I have a question which has been bothering me and I can't find an answer in the forums.

 

When I charter a song, I need to decide whether to develop separate lead and rhythm tracks.  If the tracks are virtually identical, or if there is only one obvious choice (a solo acoustic number, for example), I only chart one track.  

 

I would have thought that the Rocksmith song charters would do the same thing, and sometimes they do (most Rush songs don't have a rhythm track, for example).  But sometimes  they cram an additional rhythm track in there for no reason.  For example, Heart Shaped Box has identical lead and rhythm tracks.  Why would they do this?  It is a waste of time to play through another track just to discover out that it is identical to a track that I have already played on the same song.

 

I know this isn't a big deal, it just bothers me and I wasn't sure if I was missing some logic here.

I think they do with songs like Heart-Shaped Box so that if you chose to take the Rhythm path you can still play the song without switching paths.  The song doesn't fit the traditional profile of a song with a lead track, since there is no complicated solo or lead riffs or fills played over a rhythm track, so it fits into both paths nicely.

 

Since RS is a teaching tool, I think the original intention was for users to pick one path (Lead or Rhythm) and stick with it.  So if you wanted to learn how to be a rhythm guitar player, you choose the rhythm path and base your learning on that path.  I think that's also why the missions are doled out differently for each path.  

 

I also think that the dynamic difficulty stats are different for each path, but I can't say for sure on that one though, because I switch back and forth depending on the song and using customs also has a tendency to break DD levelling anyway.

 

 

I would actually welcome seeing charters take songs that only have 1 guitar part and charting it for both paths.  It would be pretty simple to do, since all you would have to do is chart it once and then copy it over to the other path.

 

 

However, having said all of that.... they could have put the same guitar track into both paths because sometimes they just do weird shit with the songs.  Take a look at the bonus lead for In Bloom for example.  It takes out all of the power chords and just has you play the roots notes from each chord.

Wepeel, thanks for the response.

 

It certainly would be very easy for charters like myself to copy a song with only 1 track (e.g., lead) to the another track (rhythm), so that both tracks are identical.  I just haven't been doing that because, as I state above, I get frustrated when I waste time playing an identical track.  But my method may be different from most.  I try to play every track (lead, rhythm, and bass) from every song.  I hadn't considered your thought about people who stick with just one path.

 

It would be interesting to hear from others on what would be the preferred approach.

It also annoys me because I mostly play the rhythm first and then the lead afterwards, and it gets pretty boring when they are identical.

I play only the lead part, unless i'm really testing out a CDLC which is mostly for my own CDLC so i bassically don't bother with CDLC without lead because i'm just too lazy to switch path for one song when there's so many other i can play without switching path.