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Unusual instrument experiment


firekorn

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After seeing that there looks to be violin and cello CDLC, I was having a bit of a think about what could be done by curious fans of Rockmith.

 

I've got an Apogee Jam interface that I use because my use  predates my purchase of Rocksmith2014, so I have an easy method to attach a microphone and have played along using a Classic guitar (which is entirely acoustic).  I never purchased the required "RockSmith" cable because I already had a good interface, hence I have one interface.  Frequently I find that it would be useful to be able to play 2-up, so any 2 player combination of Lead, Rhythm & Bass could at least show both sets of tabs, regardless of anyone actually 

 

I'm bass player and don't play complex chords well, so a lot of the Lead & Rhythm guitar chords beyond my interest, apart from tracks where single notes are played, then the fingering & progressions are quite interesting even if outside the range of the instrument. (eg Francoise Hardy's Le Temps de l'Amour)   I have played my bass on Rocksmith as Lead, though the tune-up screen can be a bit of pain, particularly if there is a weird tuning for a track. I did this out of curiosity, to see if could be done in a scenario where I'm not playing at home, with mic's and other instruments within reach...and because some people playing may have only a bass, or another single instrument.

 

 

My SO has a violin and a ukelele that I am frequently left alone with.  The ukelele tuning is a bit special as I recall it.  The strings are not linear in progression, meaning they don't range from high to low, they go highest, lowest, lower, higher.  Is this the problem for RS, in that the range of acceptable tunings, it kinda expects an ordered string progression?...which kinda locks out the ukelele until such time as a Ukelele tuning is configured by Ubisoft?  

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@@1ndy : Let's see if it's possible!

 

Ukulele tuning in the order of the strings : G4 C4 E4 A4

The bass tuning is : E1 A1 D2 G2

 

So it would go something like that for the tuning in EOF :

+3 -9  -10 -10

G1 C1  E1  A1

And then Set the A so that RS look 3 octave higher, so it should be 440*8 = 3520

 

I think that should allow anybody to play ukulele in Rocksmith

 

It would be impossible if we would have to go over -11 or +11 in EOF on one of the strings but as you can see the highest difference is -10 so it's possible.

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@@firekorn.

 

OK/cool.  It seems there is a bit of a knowledge gap on my part about this, as much of what you indicated is currently outside what I immediately understand.  

 

But from my experience gathered in playing bass as lead, where I tune up playing (E12, A12, D12, G12, G16, G21 (uh I think)) as Standard tuning, I think I should be make some progress.  A tuned instrument should play the right note, it's a question of how high or low that instrument's register(?) is....it seems there is a notation, but not (yet) known to me.

 

I think my first task before trying to work out how to run & possibly seek the latest versions of any of the software needed to tab & package, will be to see if I can get an existing track to correctly detect some transposed notes (high & low) played from ukelele via the mic I have.  If I can't get my hardware to do this, then there is no point attempting to re-wrangle all that software into some form of working order, as it was  a bit painful last time for reasons of OSX.  (Is there an overlap between the register of a ukelele and those of guitar, or bass?)

 

I might even have a go at following down the violin path, to what observations can be made, before the EOF steps for ukelele (&/or brass).

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First off, the number i indicate is actually the octave on the Hertz basis and not the fret number.

I invite you to look at this chart to get a litlle more comprehension about this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_%28music%29

 

When we talk about the A440 we actually designate the frequency of the A4 at 440Hz.

 

Yes guitar and ukulele overlap, the full range of a guitar tuned in E standard with 24 fret would be from E2 to E6. So all open strings on an ukulele are playable on a guitar.

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Yeah I guessed that notation you are using for string tuning was not a fret value...How should I be specifying the string & fret value pair?  Is there a common way eg E-22 being the 22nd fret on the A String?

 

Messing around first with the classic guitar (to get dialed-in) and then the ukelele, I found that the mic and interface seems to be suitably sensitive for Rocksmith and noted the following in terms of RS detecting the notes I played on the ukelele. 

 

The guitar e-string seems to match the uekelele E-string...as far as the uekele frets exist.

The guitar B-string from fret 1 matches the ukelele C-string.

The guitar G-string from frets 12-24 seems to match ukelele G-string.

and the Ukelele A string seemed to match the guitar B-string from frets 12-24.

 

Rocksmith didn't seem to detect me transposing notes from one string to the next, though at times the reliability of Rocksmith to determine that a note was successfully played was perhaps a bit lover than normal, but part of this could simply be bass player fingers not quite being nimble enough.

