MilkmanDan

Tried the bass on all 3 songs: Wanderer (BEG), 1st try: Might have got a 100% on first try, but my daughter (18 months old) decided to help a bit in the middle. :) Nice and easy, fun song, but the bass charting is definitely a bit off in a few places. Most noticeable in what I'd call the interlude, the 5 low difficulty (short purple bars) sections between two much higher difficulty sections (according to the graph -- nothing in the song is really difficult), about 1/3rd of the way through the song. Crazy Train (MC) -- 1st try today, but I downloaded it sometime a long time ago and had 1 trial run from back then. The bass chart is much better than what it was back then -- looked perfect to me now. Tone is pretty twitchy on my setup though (my main/5-string bass is noisy due to poor wiring) so I tone switched to something more neutral: I think I've got a much better score in me on this one. I don't expect a 100%, but I'll improve on this for sure. Full Steam Space Machine (INT) -- My skillset doesn't jive with this song as much as Crazy Train, so this one actually felt like a MUCH harder song (to me anyway). All those octave hops with a skipped string in the middle, plus the pretty quick shifting up and down the fretboard kicked my butt, so I managed a healthy 83% accuracy on my 1st try. :???: So, I think I'll back-burner this one until I get an accuracy/score that I'm happy with on Crazy Train.

I didn't actually know any of the songs this week except for Crazy Train -- and both of the others sound like good fun! That is a big part of why I joined in here, finding new music that is outside of my usual sphere, so should be fun to play through them all. :) And although the GNR song for MC last round was fun enough and a good challenge, I really like Crazy Train -- so I'll have to see what I can do! Was especially fun to see all the bass players last week, including the jaw-dropping numbers on Welcome to the Jungle by Thrallsa and several others with very impressive scores. That song was quite tough for me, but I was happy with my improvement on it from my first play to last try -- mostly due to the fun of the competition here. So thanks to all for that, and I'm glad I joined in! :cool: Good luck to everybody this week.

Nice job on the GNR doyleman7 and Motive! I don't think I've got the free time this weekend to attempt any improvement on my numbers, so I guess I'm stuck at 95%.

Great score attack score there -- you must have been really in the groove timing wise for the whole song! :cool: I use that hammer-on trick a lot when I find some bend that I have trouble reproducing. In "Welcome to the Jungle", my main problem with it is the speed -- I feel like I'm not fast enough to do it accurately at full speed. BUT, it also comes in handy when there is a bend really close to the nut where the string tension is high enough that it is hard to get enough flex to shift the desired amount. The other thing to keep in mind is that if it is supposed to be a half-step bend, you just hammer on to one fret away. For a full step, move two frets. In Rocksmith, I have trouble figuring out how much shift they want out of a bend visually, whereas in tab or sheet music format just tells you straight up if it is a half or full step (or more). So, on pretty much any song with bends, I play them on riff repeater slowed down the first time and use the hammer-on technique to see whether it registers as a hit with a half step or full step. Then I'll go back to doing it as an actual bend except in cases where that seems too hard or feels unnatural (like this song). Hope that helps -- that trick plus some riff repeater time improved my accuracy in the song by a solid 6% (so far). :) To get used to it, I'd riff repeat a section with those bends and slow it down to 55-60% or so. At that speed, I can do it accurately as a bend, but just practice it as hammers (and pull offs when it calls for returning to the original note like here) to get used to the rhythm. I went from 55% speed to 100% speed with the "accelerate" option on, and it immediately went from nearly impossible for me in the 90+ speed range to very doable.

