at the end and the following notes A bit longer streak and longer run at high multiplier explaining the slightly higher score -- but I bet your timing was better than mine throughout so you'll get a higher score once you hit 100. I think Motive will have some company at 100% soon from both of us!

New update sounds good @ -- and you're really in the groove timing wise! I can get a 100% run pretty easily/consistently, but my score is usually around 1,150,000. I notice that I still have a little input lag even though I've got a quite fast PC and am using speaker output not HDMI. I'll blame that... Yeah, that must be it... :P Anyway, nice score and thanks for more updates!

And subjective difficulty thoughts on all bass parts this week: Leave Before the Lights Come On - Arctic Monkeys: Beg Bass Nice song, pretty easy but some semi-fast string skipping keeps it from being *dead* easy. Pretty static frethand, and standard fret patterns to fifths and octaves. Difficulty: 3 Soul Meets Body - Death Cab for Cutie: Int Bass My song selection! Thought this one would be a nice change of pace. Thanks again to @ for fixing up rough edges I didn't know about with regards to guitar parts. The bass part is nice, I think anyway. A little bit slower and more straightforward than the Arctic Monkeys song this week, but a bit less static frethand position, slightly more technical with a slide or two. Probably a wash in terms of difficulty, so either could be the "beginner" OR "intermediate" level song because I think they are both right on the border in my opinion. Difficulty: 3 Obstacle 1 - Interpol: Adv Bass To me, this one feels fairly easy to get a high accuracy in according to Rocksmith, but harder to sound just right when playing it. The rhythm/beat pattern is a bit tricky to figure out, but Rocksmith is very forgiving when it comes to timing of sustained notes, so at least for me I don't think that I sound as good as my accuracy rating would suggest I should. A few medium technical bits, quite a bit of frethand movement, and lots of jumping up and down the strings, but nothing *extremely* challenging. I'd peg it in the range of hard Intermediate to easy Advanced. Difficulty: 6 21st Century Schizoid Man - King Crimson: MC Bass Intro and outro are maybe a 4 on difficulty. Just an octave jump and some slides... And then you get to the middle part, which is I guess fittingly schizophrenic. All over the place and not very intuitive... There is a sort of method to the madness, but at my skill level it ends up just feeling/sounding kind of random rather than melodic or sensible. In terms of difficulty, it feels harder than other recent very difficult MC songs like Californication and Holy Wars, but some of that comes just not getting the song. It sounds/feels "random" to me still, and it is harder to reproduce random than difficult/technical. So... Difficulty: 9-10 ??? Maybe. Actually, in honor of the song, I'll give it a difficulty rating in the same way that Conan rates video games: On a scale from 36 to 119, where a 36 is easy, a 119 is very hard, 93 is "Geddy Lee on acid", and a 58 is "three hours in a dental chair", I'd give it a solid 86.5. That's my rating, you can figure it out. :lol:

Here's my first real score on Adv. Bass since I screwed up and took the screenshot too late last time: Nice song, and fun bass part. I think that is maybe with 3 misses -- should be able to get a 100%er on it this week. Maybe. Hopefully. :)

Yeah @@Kaijin, I think it is totally OK to enter bass parts using emulated bass on a guitar. But fair warning, several of the people who have done that end up getting the itch and a little GAS resulting in a new bass purchase... :) I don't know that I think that emulated bass would be any "easier" than playing a real bass. Might be easier from the perspective of a guitar player, since they don't have to get used to the different fret and string spacing (wider in both cases) on an actual bass -- but I'd say that is just different; not really easier or harder.

Thanks @ for fixing up Soul Meets Body -- I suggested it without ever trying the guitar parts. Sorry -- hope it wasn't too much work to fix up! Got a first try for all on bass. I'll post difficulty rating thoughts later: Beg Bass: Another rare 1st try 100%. I'd peg this and Soul Meets Body as roughly the same difficulty -- this might be a little harder, but that could just be because I had never seen this before but have played Soul Meets Body many times. Int Bass: Probably had 10+ plays of this on my old profile, so the 3 is inaccurate. Nice score on it @@NoonyDeloony ! Adv Bass: I know this doesn't count -- I got interrupted when the score came up and didn't get a screenshot in time. But, 1st try was 98%. I'll try for higher in SA and get a proper screenshot. MC Bass: Gonna need some riff repeater to be a little less like a monkey with a typewriter trying to produce Shakespeare in the middle of the song there... But, kinda a fun song -- should be fun to see how much I can improve.