 

My intent was not to simply just try to make ukelele work against RS, beginning to understand (through hands-on experience) the likes of how the various instruments register's are related/overlap is for me something that I really happy to gain further comprehension of.

 

So I think the next steps are for me to see if EOF still runs, then to look at the way tuning is configured and tab a small series of notes on the ukelele, make an audio recording of that sequence , convert the audio and package. 

 

Is Squid's "How to make CDLC" video still an OK way to guide oneself through the process, or has it been superseded?...As I recall the difference in volume between the instructions (quiet) and the track being packaged (loud) made it a bit confortable to watch. 

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RS only look for fundamental frequency when he hear a song (it's probably a bit more complex for chords but the basics principle stay the same) so the instrument won't matter since the fundamental frequency will always be the same when you play the exact same note.

 

To have a first look at how different instrument relate to each other whe talking about musical range, the link i gave above can be a good start since it contains all the basic information you need to understand it.

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So I've recorded a small audio file (9 seconds with a few notes on each string), which has been imported in EOF as an ogg file.

Initially I've selected "real_bass", because it has the correct number of strings and that is what I have done most frequently in the past. I have viewed the waveform and it looks as I think it should.

 

Looking at the EOF manual, it seems the tuning data is contained in the "Pro Guitar > Set Tuning" menu?

 

The "Edit guitar tuning" pop-up begins as: 

String 1   0   G

String 2   0   D

String 3   0   A

String 4   0   E

 

I've updated to the following values as it nominally seems to meet my expectations regarding standard ukelele tuning...and I suspect there might be a gap between getting the string labels more than nominally correct and being on the right register.

String 1   2   A

String 2   2   E

String 3   3   C

String 4   3   G

 

Currently the Tuning is identified as "unknown".

 

Ideas?

 

Anyway as I've got to head out, I've pushed the mp3 file up to Soundcloud.

https://soundcloud.com/blinky-bagger/ukelele-test-for-rs

 

I think it was the following

A  ---------------------2,3,2-----------------------

E  --------------- 3,5--------5,3-------------------

C ---------2,4,5------------------5,4,2----------- 

G --2,4,5---------------------------------5,4,2---

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Ukulele tuning in the order of the strings : G4 C4 E4 A4

The bass tuning is : E1 A1 D2 G2

 

So it would go something like that for the tuning in EOF :

+3 -9  -10 -10

G1 C1  E1  A1

And then Set the A so that RS look 3 octave higher, so it should be 440*8 = 3520

 

EOF doesn't indicate the octave number so the way you've set the tuning will lead in a problem with one string being at the wrong octave.

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EOF doesn't indicate the octave number so the way you've set the tuning will lead in a problem with one string being at the wrong octave.

 

 

Sadly I'm unable to either refute, or confirm what you've said, as it's outside my understanding.

 

How to proceed isn't clear to me, but perhaps you know what I should try...Is it one of the following?

   - Try a non-standard ukelele tuning...though I am wary that this may significantly reduce the value to ukelele people.

   - Set the track to "real_guitar", update the number of strings to 4 via the "Track > Pro Guitar > Set number of fret/strings" menu? 

            - the mapping of notes to strings may be really a bit odd from a RS recognising the note.  

   - The notes tabbed are an indication to the player of what should be played, not what RS will recognise for some strings.

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what i would do would be :

Use a real bass part in EOF

Define the tuning as i said earlier

Mapping the note as you are going to play them in EOF.

Set the correct A4 frequency in the toolkit when creating the cdlc.

????

Profit!

 

 

   - The notes tabbed are an indication to the player of what should be played, not what RS will recognise for some strings.

Well, it seems likes it is a bit confused. The notes tabbed are always the indication of what the player should do but also of what RS should hear (recognize). RS rely on the tuning and the A4 frequency to know what he should hear which should be the same thing than what the player is actually playing if he follow correctly the tab and when he is correctly tuned.

 

Here some piece of information to help you put it all together :

E standard guitar tuning with A4=440 = E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4

E standard bass tuning with A4=440 = E1 A1 D2 G2

Ukulele standard tuning with A4=440 = G4 C4 E4 A4

E standard guitar tuning with A4=220 = E3 A3 D4 G4 B4 E5

E standard guitar tuning with A4=880 = E1 A1 D2 G2 B2 E3

All those tuning are indicated from the lowest strings to the highest.

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@@firekorn

 

Before seeing your response I tried to just keep going, as it's been a good 5 or 6 months since I last tried any of the EOF, WWise and CustomToolKit-creator stuff....which has refreshed my memory about how painful I found this process on a Mac.