Haven't seen any takers on the beginner song for bass, so I figured I should try it (just for fun): D Drop C, so my strings are a bit floppy and prone to intonation issues -- I had a hell of a time getting notes to register at all until I tuned a few cents flat and started using the lightest touch possible on the strings. Once I did that, I managed the above -- perfect all the way through and then literally the LAST note didn't register. I really need to get some heavy gauge strings for my 4-string bass, so I can set it up as my D Drop C or D/C# Standard rig while keeping my 5 for E/Eb/Drop D (and any songs for a 5 that use the workaround, of course). Anyone have a recommendation on string gauges for bass set to primarily use for Drop C? Thinking about: "tight: 120-90-70-50" from HERE

OK, with the little trick to hammer on / pull off instead of bend plus about an hour and a half in riff repeater, doing the first half or so of the sections from 55% speed up to 100% on accelerate, I managed this on a fresh full-speed playthrough: Tomorrow, I'll riff repeat my way through the second half. I'm sure I can get better in the solo part -- I just rapidly alternate pick the A(b ) string and slide down from fret 7 to 2 instead of actually trying to strum all the notes in that range the correct number of times. The part where I was worried about finger stretching ended up being not too much trouble once I riff repeated it, just needs fast shifting instead of major stretching. --EDIT-- posted the wrong image the first time.

Thrallsa, that 98%+ is a hell of a great score on Welcome to the Jungle on bass! The song is quite tough for me, but I suppose the best way to get better is to work on those songs that seem like toughies instead of breezing through old favorites. I did some riff repeater time and moved up from 89.8 to 92.8, but I seriously doubt that I'll be able to give you any kind of run for your money. Still, seeing your score has motivated me to keep it up and see what I can manage! /grovel --EDIT-- Hmm, I found a way to manage a bit better on what I'd call sort of the main riff, with the half step bend on the 3rd fret of the E (actually Eb) string. I'm not fast enough to accurately pull off that bend at 100% speed, but when I decided to play it as a rapid hammer-on / pull-off from 3rd fret to 4th, I suddenly went from missing *lots* of notes on that section to being able to play it on riff repeater at 100% speed a couple times in a row with no misses. It sounds right to my ear -- still just a half step up and then back down to the original note. Now to just figure out what to do on the part where you're supposed to play a 2nd fret on E(b ) right in the middle of some 5th and 7th frets on A(b ). My fingers don't reach that far!

Congrats to acorlett2005 on the new son! Your first? My first (and only so far) daughter is 1 year and 5 months old, and she loves toddling in to my computer room where I have Rocksmith set up when I am playing bass. She says / demands a "PICK!" and then starts strumming away when I give her one. Maybe she'll grow up more musically inclined than her old man from an early age -- I started pretty late. Anyway, have fun with the family! I like the Wolfmother song this round too, so I started on it. Took me 3 tries to match your 100% accuracy (I had done it before it got selected for this week's challenge), but I got it: I'll make the Guns N Roses song my actual entry, though -- just downloaded it and I'll see how I manage it over the week. Again, big congrats on the new addition to your family! --EDIT-- Tried the GNR song. Gonna need a good few RR sessions moving up from like 55% speed to 100% on Accelerate to get decent at this one... Still, for a first attempt ever I figure I can work from this: Gives me a goal to work towards, anyway. Oh, and anyone else think the song volume in Welcome to the Jungle is quite low compared to the average custom or official track? No problem to work with, but I actually had to turn UP the song volume in the mixer, which I almost never do.

