I don't know if this is the right place for my topic, if it isn't mods please move it.

 

Since most of the CDLC songs have no DD and start at maximum difficulty its interesting to compare performance when you play both guitar and bass.

 

I have been playing for 3 years and although I consider myself in a place between newbie and intermediate most people (including a couple of incredibly good guitar players) say that my achievements are awesome for someone that pick up the guitar really late since I'm 32 yo. 

 

I'm a perfectionist and I always think that I can do better or I'm not good enough yet, I know that its not the best mindset and its wrong but its just how I am.

 

Some friends and my girlfriend think that I don't value my skills and I'm not aware of them because I see great virtuosos and famous players and I think that I still have a loooong, really long way to go to even come close. Maybe this kind of though is common between guitar players or musicians in general.

 

I have been playing bass also for less than a year only thanks to RS since I didn't found bass fun to just play along, RS allowed me to play bass in a musical context and that's were the bass should be played, of course same thing with guitar but you can play guitar alone with no music and backing tracks and still will be fun, exciting and challenging.

 

What caught my attention is that most of the bass arrangements I play I got 95% or more on the first try and with the Cldc guitar arrangements I'm not doing that good with some songs, mainly cause of fast leads or unknown chords. I'm having an average of 70, 80% more a less, depends on the song of course.

 

Do you guys think that bass arrangements are easier than guitar ones? What is the opinion from the players that do both? Maybe I'm more bass material than guitar material, I love both, I play several hours a day and If I go out on weekends or whatever I cant go without my classical guitar, they say that I'm guitar obsessed haha

The thing with bass is that it's an instrument that requires more of a "feel" to it.

A lot of the bass charts are very simple to hit every note in, but if you heard yourself play the same bassline outside of the game's context, with your bass isolated from the rest of the music, you might be shocked at how much worse it sounds than you would've expected. (But gosh, is it fun)

The thing with bass is that it's an instrument that requires more of a "feel" to it.

A lot of the bass charts are very simple to hit every note in, but if you heard yourself play the same bassline outside of the game's context, with your bass isolated from the rest of the music, you might be shocked at how much worse it sounds than you would've expected. (But gosh, is it fun)

I couldn't agree more. I have been playing acoustic guitar for about three years, electric guitar for about a year or so, bass only since January and only in Rocksmith. Most of my guitar percentages in RS are like piepesado's or worse...mostly 70s, a few 80s and a couple 90s, but not many. My bass progress, however, is much better with most tracks in the high 80s and 90s with a few +100s.

 

Mutant John's point became very clear to me when I tried the CDLC for Jammin' by Bob Marley (created by UKLooney, I believe). It's a relatively simple track and I think I hit +95% on my first try. However, hitting all the notes correctly is only half the battle as my ears quickly pointed out. If you don't have the groove down in this song, it just sounds like a string of notes...definitely not Jammin'. Just goes to show you that 'simple' is definitely not the same as 'easy'. :wink:

 

 

sleepy

@@Mutant John and @@sleepy Thanks for you're answers, they are very helpful, and I agree that bass is more locking into the groove and feel, not only playing the right notes at the right time.

 

Will play Jamming again hehe, its all about the groove!!

The thing with bass is that it's an instrument that requires more of a "feel" to it.

A lot of the bass charts are very simple to hit every note in, but if you heard yourself play the same bassline outside of the game's context, with your bass isolated from the rest of the music, you might be shocked at how much worse it sounds than you would've expected. (But gosh, is it fun)

 

I entirely agree with you. I had a couple of years in my 20's playing bass, I'm in my 40's now and you are right. Hitting the notes on many bass lines is easy. Playing it with all the subtleties and cleanly is a whole other challenge. I think and this is just my opinion that anyone who really wants to play a bass or guitar for that matter should have a practice amp. I use my dean to play the game but I often plug my washburn into the amp and play along with the game to hear how I'm truly sounding. If you are not doing this you may be surprised at how your playing really sounds.

 

A good example of this is Daft Punk Something About Us. While an extremely simple bass line, it requires some very precise playing to sound good because the bass is so prominent. I found that playing it with a light pop and quick soft mutes gives the song a nice sound. However, everyone has their own style and what they think sounds good.

Well, as an experienced bass player (23 years of playing) i have to mention that

 

a) sone of the songs, and that even includes some originals and official dlc's, have somewhat incomplete bass lines. You can hear that where the notes in RS tell you to play for example the root note of a chord for a whole measure, the bass in the backing track sometomes actually moves - sometimes even a lot. That may just be a low fifth or an octave, but sometimes whole runs are simply not transscribed. The reason is imho that the bass lines in the guitar pro files (which i also use) are not correctly made, so no offense to our cdlc creators.