Family visiting this week, so I might be a little short of time. But, looking forward to trying these out. Hope "Soul Meets Body" serves OK for guitar parts -- I like that bass part, easy but nice!

I didn't play the Int or Beg bass, but the other 2 both being an 8 sounds good to me. Californ. could be a 9 if it was necessary to tie-break. What do you mean by saying that tomorrow you will "submit" those scores? Submit to who?

@@Mortalo -- One time level-down option, and new advancement rules for bass sound perfect to me. /stamp-o-approval I won't exercise the level down option, even though Int, Advanced, and MC songs are ALL pretty tough for me this week! So, sticking with MC, that is my final answer. B)

Update on Adv Bass (had to claim my decimal points after seeing your score, @@Rodman!): 100% would be tough, but 99.x% should be doable.

Pretty late for difficulty comments, but here's my (subjective) thoughts on Int / Advanced / MC Bass ratings: Twist and Shout - The Beatles: Int Bass (Score Attack 96.96%, 94 Streak, 928,241 Score) I like this song, but the sync or something feels a bit off in the custom. Might just feel that way because I'm still struggling with getting into the groove with the song. Difficulty: 7-8 -- Quite fast, jumps all over the place, non-static frethand position. Quite busy throughout the song. No More Lies - Iron Maiden: Adv Bass (LAS 98% Accuracy, 1060 Streak -- 99.4% Mastery was for playing the song all the way through at 90% speed so don't count that) Timing/sync feels off to me on this one also, AND the tone is pretty crappy. After a tone switch it isn't bad but the sync (or my rhythm) feels suspect. Difficulty: 6 -- Rather fast, but more consistent and simpler transitions. Frethand stays comparatively static. After the long intro riff, the song drops down to about a 4-5 on difficulty (note my streak of 1060), whereas Twist and Shout is tough throughout the whole song. Octavarium - Dream Theater: MC Bass (Repost of my LAS score, 90%) Difficulty: 8-9 -- Take this with a grain of salt since I played the song only once and just plowed through it without really trying. But, it felt kind of similar to the Iron Maiden song in that a lot of the song is actually quite easy. Probably 16-17 of the 20+ minutes are a 4 or so in terms of difficulty, but then accent fills and solos keep you on your toes in parts. There was a good long section where I didn't even attempt to hit the notes -- it looked plenty hard and I just couldn't be asked to pause and riff repeat in a song that I really wasn't digging at all. However, maybe with some RR time it wouldn't actually be SO hard -- but I'm not going to find out. So, at least for Int/Adv/MC, this week has 3 songs that I think are all quite tough. I think that personally, I'd put No More Lies in the Int spot for bass, then Twist and Shout for Adv, and finally Octavarium for MC. But that's just me. And actually, I think an argument could even be made that it could be Octavarium -> No More Lies -> Twist and Shout for Int/Adv/MC... My first playthrough accuracy with no RR was higher for Octavarium than either of the other 2, even given the long solo section that I just sat through playing nothing... :) Or maybe I just suck.

Oh, and I thought I should also clarify/comment on the Dream Theater song Octavarium as the MC Bass selection: Although I don't personally like the song, I think it is a fine selection. The length is pushing it a little bit, but we don't have songs that long with any regularly at all. Good for a challenge/changeup to have a long one like that once in a while. The tone for bass is pretty bad, but as long as people know about tone switching in the game, I don't think that is a big issue. I quickly switched to a clean tone in the first few bars and wasn't really bothered for the remaining 19:30... :P Difficulty wise, it is intermediate-advanced for long stretches, with some punctuated parts of fully MC-worthy stuff (which is good). I think it fits as the MC Bass song just fine. Basically, I'm 100% fine with that particular song being chosen. Although it isn't my favorite ... you can't choose everybody's favorite every time. :)