I am somewhat reluctant to suggest any songs here, because sometimes the bass difficulty is way different than guitar difficulty. That being said, I tried to pick out a few of my favorite CDLC's that I think are extremely well put together (and follow the restrictions here so they have at least lead and bass tracks, etc.), and I'll give a difficulty rating based on the bass part ONLY: Beginner/Easy: Death Cab For Cutie - Soul Meets Body by deaf42 -- Guitar part might be / probably is harder. Intermediate: Offspring - You're Gonna Go Far, Kid by Xyber -- Probably borderline between beginner/intermediate. Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know by ZZleeZZ -- Fantastic custom, has been mentioned before so is probably in the list already. Another one that could go here or beginner. Danzig - Twist of Cain by ... by all means, I guess this one came from SA and hasn't been ported here yet. Guess I'll leave it listed. Nightwish - Nemo by Soilman or SmellyOrc -- I've tried Soilman's version and I know it is solid on bass. Both sources have lead parts, not sure if the lead guitar would be the same difficulty level. Probably just fairly rapid power chords, so might fit here just fine. Master Class: Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name Of by BHMath -- Very fun to play on bass, tough but not TOO tough. My personal best is a 98.x% accuracy. Dunno how guitar part compares. Tool - Lateralus by Unleashed2k -- Great bass song that I want to get better at. I can manage in the 97% range now. Again, dunno about guitar difficulty in comparison. Daft Punk - Get Lucky by UKLooney -- Really fun, fast, jazzy bass part. I can play it with very few misses at 90-95% speed, but at 100% speed I struggle to get better than 97% accuracy. I think this might be one of those few songs where the guitar part is actually easier than the bass, but maybe not. Metallica - Orion by ... whoops, again, I guess this one (Puppets album version) must have come from SA. I think Nino83 did the original one I had, but then somebody else (Glen?) made another version that was probably more accurate and had better section divides. This song is sorta the holy grail for me, I'm pretty pleased that I can manage >90% accuracy (I think my best is somewhere around 96-97%, but that is with Rocksmith being very forgiving on not actually doing all of the triplets correctly, etc.). But, it is good to have a goal and pretty much every time I try again after a week or a month off I can improve on my accuracy after knocking the rust off. I actually went through my song list in Rocksmith and wrote down 10 potential songs... just in the A's. After that I limited what I wrote down to personal favorites, and still came up with a list of about 50 songs. The list above is trimmed down from that, making sure that the song has at least lead and bass. But anyway, I could definitely list more.

I started on guitar about 17 years ago, but never got very good (chords were my weakness). Eventually switched to bass and I love it now. BUT, one thing that stuck with me is playing with a pick. I should practice playing with fingers more, but the reduction in my skill level when I do that is frustrating -- I know I can play the song fine if I just use a pick! Other than that, I think you will get used to the differences between guitar and bass and be able to handle both soon. Try songs with slides and bends to build up the fret hand callus -- the callus you get from a bass are different from guitar. But as long as you are having fun, the things like neck size and fret spacing will all get to be easy very fast. Have fun and welcome to the bass side!

Just for fun, I thought I'd record a playthrough video of my version of Zombie (bass part at least). There are a few charting differences throughout the song, and then the end/outro is quite a bit different. Accuracy in the video playthrough is 99.5%, but that is obscured by the webcam view. Not that this would count as a valid entry for the song anyway. I honestly dunno which version is more accurate up to the outro -- I just used a Guitar Pro tab from Ultimate Guitar that sounded the best on bass to me. But I'm pretty confident that my chart is more accurate to the song through the end and outro. I can make my .psarc available if anyone is interested, and I'll try to leave feedback about the bass chart in the page for Mangoooo's version. My version does have lead and rhythm arrangements, but I didn't have a guitar to test them at the time that I made the custom, so I can't really vouch for their accuracy (plus I suck at guitar). Oh, and another flaw in my file is that I don't have good Riff Repeater sections, the whole song is just 1 big section. If anyone is interested I'll run it through the auto-DD thing so it at least gets some blocks in there to carve it up a bit. PS. (YouTube uploading is *crawling* for me at the moment, so maybe the video won't load properly for a while. I gotta go to bed now though, so I'll go ahead and post this.)

Pretty much a newcomer here, although I just posted in last week's challenge by mistake (didn't realize the new one was pinned). Five Magics is a badass song, but out of my league. Babymetal is ... not my cup of tea, but might as well give it a whirl. Zombie is a great song, and actually was the first custom I ever made although I never posted it outside of the Workshop. (It had been done already here and I was still in a Smithy's Anvil frame of mind where multiple-versions were sorta frowned on.) I did catch the tuning issue, so my version is in A444 also. My charting is a bit different, I think more accurate in parts but probably wrong in others. However, the version linked in the first post (Mangoooo's work with Motive's tuning tweaks, I think) is noticeably off in the bass charting at the end of the song -- out of sync and off in the strum pattern in several spots. My first attempt at the Babymetal song was pretty poor, 91% accuracy. A lot of notes weren't registering, so I hit escape to pause and re-tuned with the onscreen tuner about halfway through, and that helped some. Second try, after stabilizing the tuning, I got this: Still feel like I was hitting a lot correctly but not having them register, as others have noted. Probably not going to work on upgrading that score -- like I say, the song isn't really my thing. Here's my first playthrough of Mangoooo's Zombie custom: Missed a few notes due to the charting being different from what I'm used to in my version of the same song, and out of sync at the end (on bass at least). Zombie run was just for fun, I think I'll normally shoot for Intermediate or MC.

