-= Building a Guitar from Scratch with Absolutely No Woodworking Experience =-

Welcome to the CF Rocksmith 2014 Championship!

-= Week 597 =-

Cosmos theme week

=> How and Why join the Championships?
=> Rocksmith 2014 Championships rules

Previous' week Winners are:

Lead:
- Beginner: @ Willyam (61)
- Intermediate: @ Satinuke (93)
- Advanced: @ cacahuate51 (97.5)
- Masterclass: @ shaggy_malagy (96)
- God of Guitar: @ shaggy_malagy (97)

Rhythm:
- Beginner: LOST TROPHY
- Intermediate: @ Vodka (96.58)
- Advanced: @Mikson (97.34)
- Masterclass: @ cacahuate51 (94.79)
- God of Rhythm: @Mikson (97)

Bass:
- Beginner: LOST TROPHY
- Beginner Bonus: LOST TROPHY
- Intermediate: @ loudly (99.5)
- Advanced: @Mikson (98.48)
- Masterclass: @ JobwanMojo (98.99)
- God of Bass: @ jimmy655 (99.4)

 

 

Congrats to all winners. Well done!

 

 

 

This week's songs are:

Lead Path:
Beginner: Muse - Neutron Star Collision (3*) (E Standard)
Intermediate: The Blue Stones - Black Holes (Solid Ground) (4.5) (E Standard)
Advanced: Hällas - Star Rider (6) (E Standard)
Masterclass: Vektor - Destroying The Cosmos (9*) (E Standard)
God of Guitar: Paul Gilbert - Fuzz Universe (10) (E Standard) [Week 1 of 2]

Rhythm Path:
Beginner: The Blue Stones - Black Holes (Solid Ground) (3.5^) (E Standard)
Intermediate: Hällas - Star Rider (5*) (E Standard)
Advanced: Hällas - Star Rider (5) (E Standard)
Masterclass: Vektor - Destroying The Cosmos (8.5) (E Standard)

Bass Path:
Beginner: Muse - Neutron Star Collision (3*) (E Standard)
Beginner Bonus: The Blue Stones - Black Holes (Solid Ground) (3*) (E Standard)
Intermediate: Hällas - Star Rider (5.5^) (E Standard)
Advanced: Vektor - Destroying The Cosmos (7.5^) (E Standard)
Masterclass: Paul Gilbert - Fuzz Universe (8) (E Standard)

(N) - difficulty rating
(N*) - highest difficulty rating for the class (promotion to higher class possible)
(N^) - difficulty rating higher than the highest for the class (promotion possible)

Check current week Rocksmith Championship Leaderboard


You can submit your song suggestions for the championship here
NEW! - easly add songs even on your mobile!:
Add Song Suggestion

Song Suggestions List available to view here: Google Sheets Spreadsheet

Share with us your opinion on this weeks songs difficulty scores (1-10).

Do you want to host a week? Join the Championship organizing team!!!
The process is smooth and there is a tutorial as well. If you are interested, send a personal message to Rodman.

MC Lead, nice challenge!

Improvements

oh that string skipping lick is crazy hard lol

This playing was shameful 🫣 Cosmic level...

MC rhythm, fun to play fast thrash with some nice riffs! 

Thanks so much for this chart @ Mikson  it's a blast 🌠

A5 is my enemy

Let's get back to something I can play 🙂

I'll raise diff rating here to 5.

This is beginner? That's wild

Great song, muting + rhythm are above my paygrade

can y'all add a link for the difficulty rating guide thread to the main posts? :') i always forget the # ranges

49 minutes ago, drand said:

This is beginner? That's wild

I don't quite understand what's difficult here 🤔 This chart is basically power chords and double-stops. I'm surprised that players have more problems with Muse and The Blue Stones songs than with Hallas song 😲

And now I have a callus on my middle finger on my RIGHT hand because I'm trying to play intro part of Black Holes with my fingers. I can't manage this step right here to take a pick fast. I tried to keep it in my lips and in the outer side of fingers. Lips seems faster for me.

I've played this so many times (counting tests while doing CDLC) that it's enough. I can't play this better, because I always get a few misses on the riff, but most of all I can't play the solo well enough...

Some players are close to 99% here, congratulations, too much for me.

24 minutes ago, Mikson said:

I don't quite understand what's difficult here 🤔 This chart is basically power chords and double-stops. I'm surprised that players have more problems with Muse and The Blue Stones songs than with Hallas song 😲

beg-int perspective for Muse,

hard to replicate rhythm, can’t do it rn. usually there is a baseline where i either can or can’t do a pattern, I can’t do this one. too fast, not experienced enough to do it right. from what i noticed master class players like you tend to disregard or underestimate rhythm in the difficulty i think bc once you get it, it just clicks so it’s hard to imagine not getting it

Blue Stones,

uncommon rhythm with a semi-complex muting pattern, hard to even comprehend by ear to me what’s going on or replicate accurately 

uncommon double stops combined with some quick timed changes that aren’t as sight readable to me

By comparison the Hallas song has more common chord shapes and easier to understand rhythm, feels more familiar

11 minutes ago, drand said:

beg-int perspective for Muse,

hard to replicate rhythm, can’t do it rn. usually there is a baseline where i either can or can’t do a pattern, I can’t do this one. too fast, not experienced enough to do it right. from what i noticed master class players like you tend to disregard or underestimate rhythm in the difficulty i think bc once you get it, it just clicks so it’s hard to imagine not getting it

Blue Stones,

uncommon rhythm with a semi-complex muting pattern, hard to even comprehend by ear to me what’s going on or replicate accurately 

uncommon double stops combined with some quick timed changes that aren’t as sight readable to me

By comparison the Hallas song has more common chord shapes and easier to understand rhythm, feels more familiar

Thanks for the explanation, very interesting point of reference. I am far from a masterclass player, but you are right that I do not pay much attention to rhythm, if I see a chart built of power chords, where there is no quick change of chords, I am able to play it fairly well by sight without knowing the song and it seems easy to me.

