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Anyone else here use their amp to play Rocksmith?


Atrimn

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If you have an amp and you aren't using it to play Rocksmith, I really recommend you do! I think it makes a huge difference... especially if you're playing bass and want more of it. For the last 4 months I've been using my amp to play and I would never go back to playing RS without it :D.

 

The setup I have is simple as all I use is a Y cable, which apparently has gone up in price since I bought it a few months ago for $1.99. You connect your amp in one side and the Real tone cable on the other and then plug it to your guitar or bass. If you have the cash there's other options like Morley ABY Selector... Just giving an example since I haven't use that one myself.

 

If you get ground loop here's some info to counter that: http://www.reddit.com/r/rocksmith/comments/20iqw8/having_trouble_using_guitar_amp_as_speaker_for/cg3msod

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I don't see the need for a Y-cable at all. When I was doing that I would just put the (normal) cable on my amp and then put the Rocksmith cable on the line out of my amp. I don't know if every amp has this thing but to me it worked just fine (before I had a problem with my cable, i have to buy a new one but I'm too lazy lol).

Guiagge,

  That is the simple way to do it.  Many amps don't have a clean signal level output to tap into.  Also you would have to play into your amplifier unmodified.  When I connect my amp I use a direct box with gound lift and run into my ancient Digitec RP1 to go to my amplifier.  The purpose of the direct box is to split the signal and not have to worry about a grounding loop and that horrid 60hz hum.

 

Andrake

 

Oh sorry, I forgot about that, I don't use effects at all since I'm a poor nigga, but it really can mess up the note recognition...

Direct box is really a great tool for a bassist, can be useful in a handful of situations.

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Wait so you actually prefer your amp speaker than headphone?

 

Buy new headphone cause amp speaker are really not made to fully transcribe low to high frequency correctly. You are just butchering the song to make sure that your guitar stand out in what you are hearing.

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I started with just a cheap guitar and rocksmith.  After getting into it I now have 2 basses (ended up liking bass more) and just got my first bass amp.

 

My question was, what sounds better, hooking the game to your normal home speakers, or hooking the game to a amp/cab.

Found this thread on chance and looked at all the y splitters and aby units.

 

Gives me an idea nobody mentioned yet.  Instead of spending money on a good aby unit I can just use my Behringer mixer.  I can hook the bass cab up to one of my aux sends and plug the game cable to another channel.

 

I actually started to play the game using my mixer to one of my soundcards instead of the realtone cable, but I couldnt get my latency down low enough.  Thinking about trying it again and using my onboard sound first, then just plug the realtone cable in as the second attempt, and last I can try using the mixers usb connection and let it be the soundcard itself.

 

BTW for me the game sounds awesome on just my home speakers, I have 2x floor standing polk monitor 70's and a 12" powered sub, so playing guitar and bass both sounded really great.  The main reason I think I may integrate my bass cab is so that I can hear myself better as I noticed that some songs "mask" bad play, while others let me here every little thing I do.  I guess it depends on the song and what  effects are in use.

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There are a lot of ways to do this and I'm sure everyone has a preference.  For me, I put my Rocksmith Bass Volume @ 0 - but crank up everything else using the decent PC speakers I have.  Bass is plugged into a cheap Behringer Chorus pedal (turned off) so it's basically a splitter.  Line A (no effects) goes into the PC.  Line B goes into my Zoom B3 which feeds to my amp.  That way I can mess around with my bass tones/effects whenever I want with no impact to the game.  If I want to blend with the music I can, if I want to crank up the bass and focus on my playing primarily I can.  I prefer this much more than having the bass coming out of the same speakers as the other music, like you said there's too much that gets masked. 

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I use a splitter and run it to a Line 6 POD HD500 and then to an amp. It is fun to try and match the Rocksmith tone on the HD 500. The amp does highlight the shortcomings of my play but a dose of reality is motivation to practice more.

My Youtube channel is basically a list of Rocksmith's easiest songs because those are the only ones I can play.  :P

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMV9RfoApHM5Zmi1CobqTJw

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I was looking at something like this for splitting incase there are ground loop issues.

 

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/BigShotABY?adpos=1t1&creative=83049425281&device=c&matchtype=b&network=g&gclid=CMON2qXyncsCFQEJaQodI7UPUw

 

Kind of a lot of money perhaps just for a spliter, but if you need it or ever intend to use your equipment for outside just playing rocksmith its more of an investment. 

 

I ended up getting a sansamp vt bass di today because I wanted to plug into my mixer and have some control over tone.

I was going to just plug my bass into my mixer (worked well for me, others maybe not so much I think my active pickups help a lot) but a proper DI will give me a clean signal and also act as a spliter so I can feed to RS unaltered and to my amp/mixer with my altered sound.

