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Why do some people play Rocksmith with the guitar in-game upside down?


Sanderat

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I've played tabs for years but I still play the standard way. I didn't feel I needed to invert it, it felt unnatural to me.(BTW I'm a lefty playing right handed...)

 

 

 Yay! I thought I was the only one here... backwards southpaws ftw! :)

 

I think this is why complicated fretwork doesn't really bother me, yet tapping/slapping right hand techniques make me fall right on my ass :P

 

B.B King, Duane Allman and Paul Simon all took the same lefty playing right handed approach; I really couldn't imagine plucking/picking with my dominant hand, it feels like the weirdest damn thing in the world to me.

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I've been reading tabs 30+ years now and still do, however inverted on rocksmith doesn't seem intuitive to me. I play on the default setting and have no problem going back and reading tab. Props to Ubisoft for making it four different way (L,R,U,D) too accommodate everyone. Imagine how many people would get frustrated if it was only one way and give up!

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I play inverted lefty but when I look at other peoples videos I don't even notice half the time that they are the standard way.  I think im just so used to seeing both that it doesn't bug me anymore but I never tried to play standard since I was so used to tabs it didn't make any sense to me to try another way when I didn't have to or need to.

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I had limited experience with tabs before starting Rocksmith, but I did read and play them. Even so, I just couldn't get used to the inverted view when playing RS...something about it just didn't click. Once I switched to the default view it seemed much easier; I think it was the fact that the notes are coming down the highway and it's like I'm looking through the back of the neck.

 

Now that I'm going to start trying to play more outside of RS, I wonder if it will be hard to go back to tab notation. I might give the inverted display in RS another shot, but I think it will be even harder to go back now that I've used the other method for several months. :-|

 

 

sleepy

Just wanted to update my original post.

 

About two weeks ago I found a tab online for a bass part I wanted to learn and while it wasn't overly difficult to read, I realized that spending more time in Rocksmith with the default configuration wasn't going to make reading tab any easier. So I switched to inverted view and have been playing that way ever since. It was definitely painful at first, but after a few sessions it fell into place and I'm back to where I was before the switch, and have even improved most of the scores I set before the switch. Ironically, I think having used the default view for a while before switching helped since it drilled the colors into my head. Immediately after switching I was able to 'play without thinking' so to speak by just looking for the red box and knowing it was my low E regardless of whether it was on the top or bottom.

 

I will say that the switch has been a little easier on bass than it has on guitar, but my bass playing is better than my guitar playing to begin with, and I've spent more time on it lately so that's most likely the true cause. Also, the chord shapes in guitar tracks do look more intuitive in the default view (at least to me), so knowing the shapes outside of Rocksmith is definitely beneficial.

 

tl;dr - I recently made the switch from the default view to inverted. It was easier on bass than guitar, but if I did it so can you!

 

 

sleepy

Acoustic Guitar:  Seagull Maritime GT  Playing Since:  8/11/2011

Electric Guitar:  Epiphone Les Paul Jr.  Playing since:  9/25/2013

Bass Guitar:  Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar Special  Playing Since:  2/17/2014

 

"The road of life is rocky, and you may stumble too. So while you point your finger, someone else is judging you." --Bob Marley

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Playing with tabs for 10 years, would rather kill myself than play the "rocksmith" way.

This.

 

I played the "rocksmith" way for a week before I figured out I didn't have to, then I had to readjust again. Took another week! LOL

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I see it like this when you use default to me it looks like you see your strings through the back of your guitar so when i put it to invert them ( so the low E shows at bottom) it looks like im looking down at my fretboard. Now if there was a setting to make the 1st fret, or open string on the right side of the screen it would seem like you are looking at someone elses fretboard, like if a friend or teacher was showing you a riff. It is confusing and i personally play on it inverted(low E at bottom) because it looks the same as when i look down at my actual guitar.

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Haha, I remember James Hetfield saying that he don't know tabulature, he simply plays.

When first time I saw tab-like (inverted) view I was quite confused, but it passed quickly.

Using normal view was really natural, exactly what I expected (Guitar Hero experience?). To think about it, I would be very confused seeing inverted and trying to figure out WTF is happening.

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Nop, they designed it to be intuitive (same string order than the neck when you look at it).

 

Being used to the tab notation doesn't make it intuitive, you're just used to it. Tab notation is weird for somebody that just discover it since you have to invert what you see compared to whenyou look at your neck (Low E at the bottom on the tab while the Low E is at the top when you look at the neck while playing). The worst notation i've seen was RB3 pro guitar notation which was like GH notation with number. Strings was placed verticaly compared to the horizontal way on tab and rocksmith which absolutely doesn't relate to the neck and the number was showed as on a tab which is hard to read at high speed.

 

The only advantage i see for the tab notation is that it's intuitive for writing riff, the higher you go the higher pitch you get but it doesn't relate to the neck as directly as Rocksmith does.