 

b) a lot depends on the songs you choose to play. If you're mainly into mainstream stuff the bass is quite often pretty much straight root notes in a simple rythm. Sometimes there are some ear friendly runs, but even then its kept rather simple.

 

c) picking speed on the bass is most of the time a lot slower than on the guitar

 

d) there are almost no chords in the bass lines

 

e) to quote my bass teacher: "you earn your money with the first fife frets". A lot of arrangements in RS can be rearranged on the fly to be played exactly there. Why jump to the tenth fret on the e string when you can play an open d string instead if not for a slide?

 

f) much better fretboard overview on the bass than on a guitar

 

g) a bassists job isnt to shine or pose or show off. It's carrying the music in conjunction with the drummer.

 

That said, you might wanna try some arrangements from chili peppers or early, buton aera Metallica if you want a challange on the bass. There are others, but i'm at work and dont have access to the song list of RS.

Some typos..blame the phone keyboard ;)

Well, as an experienced bass player (23 years of playing) i have to mention thata) sone of the songs, and that even includes some originals and official dlc's, have somewhat incomplete bass lines. You can hear that where the notes in RS tell you to play for example the root note of a chord for a whole measure, the bass in the backing track sometomes actually moves - sometimes even a lot. That may just be a low fifth or an octave, but sometimes whole runs are simply not transscribed. The reason is imho that the bass lines in the guitar pro files (which i also use) are not correctly made, so no offense to our cdlc creators. B) a lot depends on the songs you choose to play. If you're mainly into mainstream stuff the bass is quite often pretty much straight root notes in a simple rythm. Sometimes there are some ear friendly runs, but even then its kept rather simple.c) picking speed on the bass is most of the time a lot slower than on the guitard) there are almost no chords in the bass linese) to quote my bass teacher: "you earn your money with the first fife frets". A lot of arrangements in RS can be rearranged on the fly to be played exactly there. Why jump to the tenth fret on the e string when you can play an open d string instead if not for a slide?f) much better fretboard overview on the bass than on a guitarg) a bassists job isnt to shine or pose or show off. It's carrying the music in conjunction with the drummer.That said, you might wanna try some arrangements from chili peppers or early, buton aera Metallica if you want a challange on the bass. There are others, but i'm at work and dont have access to the song list of RS.

 

I have noticed missing lines often with the bass lines in the cdlc's also. Many times there are (as you said) sustained notes over obvious lines. I try to pick them up and play them, lowers my score usually but at least I'm playing the songs.  I don't use the game when working on scales and other practice. I like a backing track for that, I found Scott Devine has some great ones for free on his site. Nice high hat and bass drum leads to follow.

 

In any case it's a long road ahead but I'm having a great time working on it. :-)

I don't know if this is the right place for my topic, if it isn't mods please move it.

 

I'm a perfectionist and I always think that I can do better or I'm not good enough yet, I know that its not the best mindset and its wrong but its just how I am.

 

Some friends and my girlfriend think that I don't value my skills and I'm not aware of them because I see great virtuosos and famous players and I think that I still have a loooong, really long way to go to even come close. Maybe this kind of though is common between guitar players or musicians in general.

 

 

I have this. It's similar to body dysmorphia, like what drives certain people into anorexia. I listen to other people play and think they sound great. When I listen to myself, I can hear only flaws -- but other people really enjoy what I do.

 

I wasn't bothered by this when I was a young punk - I just went up on stage and played and didn't give a shit. This only developed as I got older. At a certain point, I even got too stressed out to bring a guitar on stage with me (I'm a singer first)... In my last band, I wrote all my guitar parts specifically to keep my stress levels lows (very easy riffs).

 

I started out a bass player, but switched to guitar because it's much more difficult to sing while playing bass... hats off to Sting and Phil Lynott!