 

I got as far as attempting to add the Arrangement/Song XML file, which seems to hang, but at least I think I can see the boxes to specify the tuning information...I'm getting a stack overflow about being unable to get the arrangement XML and prompt whether the EOF version is up to date.

 

The "Arrangement Information" area has a drop-down of tunings populated and by the looks of it a file picker.

The "Tuning Pitch" has a Frequency value that by the looks of it, I can update, but unsure if edit is provided to other items in this box. 

 

I'll get back onto this in the morning.

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So if the note/chord evaluation part of Rocksmith for ukelele is initially ignored (until such time as the special tuning part is overcome...and by this I mean one, other, or perhaps both of the following. Ubisoft make a change to add the ukelele tuning to the RS front-end, that the RSTK also has a ukelele tunings (& appropriately specified in Hz) added), the ukelele players are dependent on using their ears to evaluate how they are playing.

 

This would enable to the ukelele fiends to:

     - have the fun of playing along

     - learn the notes

     - get the timing

     - transpose notes across the strings

 

If people are into ukelele content in terms of community response, it may provide some pressure/commercial motivation for the proper tunings to be developed, released.

 

The other factors that I see in this kludge, are: 

 

     - making it easy to complete whatever irrelevant tuning-screen on a real instrument needs to occur (or enabling a quick way to gain access to the "tuning failed" screen with it's handy "continue anyway" bypass)

      - allowing ukelele CDLC to be made as easily as possible, both manually & by importing a gp file (which may involve trans-bastardising another instrument's gp file....and I think the people that have done lots of CDLC will understand this best).

 

Bearing that in mind.

   What decisions/changes should be avoided so as to eliminate unnecessary complications for potential ukelele CDLC makers and players?  eg just accept standard bass tuning, which can be emulated on guitar, but unless the total bypass of tuning-screen can occur won't allow people to proceed without the presence of a guitar, or bass (a bit shit if you've only taken your RS running laptop & ukelele with you). 

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I invite you to look at this chart to get a litlle more comprehension about this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_%28music%29

 

When we talk about the A440 we actually designate the frequency of the A4 at 440Hz.

 

Yes guitar and ukulele overlap, the full range of a guitar tuned in E standard with 24 fret would be from E2 to E6. So all open strings on an ukulele are playable on a guitar.

 

Just been looking at that diagram of the relative ranges.

When I was testing my mic' to see if RS would identify the tones from the ukelele, I had been thinking about what would the diagram of the ukelele register mapped to the guitar register look like.

 

The following is supposed to represent the neck of a guitar.

 

       0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10   11  12  13   14   15  16  17   18   19    20    21   22  23  24 (25)     

e    -U--K--E--L--E--L--E---"E"---S-T-R-I-N-G-| ---U--K--E--L--E--L--E---"G "----S-T-R-I-N-G (a guess)

B   *** |--U--K--E--L--E--L--E--"C"--S-T-R-I-N-G-|   --U--K--E--L--E--L--E----"A"-----S-T-R-I-N-G- - - - - - - 

G----------------------------| transposed ukelele C string = guiar B +6 frets| transposed ukelele A string = guitar B + 6 frets 

D------------------------------------------------| transposed ukelele C string = guiar B +11 frets| transp ukel A string = guitar B + 11 frets 

A-----------------------------------------------------------------------------| transposed ukelele C string = guitar B +16 frets

E ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| transposed ukelele C string = guiar B +21 frets

 

I think this tells me that if any ukelele players are masters of transposing guitar to ukelele tab on the fly, it's kinda possible to have RS recognise the notes played on a ukelele (using RS's e & B guitar strings as mapped above)....but I could be totally wrong. ;-)

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The E standard guitar tuning give the following note E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4 and the ukulele tuning is G4 C4 E4 A4

Obvisouly at first sight, the E4 of the guitar will correspond to the E4 of the ukulele

The note order being the following Cx C#x Dx D#x Ex Fx F#x Gx G#x Ax A#x Bx Cx+1 x being the number correspond to the octave.

You can easily see that the B3 strings of the guitar on the first fret will give you a C4 which correspond to C strings of the ukulele.

 

6th strings of the guitar = 3d strings of the ukulele = 5th fret of the 5th strings of the guitar

5th strings of the guitar at fret 1 = 2nd strings of the ukulele = 5th fret of the 4th strings of the guitar

4th strings of the guitar at fret 12 = 1st strings of the ukulele = 8th fret of the 5th strings of the guitar = 3d fret of the 6th strings of the guitar

for the ukulele A strings it is a bit less obvious than the other because using the 2nd strings would result of using the 24 fret... but using the 6th strings of the guitar is perfectly fine since the 5th fret will give you a A4

 

But transposing is something really complicated especcialy when you have to do it on the fly.