Mediafire worked OK for me with paranoid-mode Firefox (Adblock Plus, NoScript, cookie whitelist, etc.). I'm now mostly switched to Chrome, and even with Adblock Plus I was getting frequent popups (or actually pop-unders) from Mediafire. Solved that by adding "Poper Blocker" (yes, with that misspelling) extension. For the few customs that I've done, I just use Google Drive. Not a big fan of their buddy-buddy NSA status, but the one-stop-shop for YouTube playthrough uploads, what used to be Picasa for screenshots, etc. etc. sure is easy.

First timer here. I don't know how regular I'll be with this, I've got a pretty busy teaching schedule, and I tend to not be too competitive when it comes to stuff like this. BUT, I realized that this is a great way to get active in the community here more than just testing customs and making a few of my own, and also to discover new music that might not be on my radar. That definitely applied for me this week. I didn't know The Cult or the song "Fire Woman" by name, although once I heard the song I knew that I had heard it before. I'll definitely be entering on the bass side if/when I am participating. This week, "The Trooper" is tougher for me than "Fire Woman", so I'll go straight for MC class. I'm not too fussed about my results being tracked, so I may end up dropping down to Intermediate some weeks if I'm more into the song there. Anyway, here's my 2nd try result (first was a 96 point something): --EDIT-- (updated to actually 4th try after finally breaking down and doing some riff repeat work, 2nd was a 98.1) I'll see how much I can improve on that in the short time left this week. --EDIT-- Whoops, realized I'm a week behind. Didn't see that the current one is pinned -- my bad. I guess I'll edit the photo above to my 4th try score and move on to the current. Or maybe wait for next week.

I started with a guitar when I was about 16 or so. Played a decent amount for about 2-3 years. I got decent(ish) at some solos and lead-type stuff, which is what I was the most interested in. I always sucked at chords -- it took me a long time to get my hands contorted into chord shapes, and I'm even worse at transitioning from one chord to another. Pretty much hopeless. BUT, power chords, riffs, and solos (as long as they weren't TOO crazy) were all within my means and the most fun for me to work on. I didn't play as much in college, so I got pretty rusty. But I would still pick up the guitar from time to time and enjoy it. Then, when I was 20-21 or so, I decided to buy a bass. Immediately, the bass clicked with me better than the guitar ever had. I agree with what the others say here about getting "in the groove" being important with bass, but in general I feel like average bass stuff is fairly comparable in difficulty to easy guitar riffs. More difficult bass lines can compare to guitar solos, all the way up to quite hard difficulty. But fortunately for me, bass parts almost never have chords -- and if they do, they are usually a root + fifth power chord type shape. So, the one thing that held me back the most in guitar is pretty much a non-factor on the bass. So to me, I would say that yes, playing bass is close to universally 'easier' than guitar -- especially if you are chord-challenged like me. That being said, I have known quite a few people who just click with strumming chords but find the single-note riffs and solo stuff on a guitar to be much harder. For those folks, I'd wager that the bass might seem quite a bit more difficult than guitar -- especially with jazzy, all over the fretboard type bass lines. I played bass off and on for 10+ years, and then Rocksmith (2014) got me full-on reinvigorated. There are definitely times when I'll get a high accuracy rating in Rocksmith but feel like I'm not really "in the groove" of the song. I think the key to dealing with those situations is to put more stock into how you feel and less into patting yourself on the back over Rocksmith saying you have a high accuracy. And 'how you feel' doesn't have to be defined by not settling for anything less than perfection -- I just mean that you should try to have fun. If you are having fun, practice doesn't *feel* like practice, and pretty soon you notice that what seemed HARD a few days/weeks ago is suddenly bordering on effortless. That feeling is a much more significant reward to me than Rocksmith telling me that I've gone from 97% to 98% accuracy on some tough song...