Just to clarify what I meant by taking a "mulligan": When we added the Advanced class, all of us in MC Bass had the opportunity to drop down to Advanced if we wanted to. Most players didn't, but at the time the MC selections were tending to be easier -- mainly because we were still doing the level sorting only by guitar part difficulty. Now that we've had a few weeks to see how things are going, I think it is quite reasonable to suggest that maybe some of those people who elected NOT to move down into Advanced might regret that decision. Given how tough the songs have been since then, they might want a "do-over", hence my saying "mulligan". Although a change to the rules about leveling down/up might be nice in addition, it isn't 100% necessary with regards to the mulligan thing. I'm suggesting just a one-time thing since the increase in difficulty between pre-Advanced and post-Advanced has been larger than I (or most, I think) was anticipating. I think that is reasonable, even though I personally will stick in MC.

I had the same issue, so I tone stick'ed to a bog standard clean tone. You probably already know this, but you can assign up to 3 alternate tones to 2-3-4 on the number keys above the qwerty line on your keyboard and switch to them on the fly with a simple keystroke (or 1 to switch back to the song's default tone). So for bass I put in a light distortion, moderate distortion, and clean but loud tone -- keeps me covered for close to anything that comes up with a bad bass tone. That was better, but 20 minutes of song I don't like isn't remedied by a simple tone switch. (no offense to fans of the song -- just not my thing) I think the current rules make good sense -- for lead and rhythm guitar where often a 90-95%+ is a really good accuracy score. Compare that to the bass leaderboard, where usually the winner is decided by tenths or hundredths of a percent accuracy past 99.xx, or even requiring a score in score attack to distinguish between multiple 100%ers. So, I'm definitely in favor of the level-up rules for bass being discussed and tweaked. Although we'd definitely need some discussion to figure out how they could be adjusted if in fact most agree that they should. We haven't had a whole lot of weeks with the addition of the Advanced class, or distinguished between bass difficulty vs. guitar part difficulty on the chosen songs. Now that we're doing both of those things, the difficulty of the MC songs has definitely gone up. When we made the switch to 4 classes (Beg/Int/Adv/MC) I remember that we allowed participants to declare what level they wanted to sort into, but the difficulty spike since then I think is good reason to allow people to call a mulligan on that and drop down a level if they want to. Perhaps in conjunction with some advancement rules adjustments like @@Rodman suggested above? @@NoonyDeloony -- You'll be missed in MC if you decide to switch down, although you can always still attempt the MC songs. Hope to still see your scores in advanced AND MC if it is a song you like, and especially hope you keep posting videos! :) I'm close to wanting to switch also -- my one win at MC was before the addition of advanced, and in a week with pretty slow participation. I won't win very often (if ever again!) in MC, but I will probably stick anyway. I (usually) like the challenge of the MC songs and am more motivated when I can see improvement in my own personal accuracy/score throughout the week, although the motivation from the competition is fun also. Anyway, have fun and keep on jammin'! :)

Here's my first (and ONLY) try on MC Bass: Really not my cup of tea. One playthrough is enough for me, to maintain my diehard status. So, I'll concentrate on advanced or int bass this week. I haven't played the Maiden song before, but I have tried Twist and Shout -- I would rate it as being pretty high difficulty. To me it feels like an advanced or even MC level song on bass. I'll try the Iron Maiden and see which one feels tougher, but offhand it seems like Twist and Shout should be higher than Int.