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I've found that I personally just look at the colors of the gems when determining which string it is, the vertical order doesn't matter for me in game. I only play the bass though, might be a different story if you had to get your hand in weird positions making chords and all that :)

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Oddly I didn't even pay attention. Upon installing RS 2014, I guess I left it at default. I went back and checked how I had it set in RS1 after reading this thread, and I had it TAB style. I can switch back and forth. That is probably because my brain has associated the colors with said string and I really don't see where it is on the neck, top vs bottom. I'm working with tabs much more now and, don't have any issues going back and forth, but I will probably switch to TAB style just because.

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For me, I was really confused when I looked at tabs at the first time (way before Rocksmith) and it still feels unnatural for me. Of course here were some good logical points to why is the Tab done this way, but my brain can't really take it. For me it seems way more simple and cleaner to see exactly the string you are playing at the same order as you are looking from back of the guitar (that seems more logical to me).

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I've not long started learning the guitar, and cannot read tabs at all yet, though I have inverted the game setting so it's upside down (downside up or whatever), so my hands get used to the direction of the strings when I come to start learning to read tab outside of game.

 

I'm still unsure about it being that way round as standard, it just doesn't seem logical to me having the thickest string at the bottom since it's the top string nearest to my chest on my guitar.

 

I guess it just takes time to get used to and will find it second nature given time....

 

.... a bit like touch typing on a qwerty keyboard, nothing is really in alphabetical order, but it just takes muscle memory to get used to.... Which I'm quite glad of as my 'normal' memory is near non existent.

 

tris

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The real problem is who ever came up with tabs made a moronic mistake and did it upside down, now we have to live with it.. I switched a year ago from "common sense" view to the upside-down to match the tabs view just because it makes tab reading less-confusing... but I'd rank the choice to start the tab layout upside-down on par with the computer nerds not thinking a PC would be used beyond 1999 leaving us with Y2K to clean up...  

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Actually the tab perspective makes quite a lot of sense. the positions on the fretboard directly correlate to your finger usage as the E string as the lowest is pretty much the way you grab it with your hand (your hand got the other perspective from your eyes, since it's all about muscle memory this is more important than your eye's perspective which can get used to the pattern quite easily).

Also the tab perspective is easier to releate to music sheet notation which goes from bottom (lowest) to top (highest).

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Actually the tab perspective makes quite a lot of sense. the positions on the fretboard directly correlate to your finger usage as the E string as the lowest is pretty much the way you grab it with your hand (your hand got the other perspective from your eyes, since it's all about muscle memory this is more important than your eye's perspective which can get used to the pattern quite easily).

Also the tab perspective is easier to releate to music sheet notation which goes from bottom (lowest) to top (highest).

 

Looking at it that way round, it does make sense from the hand's position since your hand is upside down too. Shame I can't attach my head to my hand :mrgreen:

 

I guess it's all muscle memory at the end of the day, and I've been 'playing' a week today.... every day and still loving it.

 

tris

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Ok, chiming in on the topic in 2017. I read through all the posts. Unless I missed something, it seems as if everyone is talking about looking at their guitar, on their lap, or whatever. We are looking at the TAB. As we should be.

 

Looking at the TAB, (or Standard Notation) helps us to get a feel for the fret board. Looking back and forth sucks, as it is so easy to loose your place within the written music.

 

TAB is really just a 'picture' of the guitar. (if there are 6 strings, there are 6 lines, 7 string guitars have 7 lines...etc) While standard musical notation is a graph of high and low notes (frequencies).

 

My thought on the subject is that TAB is upside down. It should have the low E on the top. That is the way the guitar is. When you watch a guitarist play, where is their low E? On top, of course. When you look at TAB, it is as if you are watching someone play . That is how it should be. TAB is a "picture" of the guitar. (moving through time)

 

I am a guitar teacher, and EVERY beginner that looks at TAB the first time, assumes the Low E is the top line. That alone, says volumes.

 

Either way, we adapt!

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Instead of Tab being upside, if you think (too much) about it, it's actually guitars themselves that are typically strung upside down if the high string should be at the top.

 

Whatever your view on it, the game itself tries to coach you to the point where you no longer need to read the notes off the screen so why should it matter how you get there?

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My thought on the subject is that TAB is upside down. It should have the low E on the top. That is the way the guitar is. When you watch a guitarist play, where is their low E? On top, of course. When you look at TAB, it is as if you are watching someone play . That is how it should be. TAB is a "picture" of the guitar. (moving through time)

 

That is, when you look other guitarists playing. More often, when I learn a new song using tabs, I look at my guitar. Tabs makes more sense that way (if you're a regular righty player)
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TAB is really just a 'picture' of the guitar. (if there are 6 strings, there are 6 lines, 7 string guitars have 7 lines...etc) While standard musical notation is a graph of high and low notes (frequencies).

 

 

 

I suppose it is partly, but isn't it mostly based on sheet music? The higher notes are higher up the notation. 

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