The smart-ass in me says that if I could hear one song (in its entirety) before I die, I'd go with this one: ...But, after a few days of that I'd probably be regretting my choice. So, the real one for me would probably be another vote for "Orion" by Metallica.

YouTube: And his tab (2-handed tapping): http://advancebass.com/transcription/game-thrones-4-string-bass I love the version for a 5 string, but the 4 version doesn't do it for me really. There are some other good ones on YouTube for a 4, though.

Here's a great one that is available now: http://customsforge.com/page/customsforge_rs_2014_cdlc.html/_/pc-enabled-rs-2014-cdlc/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-theme-r1170 The one that I want to make a custom for is Game of Thrones, ever since I saw this YouTube video of a dude that arranged it for 5-string bass, playing it 2-handed tapping style: I actually went to that guy's webpage and transcribed his tab into a Guitar Pro 6 tab so that I could make a custom off of it. The Guitar Pro version I made sounds great by itself (sounds like the video above), and I got it synced up with a recording of the TV show theme music in EOF -- but at that point things break down because it isn't actually played in the same key as the TV's music; it is adjusted a bit to fit the range of the 5-string bass. I should have figured that out BEFORE going to the work of making the GP tab for it and syncing it up, but oh well -- I'm not big on music theory. I may just rip the audio out of his YouTube video above and sync it to that -- I'll have to see what options I can think of for getting it to match up keys. Actually, if anyone is interested in the Guitar Pro tab I made, I can put that up on my google drive and link to it. Someone with more music theory knowledge than me might be able to adjust it to the TV theme key or vice-versa. There are a few more issues with it though -- 1) 5-string bass required (he has a version for a 4, but it isn't as great), 2) playing it via tapping with BOTH HANDS on the fretboard is just nuts, so I separated the left and right hands into distinct arrangements, and 3) frets go all the way up to 24, which is more than can be found on either of my basses (a 5-string with 20 and a 4 with 21). Actually, even without a Rocksmith custom version, it is fun to (try to) play along with it (even just ONE HAND of it) via Guitar Pro.

My first custom (Zombie by the Cranberries, not submitted here since I was beaten to the punch) was kinda like that. BPM wandering around quite a bit with a human dummer/bass player instead of robotically sampled and looped at a perfect set tempo. And then I went through the experience of having the song sound dissonant when played in the stated tuning, which caused me to eventually figure out that it was recorded in standard E but NOT A440. It seems like most songs that I choose to make a custom for end up being in a tuning off of A440 -- Bob Marley's No Woman No Cry was a full quarter-step sharp! But I agree with the idea that it might be good to start off with some of those -- teaches you how to recognize and deal with those issues for future customs!