 

Cant wait to try it out, hope that I do not find any ground loop hum when I get the setup put into place.

 

The tricky thing is that RS only lets me have one recording device on the computer (the realtone cable) so I cant record anything on the PC from my mixer. 

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hi,

 

after a few tries, i found a pretty good way to use an amp+rs.

 

I use the zoom g3, main/mono-output to amp, xlr-out (with xlr/audiojack adapter) with 'pre' setting -> realtone cable.

so rs receives a dry signal (works perfectly) while the amp plays with all the zoom-effects...   also theres a 'ground-lift' button on the g3..

 

the line-out of my amp didn't work too good in comparison.

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Well over time I've tried different setups and now I play three different ways depending on the mood of me and the family. 

 

1. I use a Y split and run a cable to my POD HD500 and then to an amp. The other output of the Y is the RS cable to the PC. I do this when I want to practice hitting the pedal to change the tone during songs with one or more tone changes. I'm not very good at this so I need to practice. I focus on the pedal and my playing takes a nosedive. Still it is fun and with this set up I control my guitar tone not RS. The amp can be turned up to reveal when I sound good and not so good so this is a reality check set up (Hey Chili... RS scores you well on Guerrilla Radio but you sound like %#$*).

 

2. I use headphones when the family is tired of hearing riff repeater at 60% speed or just tired of hearing me.

 

3. I run a cable from the headphone jack of the PC to my amp and let RS control the tones when the family is away and I want to rattle the walls a bit.

 

I think the headphones are the best quality sound but I still like to use the other setups.

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My Youtube channel is basically a list of Rocksmith's easiest songs because those are the only ones I can play.  :P

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMV9RfoApHM5Zmi1CobqTJw

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Hello there. I have the Amplifi 30 since a couple of days and find a neat solution to connect and play with Rocksmith.

 

Here is the link of the picture : http://www.noelshack.com/2016-40-1475492051-iphone-image-10-03-2016.jpg

 

 

I have bought the Harmony Shift last year for the purpose of playing in C ou less but this pedal have also 2 jack out. So in a way it become a Splitter with no loss and almost no noises.

 

The Amplifi 30 is also a soundcard with my macbook, so I can have both Rocksmith and my guitar plugged in and mixed the sound with the amp.

 

Tell me if you want some detail !

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Playing with an Amp give's you more feedback of your own play, when the tone is not mixed with RS in a same output.

I let the RS Track out on a 5.1 system

 

A split Y cable may result in ground noise. This may be avoided with a pedal with two jack out.

A Harmony shift may be disturbing in C or B, because you still hear the different tuning of your guitar, and that creates an awful mix.

The Amplifi 30 may be limited when you need Phaser, Flange, and Wah, with a pedal.

 

The next step would be a Guitar effect processor, with a two jack out, or a ground lift, with a Pedal,

to replace my cheap Digitech RP55, which only flaw is no two jack out, no pedal, and maybe limited in simultaneous effects.

I can't get a satisfying Santana tone out of it.

 

I just can't decide which Zoom, Line 6, Boss, TC or ... Axe :D

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I use a Zoom G5 pedal for practice and recording, and when playing around with RockSmith.  I have a stereo output, left channel goes to the RS cable and into the computer, second channel goes to my amp or recording rig.  I use a StereoDly patch on my pedal to compensate for the RS latency, and adjust the delay as appropriate.  I wasn't sure if it was going to work, but so far so good.  I keep my output level on my pedal to a minimum and adjust levels on my speakers and amp appropriately.

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The best ABY pedal for rocksmith is the Twin City by Radial.

 

It is awesome, it is buffered and cut every noise that goes into amp or guitar. I use the ground lift on it. 

 

I had the ABY Bigshot b4 but it leaked noise into rocksmith or amp

 

I am addicted to that way of playing, but i had to fix a big delay problem cauz im using an external card.

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I'm using the Radial BigShot ABY.  With the right combination of the pedal's ground lift and phase settings, I'm not getting any unwanted noise.

 

Guitar to the ABY pedal.  "A" line to Line6 Spider IV 75; "B" line is the RockSmith USB cable to PC.  In Rocksmith audio settings, Player1 guitar volume is turned down as far as it goes, so the guitar is only coming out of the amp.

 

I use the Spider IV presets to try and match the tone of the song I'm playing in Rocksmith.  It works pretty well.  Pink Floyd - Shine on You Crazy Diamond preset, Nirvana - In Bloom, etc.  Works pretty good.  I just added the Line6 FBV Shortboard, so I can switch tones in the middle of a song when needed (still working on that).

 

Playing through a real Amp has definitely improved my play.  If you are playing like crap, you can really hear it, but also very satisfying when you are nailing it!

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