Well, as an experienced bass player (23 years of playing) i have to mention thata) sone of the songs, and that even includes some originals and official dlc's, have somewhat incomplete bass lines. You can hear that where the notes in RS tell you to play for example the root note of a chord for a whole measure, the bass in the backing track sometomes actually moves - sometimes even a lot. That may just be a low fifth or an octave, but sometimes whole runs are simply not transscribed. The reason is imho that the bass lines in the guitar pro files (which i also use) are not correctly made, so no offense to our cdlc creators. B) a lot depends on the songs you choose to play. If you're mainly into mainstream stuff the bass is quite often pretty much straight root notes in a simple rythm. Sometimes there are some ear friendly runs, but even then its kept rather simple.c) picking speed on the bass is most of the time a lot slower than on the guitard) there are almost no chords in the bass linese) to quote my bass teacher: "you earn your money with the first fife frets". A lot of arrangements in RS can be rearranged on the fly to be played exactly there. Why jump to the tenth fret on the e string when you can play an open d string instead if not for a slide?f) much better fretboard overview on the bass than on a guitarg) a bassists job isnt to shine or pose or show off. It's carrying the music in conjunction with the drummer.That said, you might wanna try some arrangements from chili peppers or early, buton aera Metallica if you want a challange on the bass. There are others, but i'm at work and dont have access to the song list of RS.

 

I can relate with this. I've been playing bass off and on for almost 35 years now. Mainstream music tends to have bass lines that are not as difficult as the guitar. As already stated, usually just peddeling around the chord root.

 

But there is an awful lot of music that has extremely challenging bass in it, if that what you're looking for. Specifically in the Prog and Fusion Jazz genres, along with some Arena Rock bands. Try some songs by The Who, Yes, Rush, Jethro Tull, Kansas, ELP, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Return To Forever, Weather Report, Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment, Transatlantic, Spock's Beard, Tool, etc..., and you will probably quickly change your opinion to the bass being a very complex instrument to play. All in my opinon, of course. hehe... :)

I played guitar (badly) for many years, but I switched to bass about 18 months ago, and what I like about the difficulty is that it's much more gradual.

 

In other words, you can find songs at pretty much any difficulty level from trivial to insane, whereas with (lead) guitar, it's usually easy/medium riffs coupled with very difficult solos. So you either stick to the riffs, or invest some major sweat in the riff repeater to be able to play solos, which for me is not that fun, and besides, I don't have that kind of free time anymore. With the bass, you can always find a song you can play in its entirety, perhaps with a couple of mistakes. It's very rare that I have to go to the riff repeater and work on a single phrase for any extended period of time. With more difficult songs, I slow them down to 80-90% to learn them first, (@100% difficulty) then increase the speed slowly up to 100%.

@@PhamNuwen You make a great point. I've only been playing bass for two months and was surprised that I could pretty much just start playing songs from day one (started with Pour Some Sugar on Me) and gradually work my way up in difficulty. The list of songs that I can play reasonably well is much larger on bass than on guitar, and I feel that list is also expanding much more quickly.

 

 

sleepy

i have been playing for 5 months and i can usually get 70% or more on songs first try. The harder more seasoned guitar songs i tend to get 50% or less. I feel this is good progress. I started full speed on slightly stoopid closer to the sun and have got up to 80%, it goes to show how important RR is.

 My nephew has been playing bass for a little less time and i have noticed that alot of his parts seem to be easier to get down after a couple of play throughs.

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...

A lot of insightful comments here.  Having played some campfire guitar before, I've been playing bass for about a year now (about 70% in RS vs 30% jamming with a friend on guitar) and to date I've found bass to be much easier (caveats about high scores vs. capturing the nuance noted).  I've played a number of band/orchestra instruments for 20+ years, and the (primarily) single note nature of the bass has made it easy to transfer a lot of my existing musical knowledge.  I "get" guitar parts, but I don't "feel" them the way I do with a bass line.  Bass just seems to flow, limited only by my technical ability.  I've often wondered if guitar would be easier had I played piano or another multi-tonal instrument.  Any thoughts?

About BASS:

 

I started bass playing just about 10 months ago and now for about 300 CDLC's and DLC's I played in RS2014 most of them I played with over 93% accuracy,

 

about 70 songs from this I played with 100% accuracy

200 or more songs I played with over 93% accuracy

 

remaining I played less than 93% accuracy

(about 15 songs the worst accuracy I got were from 80% to 90% accuracy, but I think if I play them more I can get for all of them over 90% accuracy)

I do not know if there is any song I got below 80% accuracy at this time (before there were few), but rather not :)

 

Need to add that I do not have only easy songs to play :lol:

 

:lol:

for guitar not so good results, I need to train more guitar, there are few songs I got under 60% accuracy for guitar (for most of the songs for lead and rhythm I got about 70% to 90%, for some I got over 95%)

:lol: :lol:

I played guitar for a few years when I was younger and really wasn't any good - my mate and I started a band and because he was the better guitarist I started to play bass. While at first I found it really hard i did get that feel and when playing with my drummer we got really tight. Now even with hours of Rocksmith on guitar I still don't feel that comfortable as I do on bass. Maybe cos I am a big guy so its easier to play four thick strings but for me bass is more about feeling the rhythm and transmitting it through your instrument than say the guitar. I feel part of the song more when playing bass - guitar I feel like I am just trying to play along with someone else.

like Milkmandan, when i started playing guitar (with rocksmith 2012) 2 - 2 1/2 years ago, i was severely chord challenged, i still am in a lot of ways, but about a year ago, i ended up buying my bass off an acquaintance of mine here in T.O  and the more I play it, the more I love it.  when it comes to rocksmith 2014, I have about 400 + songs on my list already,  and depending on how well i know the song (I find music ive heard a few times is infinately easier to play then a song ive never heard before and trying to figure the notes out even from rocksmith) my first try can land me in the 95s  - 100% on easy songs, more complex ones, usually with large shifts down the board for one reason or another, it usually takes me longer.

 

but most of the others covered the main points.  Guitar tends to be simplified into chords more then single notes, until solos.  Bass playing is more like playing a long solo through the whole song, for good bassists anyway

Well, as an experienced bass player (23 years of playing) i have to mention thata) sone of the songs, and that even includes some originals and official dlc's, have somewhat incomplete bass lines. You can hear that where the notes in RS tell you to play for example the root note of a chord for a whole measure, the bass in the backing track sometomes actually moves - sometimes even a lot. That may just be a low fifth or an octave, but sometimes whole runs are simply not transscribed. The reason is imho that the bass lines in the guitar pro files (which i also use) are not correctly made, so no offense to our cdlc creators. B) a lot depends on the songs you choose to play. If you're mainly into mainstream stuff the bass is quite often pretty much straight root notes in a simple rythm. Sometimes there are some ear friendly runs, but even then its kept rather simple.c) picking speed on the bass is most of the time a lot slower than on the guitard) there are almost no chords in the bass linese) to quote my bass teacher: "you earn your money with the first fife frets". A lot of arrangements in RS can be rearranged on the fly to be played exactly there. Why jump to the tenth fret on the e string when you can play an open d string instead if not for a slide?f) much better fretboard overview on the bass than on a guitarg) a bassists job isnt to shine or pose or show off. It's carrying the music in conjunction with the drummer.That said, you might wanna try some arrangements from chili peppers or early, buton aera Metallica if you want a challange on the bass. There are others, but i'm at work and dont have access to the song list of RS.

I will agree with most of this. I've played bass for a good portion of my life, and so I will point out a few caveats to some of the above: for point A, I will agree with the fact that they are incomplete. I will add that this is not an unusual nor a surprising thing. Those bits you here that aren't in the line as tabbed are fills, and nearly everyone finds it easier to learn the root line first. Fills come later, and fairly naturally. For point B, I mostly agree with you. Minor quibbles is all, and thus I move on to E.

 

You're taking your teacher's comment a bit too far. Yes, those first five frets are the core of the bass player's repertoire, and as such have greater importance. This doesn't negate at all the fact that using those other frets is necessary. Yes, you can transpose most bass lines to those first five, and in the process you will tend to throw the song off.

 

Point G is the last thing I'm going to present a counterpoint to here, so let's get it out of the way. Yes, no question at all that a bassist's thing is not to be flashy and attention-grabbing ... mostly. Yes, it is a support instrument that works closely with the drums. It also, commonly, diverges from the drummer to follow the lead line for certain passages. But in a lot of cases, a large number of bands (though fewer now than in prior years) will, if the bassist is a core member, they will have a song in the set which purposely throws them (along with the other members in turn) into a spotlight solo. Then there's really neat, but uncommon, things where the bass is in fact the lead line of the song. Deep Purple's Fireball comes immediately to mind as a prime example. So, yes, even though it is more of a support instrument, there are lots and lots of exceptions, so many that I'm leaning toward it not being exceptions anymore, but instead a common divergent role of the bassist.

 

The one thing that hasn't been mentioned that I've seen is that you really need to have a good sense of timing. That is probably the most important aspect of the bass. That timing has to be spot-on always to make it sound decent, and an offshoot of that is consistency in picking. As a bassist friend of mine (happens to be an instructor; not mine, I'm self-taught, though he's given me useful tips) recently said to me, bass playing is a lot like being a human metronome most of the time.