Rhythm path in Hallas song is also not complicated, but this chart itself seems more complex to me, the riff is repetitive but has to be done quickly, although I see that players have no problems with this.

Bass improvements

 

Ok regarding the Space Oddity cover it looks like everyone is waiting for me because @ cacahuate51 and @ diceslinger forced me to do it first 😆
The problem is that I didn't have much time to try to do it, I installed Reaper but I still don't understand how it works, I based it on this short description from Caca's post. Based on that I managed to record one rhythm track, I wanted to add something with Lead (mini solo) and add a Bass track, but I don't know how to combine multiple tracks.

You mentioned that you can't record while playing Rocksmith so I didn't try it, I played watching a YT video.

I'm going away for 2 days so I won't have more time to work on it this week unfortunately. I did anything to start and so you can start presenting your professional covers 😉 

Bonus from Rocksmith

Some bass

Great score on Black Holes @ Willyam !!

5 hours ago, Mikson said:

Ok regarding the Space Oddity cover it looks like everyone is waiting for me because @ cacahuate51 and @ diceslinger forced me to do it first 😆
The problem is that I didn't have much time to try to do it, I installed Reaper but I still don't understand how it works, I based it on this short description from Caca's post. Based on that I managed to record one rhythm track, I wanted to add something with Lead (mini solo) and add a Bass track, but I don't know how to combine multiple tracks.

You mentioned that you can't record while playing Rocksmith so I didn't try it, I played watching a YT video.

I'm going away for 2 days so I won't have more time to work on it this week unfortunately. I did anything to start and so you can start presenting your professional covers 😉 

Glad they forced you to do it, sounded really good for a RS Cable and reaper.

You can enter the world of Amp Sims, Modeling and Captures for free with Tonocracy  https://tonocracy.com/.  I have not used it yet, but it comes with some Neural Amp Modeler built which I have heard a lot of great things and this app looks solid, it's 100% free, so why not.

I have to go work on getting my cover started.  I think I will start by learning the song better.

Another good pass on Rhythm, this song suits my style I guess.

6 hours ago, Vodka said:

And now I have a callus on my middle finger on my RIGHT hand because I'm trying to play intro part of Black Holes with my fingers. I can't manage this step right here to take a pick fast. I tried to keep it in my lips and in the outer side of fingers. Lips seems faster for me.

May I suggest hybrid picking, just use the pick normally on the bass strings and add your callused 😁 middle finger to pick the higher strings.  

Other option is get a pick holder like  the pros have on the side of the mic stand.  When I saw Jerry Cantrell, he played Down in a Hole.  I noticed he threw the pick out every time he got to the finger picking on the verse and just quick grabbed a new one from the mic stand for the chorus.  Used like 4 or 5 picks.

On 4/1/2025 at 10:46 PM, robolechuga said:

That was a good pass, missed a couple that I think I can get another night.

 

daaamn! that 98.58 score is insane!! great job! ill have to practice that solo a ton to get to you and satinukes score.

Definatley didnt sound like a 99% but ill take it!! 😎 will try to RR it some more morrow but im honestly happy with this score

14 hours ago, Vodka said:

And now I have a callus on my middle finger on my RIGHT hand because I'm trying to play intro part of Black Holes with my fingers. I can't manage this step right here to take a pick fast. I tried to keep it in my lips and in the outer side of fingers. Lips seems faster for me.

I’m holding the pick between thumb and index as usual and use fingers 3&4 for finger picking. Then when the chords drop I just continue with the pick. It works but it feels awkward than pure fingerpicking. I saw a play through where the guitarist picks the pick lying on his leg but that looks unmanageable. 

14 hours ago, Mikson said:

Ok regarding the Space Oddity cover it looks like everyone is waiting for me because @ cacahuate51 and @ diceslinger forced me to do it first 😆
The problem is that I didn't have much time to try to do it, I installed Reaper but I still don't understand how it works, I based it on this short description from Caca's post. Based on that I managed to record one rhythm track, I wanted to add something with Lead (mini solo) and add a Bass track, but I don't know how to combine multiple tracks.

You mentioned that you can't record while playing Rocksmith so I didn't try it, I played watching a YT video.

I'm going away for 2 days so I won't have more time to work on it this week unfortunately. I did anything to start and so you can start presenting your professional covers 😉 

 

 

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH YES! Now that did work out, Miks! Way cool and a very good sound.
As Reaper is designed EXACTLY for multiple tracks you basically just hit add track, aim that for recording, disarm the other one and you are good to go.

Love that - what did you use for guitar sound?

Rod.

Very fun songs! Thanks you. 

Have a nice weekend everyone.