This is kinda a long story, and I tend to ramble. BUT, it is about me looking for my new 5-string bass, so I guess it is on-topic rambling. :) Anyway, skip this post if you don't want me talking your ear off. I've been playing bass for about 15 years, but only got very serious after Rocksmith (I started with RS2014, original flew under my radar). I started out back then with a 4-string Ibanez GSR200 because it was cheap, but it has actually worked really well for me. I am by no means a professional bassist or even particularly skilled amateur, so I don't really have much to compare it with ... but I still play it and it still performs just fine to my ear. I even have the original strings on it -- I guess I'm a believer in "the funk is in the funk" school of thought. Well, that or I'm just a cheap bastard. After getting reinvigorated on bass with Rocksmith, I also got interested in trying a 5-string. I did web research over various models, and the one that really caught my eye was the Epiphone Thunderbird Pro V. I'm the kind of guy that thinks a stratocaster guitar just looks a little too normal; I like do go for something a bit unusual. So, my first guitar 16-17 years ago was an Epiphone Korina Explorer. Anyway, I guess that those kinds of different body shapes are up my alley -- your BC Rich tickles my fancy also. So, I must admit that the main thing that got me focused on the Thunderbird was the looks. But, I did try to do due diligence to make sure that I wouldn't be disappointed with the actual functionality of one. I read 4 main complaints about them: First, they are quite heavy. Second, the neck is especially heavy, so they tend to nosedive. Third, sometimes they come out of the factory with shoddy wiring and poor grounding that results in buzz or hum. And fourth, many of them in the initial factory run didn't have the pickups or filter set up right, and as a result they didn't pick up the B string very well -- several dB softer than the other strings, if at all. I decided that I'd probably be able to learn to deal with the first two issues, but that I'd need to actually play one before I bought it to make sure that the other two issues didn't crop up. So, that cut out eBay or web purchasing. I went on vacation to Las Vegas and then back to my home in Kansas a couple months ago (I currently live in Thailand), and I figured that was my chance to get my hands on one in person. I guess that the Thunderbird Pro V is getting a little bit rare; shops I checked with in Vegas didn't have them, so I was sure I wouldn't find one easily in rural Kansas. I eventually found a Guitar Center where they could have one shipped in from another warehouse, so I opted for that. List price was $599, without a case, shipping, etc. While I was confirming the order, I said that I would want to reserve the right to pass on it if it had any of the hardware problems that I had read about, and/or be able to negotiate a discount for any cosmetic damage. They said that was OK but that they thought it should be in perfect working and cosmetic condition. Then, about 12 hours later I got an email that said that it DID have some cosmetic damage - a couple of chips in the finish, but nothing that would affect playability. They said that they would drop the price to $399 as a result. When it came in, I went to check it out. Both finish chips were quite small, one on a corner of the body pretty close to where your arm rests and blocks it from view anyway, and one on the back face. You'd have to look pretty hard to notice either of them. I plugged in to an amp there, and the B came roaring through at full volume and I didn't hear any extensive line noise / grounding buzz. So, I happily paid for the bass + case + shipping, very pleased with the $200 discount for very minimal cosmetic scuffs. Now that I've been playing it for a couple months, I'm still very pleased with my purchase. It is heavy and it does nosedive (even though my bass is a newer version where they moved the strap button location to try to help out with that), but I got used to those items easily as I thought I would. I'm sure that the early-run problem with the pickups not getting the B string at full volume isn't an issue with mine. However, I *do* get some line noise from what I assume is improper grounding -- it gets pretty loud with high gain or distortion settings. I can limit it some by cranking down the trebel pot, but that isn't a perfect cure and sometimes I'd really like the tone from setting that higher. May be possible to have a luthier do some drilling and wiring and get it solidly grounded at some point, but it isn't THAT bad most of the time. On the good side, the tone and sustain are better than my old Ibanez GSR200. The hardware all seems rock solid and high quality. And, it was easier to get used to a 5 than I had originally thought it might be. Although, for most Rocksmith stuff up until recent customs you're just ignoring that low B. Fun to have the new stuff that makes use of that extra range! And, I still really love the looks of the thing -- beautiful! So again, overall I'm still very pleased with it. One final thing -- while I was hanging out in the Guitar Center making up my mind about whether or not to pull the trigger and have them ship the Thunderbird in, I wanted to try out basically *any* 5-string just to get a feel for it and see if the neck width would really throw me off or anything. Well, the sales guy sure knew his stuff and knew just the one to tempt me with ... he pulled a Fender American Standard Precision Bass 5 off the wall. Over $1500 price tag, but I could tell just from a little noodling around that those things deserve their good rep. Smooth as silk. Biggest thing that struck me was how dead easy it was to slap/pop -- I *suck* at slap/pop; I can't make it work at all on my Ibanez, and I'm only a little better at it with my Thunderbird. But with that P Bass, it seemed dead easy. Body shape looks very pedestrian to my eye, but as a musical instrument even an amateur like me could tell I was playing a great piece of kit. OK, sorry for rambling story -- good luck with your 5-string search! :)