What do you mean? there's clearly a big 86.9 in the screenshot. It has to be accuracy, because the "mastery" rating can include a boost from playing parts in Master Mode, or penalties for playing at lower than full difficulty. I hate master mode, because when I scroll through my song list I want to see the "mastery" score as being equivalent to my personal best accuracy on the song. Mainly, I want to know that any song with a 100% mastery can *only* be that way because I have played it at least once with perfect accuracy. So, I turn off Master Mode in the options. But, in my original profile I didn't know about that, so I had a big list of songs displaying 100% (or higher) mastery, on up to Black Magic (bass) at 110% Mastery. I think 110% is the maximum, for playing the song at 100% accuracy entirely in Master Mode with none of the notes being displayed. So, when my profile got corrupted a few months ago I saw it as a good opportunity to start fresh with Master Mode turned OFF, so I know that for everything in my new profile, Mastery = Accuracy. But anyway, that is the reason for the rule about how our screenshots must show *accuracy* with all sections at max difficulty; otherwise someone could potentially be using master mode on some easier sections to compensate for lower accuracy in tough sections.

Cool to see, @@Rodman -- thanks again for putting all of those together! Another tiny improvement on MC Bass: Get Lucky for Advanced is still being tough for me to improve on. I *almost* tied my high accuracy mark from day one again today, but the improvements that I thought would come there are happening on Californication instead. Still a couple days to try to work that up...

Creeping up ever so slightly on MC Bass: That might be close to my upper limits, but on the other hand I missed quite a few notes on that little hammer-on/pull-off trill that is repeated throughout the song, where I usually handle it pretty accurately. So, *maybe* I can squeeze another 1% improvement out. Fully in awe of your 97%+, @@Num14 -- that's awesome!

I like it @@Rodman, nice work! I'm a little confused about how it will work for players that move up a level, but I imagine that will largely work itself out as you suggest. BUT, it seems like it will be difficult to win or be close to the top consistently enough to have a high score on this (for 5-10 weeks) without automatically being leveled up. Then again, that might be mostly an issue for bass, where 98-99% accuracy scores are (usually) more easily achieved than lead/rhythm. That very issue might partially explain why there are relatively few consistent participants that are in the beginner (even intermediate) class for bass. Maybe the automatic leveling up procedure should be a bit different for bass, to allow the newer bass players to stay down in beginner or intermediate for longer until they are really ready to move up. Like, >98% for *5* weeks in a row or 100% scores 2 weeks in a row for bass. ...Or something. I just hope nobody on the bass side has been discouraged from participating because they end up in Advanced or MC before they really feel like they want to be there. Anyway, thanks for the work in putting it together -- looking forward to seeing the rhythm and bass numbers also! /rocksalute

Several more tries at Adv and MC bass... My accuracy is going *down* on Get Lucky, but I improved on Californication a bit: Really enjoying both songs in spite of (because of?) their difficulty. Fun to push to improve on 2 songs that are tough but not completely out of my league...

And I realized that I don't have to turn up difficulty if I just play it in SA on Hard, so here's an opening score for MC Bass: I got 3 strikes (and only about halfway through the song!) on my first try. So the above is actually the first time I actually managed to play the song the whole way through. I downloaded a newer version of the song than what I had. Assuming that fixes my crash issue, I'll have to devote some time to this one also -- no slap/pop so I can't blame my accuracy/score on that... And it is a good song!

Played the whole song through in Riff Repeater at 80% and 90% speed, then SA again: The end riff just before what I'd call the outro is my main source of misses. Maybe with some more riff repeater on just that section, I can improve there. I think a 99.x should be doable, with a stretch goal of 99.4+ for me... Back to the fun grindstone!

Here's my "opening" score for Get Lucky: (Adv Bass) I corrupted my profile somewhere around a month ago, so that number 2 for times played isn't accurate -- this was up there as one of my most frequently played songs, somewhere in the 20's before my profile died (I have since learned to back it up frequently). So, it took me quite a bit of practice just to get in the range of 98% accuracy like this. Looking forward to seeing how much I can improve on that with a week of focus on it. --EDIT-- Went for round two straight away and aced the first half but stumbled a lot at the end. 97.44% accuracy but 1,995,416 for score (lower accuracy so I won't post the screenshot). But, if I can just combine the timing and accuracy from the first half of that one with the more consistent accuracy of my 1st playthrough, I might have a pretty high ceiling for accuracy on this one yet!

Hmm. I'm getting a crash when I try to max out the difficulty on all sections of Californication. Maybe I have an old version -- I'll try to follow up but thought I should check here to see if anyone else has the same issue.