 

It's perfectly possible for RS to recognize an ukulele i never doubt it.

 

If you send to me your test song and the corresponding tab for the ukulele i can create it quickly for you.

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So I've just uploaded a bunch of files to 

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/9a0ld1d2nuqdr/uke_test

 

The original audio is here

https://soundcloud.com/blinky-bagger/ukelele-test-for-rs

 

And was simply

 

 

A  ---------------------2,3,2-----------------------

E  --------------- 3,5--------5,3-------------------

C ---------2,4,5------------------5,4,2----------- 

G --2,4,5---------------------------------5,4,2---

 

Though in EOF I added a powerchord that doesn't exist in the audio file...just for the hell of it at the end.

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@@firekorn

What do you know about the Tuning Screen in RS itself?  

Can it be reached if the is no RS-cable detected?  

Is their a shortcut to the "tuning failed" prompt, or does the user have to fail "X" number of times before getting the option to continue anyway?

 

I would like to be able to use 2 player mode without a second cable.  So a friend can play along as lead, or rhythm, with no interest in score and no need for RS to amplify their instrument.

It would be quite a nice way of being able to compare what the various instruments are up to at the same time. eg adding a fill here, or there, or doubling up on the lead to give a phrase a bit more emphasis.

 

I also just improvise playing an amplified bass, whilst the RS is showing me the lead guitar, just to have an indication of the timing & (typically high or low) notes expected, so I can then try to suit them a bit better.  It also means that for tracks that I like that don't have a bass, I can play along in a not completely tuneless manner...mostly tuneless tho ;-)

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@@1ndy : Let's see if it's possible!

 

Ukulele tuning in the order of the strings : G4 C4 E4 A4

The bass tuning is : E1 A1 D2 G2

 

So it would go something like that for the tuning in EOF :

+3 -9  -10 -10

G1 C1  E1  A1

And then Set the A so that RS look 3 octave higher, so it should be 440*8 = 3520

 

I think that should allow anybody to play ukulele in Rocksmith

 

It would be impossible if we would have to go over -11 or +11 in EOF on one of the strings but as you can see the highest difference is -10 so it's possible.

This is correct.

 

Maybe I can help with understanding this ukulele transposition process, since it isn't much different from violin with respect to EOF.

 

Because the bass is the only 4 stringed instrument available in rocksmith, you will need to make rocksmith think you are playing in the correct octave for a bass with custom tuning.

 

As Firekorn stated previously, standard tuning for the bass is E1, A1, D2, G2.  Imagine that you are tuning a bass to match Ukulele tuning:  G1, C1, E1, A1.  Because the 4th string (G) is in the same octave and is above as the standard tuning of E, you cannot reach G2 as the first offset, being limited to +/- 11.  Therefore you must make all strings in the 1st octave.  What may confuse someone that isn't familiar with octave rules in music, is that this isn't the alphabet where A is the first in the set.  An octave starts at C, and as you go up the chromatic scale, B is the last note in this octave.

 

So lets break it down:

Target note --- Starting note

 

A1      =            G2 -10 half steps (F#,F,E,D#,D,C#,C,B,A#,A,) counting backward from G to reach A

E1      =            D2 -10  half steps (C#,C,B,A#,A,G#,G,F#,F,E,) counting backward from D to reach E

C1      =            A1 -9 half steps (G#,G,F#,F,E,D#,D,C#,C) counting backward from A to reach C

G1      =           E1+3 half steps (F, F#, G)

 

In EOF, select the bass track that contains the chart and go to Track / ProGuitar -> Set tuning.

It should look like this:

http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/042d/qflv36y44xr836efg.jpg

 

Assuming you have imported a tab file into EOF, odds are that the tab is already correct for the actual notes being played.  If EOF prompts you to transpose the notes, be sure to say "NO" if you know that your tab's fingering is correct for ukulele.

 

Now into RSCT you add the arrangement for your bass (ukulele) instrument.  If the tuning was already set up in EOF, the arrangement settings should look something like this by default:

 

The drop-down list right below the instrument name is for tuning.  If you click the [...] button just to the right of the drop-down, you can see the tuning Rocksmith will expect to see.  I personally wouldn't recommend changing it here.  The toolkit always shows the tuning for all 6 strings even on bass.  This is normal.

http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/4eb2/l8fw9zlg88b5k6mfg.jpg

 

The tuning pitch field is where you define the core frequency for the instrument.  This is by default A4 (440) and RS will base your lowest note off of that core frequency.  Because the bass is known to be in the A1 register, you are 3 octaves down.  This is where it gets tricky.