I recently took a trip back to the US (I live in Thailand), and bought an Epiphone Thunderbird Pro V. The Good: I love the body shape and style. Much easier to get used to a 5-string than I thought it might be -- going back to my 4-string now the neck feels all thin and toy-like. Sound and tone from it is very good, better than my old cheapo bass (Ibanez GSR200). Fun and interesting to get used to active pickups since I had never used a bass with those before. Bridge, hardware, and body quality all seem very nice to me, but then again I was used to my cheapo bass. The Bad: This bass is notorious for nosedive due to the heavy neck. Mine is no exception. Got used to it pretty quick though. Electronics / no grounding buzz. Also pretty notorious for having grounding issues that can add a lot of line noise and buzz. Mine has that but is only a BIG problem if I turn up the realtone cable gain. I do usually like my bass volume high, so this does become an issue. The Ugly: Sticker price was pretty high for me, $599 excluding case etc. However, after ordering it (they didn't have any in stock near me) I got an email saying that there were some nicks and scuffs on the finish, so the price was going to be discounted by $200. When it arrived, the 2 blemishes are minor and only one is visible from the front -- and that only under fairly close inspection. Didn't affect playability at all. So, for a $200 discount, this should really fall into the "good" category. ...But, getting it back to Thailand was a pretty big adventure, so maybe that can take over the ugly slot. Long story, but short version is I luckily didn't have to pay any oversize baggage fee or anything, but had to claim and go through turn-your-head-and-cough type security an extra couple times. Anyway, made it here in one piece without any more scuffs or anything, so can't complain too much. All in all, I'm happy with my purchase.

I just tried this for a song in Bb standard. It worked OK, except that the arrangement didn't seem to correctly import the tuning from EOF. I *think* I set it up right in EOF, but anyway I just manually did the same sorts of stuff in the toolkit and it displays and tunes correctly. However, when playing the song, I only roughly 75-80% detection rates -- it keeps thinking that I'm fretting too high when I'm not. If I can fret a half step low and kinda do a very quick slide up, it usually decides that I hit the note correctly -- rather hit or miss otherwise. I don't think that my intonation can be off that bad, I had the most trouble on the E string (tuned down to Eb), and it detects just fine if I use my bass in a E standard (or Eb) song and just don't use the B string. Detection has been better in the few other songs I've tried that use this method to get a low B (or lower) in, but it seems very shaky in mine. Maybe I did something wrong.

Ahh, thanks for that info. Good to know that there is a workaround; I figured there might be some way to trick the game into going for it. I will look at some of the links in that thread and try them out. Thanks much!

Hey everybody - I just bought a 5-string bass (Epiphone Thunderbird Pro 5), and thought it would be fun to use for the few custom songs that use a tuning involving a B or lower for bass. However, I ran into a few issues. Things I know: I know Rocksmith only "supports" a 4 string bass; at least in the sense that if you are in the bass path it will only show 4 strings (red, yellow, blue, orange). Can't get it to display a 5th string, although I suppose it MIGHT be possible to use the lead or rhythm path and just tell it that you are using a "guitar" in a custom, really low tuning. But that would show 6 strings instead of 5. Anyway, that isn't too important. Standard 5-string bass tuning is BEADG. I know that customs can be created with a bass arrangement set to tunings like BEAD or even lower. So, if a song intended for a 5-string bass uses that low B but doesn't have any notes on the G string (or if they can be transcribed to higher frets on the D), it seems like it SHOULD work. For a BEAD(G) tuning song, you'd just mentally shift the "red" string to the B, yellow for E, etc. Then for a song in standard tuning, you'd just skip the low B and shift back to red being E, etc. It IS possible to play bass customs set to BEAD (or lower) tuning with a guitar set for bass emulation. I tried that, and while it sounds really bad to my ear, it will at least let you tune. HOWEVER -- it seems like this doesn't actually work with a real bass. When I plug in my bass and try to play a custom in BEAD, I notice that there seems to be a threshold/limit built into Rocksmith's detection system set exactly at the frequency of that low B string. If I am slightly sharp from B, it shows up on the tuner and will display down to roughly 4 cents sharp. If I tune down any lower than that, the meter starts to flake out and bounce around all over the place -- like it knows that it is hearing *something*, but it just can't quite figure out the frequency. I have been unable to get the game to pass the tuning stage at the start of a song in BEAD without switching to a guitar and using bass emulation. If I try to tune down from slightly sharp, it isn't stable or close enough for the game to think that it is in tune. If I tune the string to perfect B (or any lower) using a chromatic or other software tuner, the game just gets fully confused and has no idea what it is hearing. Anybody else with a 5-string bass (or a standard bass tuned down to BEAD) notice these issues?