 

You have to make rocksmith think that you are playing 3 octaves below the core frequency, so you must increase the core frequency.  The math of this is simple.  You DOUBLE the current frequency each time that you go up by 1 octave.

 

440x2 = 880

880x2 = 1760

1760x2 = 3520

 

The calculation suggests that 3520 is the core frequency you must select.  However, my experience with making customs for violin suggest to me that you should select 1760, given that the lowest note on a violin is also G4.  This note corresponds to the 10th fret on the A string of a standard tuned guitar.  I'd give 1760 a try and see if you can get past the tuning step on your ukulele.  If not, try the 3520. 

 

It should be noted that Rocksmith is going to think you're playing the song correctly even if you're a fret above or below on the ukulele if you have to use 3520.  This is because the interval analysis is based around a '100 cents' scale, and 440 is the foundation for the computer's calculation by default.  If you set the core frequency to 3520, this also will affect the value of 1 cent.  It will still correctly identify the 'correct' note but if you miss a note, the game may say you've played it correctly. 

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@@1ndy : I think i know all their is to know about that tuning screen, no shortcut unless you modify the game itself, there is some crack around allowing people to play with no cable, it's not what i would suggest in the first place and i won't link to anything here for obvious reason but it does exist and works.

 

About that tuning failed prompt, i don't think they offer any shorcut since it's part of the way you are supposed to use the game in the first place. The most obvious way to get pass the tuning screen from what i know is to actually validate the tuning once and stay with that tuning since RS will only ask you to tune the first time. The other way would be to work in those game file to see if their is a way to change the code of the game but that's out of my skill.

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Thanks for the help and info about the tuning screen.  Rocksmith is awesome and I want people to enjoy it and I want others to understand what good value it is and how it could help them have fun and improve in their music practice for which they need to pay Ubisoft money.

 

I'm absolutely not advocating any unauthorised changes under the hood of RS and would like Ubisoft to understand that the ukelele market is pretty close from their existing product and appears a pretty lucrative addition to their product...perhaps even people are saying "shut-up and take my money"...but at the end of the day it is their (Ubisoft) call.

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http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/042d/qflv36y44xr836efg.jpg

 

 

Thanks for the info.  I'll have a look at editing the guitar tuning, I didn't have much success with any values other than positive integers yesterday, but I'll check it again.

 

This stuff is really quite extraordinarily painful as I'm using a Macbook. Not much works smoothly, EOF has no mp3, support, setting a delay, Wwise, which is why after initially learning the basics, I had put CDLC development at a lower priority than learning to play more competently.

 

I'll have a look at it in the morning, because I'm curious about how the turnings have been modelled in the software and it helps me gain an appreciation of music theory that I am otherwise blissfully unaware of.

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Last night I managed to get a webcam set-up as the Real Tone cable.  I did this for 2 reasons.

 

1.  Many instruments are entirely acoustic and would be just as cool to play in RS and think people who have instruments that are not already officially available in RS should be telling Ubisoft, they want to play & pay to play too.

2.  I wanted to see if could get multiplayer mode to run, to display a second highway and I needed to pass the tuning screen on a 2nd instrument.

 

The steps that I took were based on what I did to get an Apogee Jam interface set-up as the Real Tone Cable on my Macbook.  (I already had the Jam before I got RS).  No mucking around on RS side either.

The Jam is shipped with 2 cables, 1 is for OSX/Macbook, the 2nd is for the IPad, IPad users usally being one of the more exciting demographics for software sales.  Perhaps a good addition to the platforms that RS is made available upon?...but not my call, I've satisfied my curiosity.   

 

When using the (Logitech, so not a built in one) webcam as interface, I was able to tune up on Classic guitar and also had ukelele notes successfully recognised by RS, but RS grumbled a bit about being too loud and calibration was not happy either.  Much echo, distortion before actually starting to play, then it settles down.

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Well the mic you're using if we can actually call it a mic will always induce some echo or distortion because of it's quality. When i've tried to play some bass part with my trombone, i used a shure SM58 and i didn't get any distortion or echo issue and the calibration was easy and quick.

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  • 2 months later...

For those that are interested, and to answer the most commonly asked questions I receive via private message, I uploaded a new video this evening:

 

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