Welcome to the CF Rocksmith 2014 Championship!

-= Week 680 =-

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

Previous' week Winners are:

Lead:
- Beginner:@ModestMonk (96.02)
- Beginner Bonus:@ModestMonk (97.3)
- Intermediate:@jimmy655 (98)
- Intermediate Bonus:@jimmy655 (96.82)
- Advanced:@CraigDengate (97)
- Advanced Bonus:@cacahuate51 (95.65)
- Masterclass:@shaggy_malagy (94.87)
- Masterclass Bonus:@shaggy_malagy (95.28)
- God of Guitar: Leader after week 2 is @shaggy_malagy(92), 2 weeks left... KEEP ROCKING!!!

Rhythm:
- Beginner: @ModestMonk (98.21)
- Beginner Bonus: @ModestMonk (97.97)
- Intermediate: @ALSRC (98)
- Intermediate Bonus: @ALSRC (95)
- Advanced: @jimmy655 (98.28)
- Advanced Bonus: @jimmy655 (96.35)
- Masterclass: @LuZifeR (98)
- God of Rhythm: Leader after week 2 is @LuZifeR (97), 2 weeks left... KEEP ROCKING!!!

Bass:
- Beginner: @MotivatedCF (100)
- Beginner Bonus: @MotivatedCF (100)
- Intermediate: @EmbraceTheAbsurd (96)
- Intermediate Bonus: @MaltaSoron (97)
- Advanced: @ALSRC (98.44)
- Advanced Bonus: @drand (98.49)
- Masterclass: @JobwanMojo (99.85)
- Masterclass Bonus: @Nomgoose (99.87)
- God of Bass: Leader after week 2 is @Nomgoose (97.2), 2 weeks left... KEEP ROCKING!!!

Congrats to all winners. Well done!

This week's songs are:

Lead Path:
Beginner:Korn - Word Up!(3*)(D Standard)selected byc
Beginner Bonus:Linkin Park - One More Light(2)(E Standard) capo required Alt. Lead path!!!! selected byc
Intermediate:Hot Milk - HORROR SHOW(4)(Eb Drop Db)selected byc
Intermediate Bonus:The Black Keys - Stay In Your Grave(4)(E Standard)selected byc
Advanced:Royal Blood - Dead Company(6)(D Drop C)selected byc
Masterclass:Guns N' Roses - November Rain(7.5)(Eb Standard)selected byALSRC
Masterclass Bonus:Phinehas - Fleshkiller(8.5)(D Drop C)selected bydrand
God of Guitar:Death - The Sound of Perseverance Full Album(10)(D Standard)selected bypoll[Week 3 of 4]

Rhythm Path:
Beginner: Korn - Word Up! (2) (D Standard) selected by c
Beginner Bonus: The Black Keys - Stay In Your Grave (1.5) (E Standard) Alt. Lead path!!!! selected by c
Intermediate: Hot Milk - HORROR SHOW (4) (Eb Drop Db) selected by c
Intermediate Bonus: Linkin Park - One More Light (4) capo required (E Standard) Lead path!!!! selected by c
Advanced: Royal Blood - Dead Company (6) (D Drop C) - Alt. Lead path!!!! selected by c
Advanced Bonus: Guns N' Roses - November Rain (4.5) (Eb Standard) selected by ALSRC
Masterclass: Lita Ford - Close My Eyes Forever 7.5) (E Standard) Lead path!!!! selected by c
God of Rhythm: Death - The Sound of Perseverance Full Album (10) (D Standard) selected by poll [Week 3 of 4]

Bass Path:
Beginner: The Black Keys - Stay In Your Grave (2) (E Standard) selected by c
Beginner Bonus: Hot Milk - HORROR SHOW (4^) (Eb Drop Db) selected by c
Intermediate: Guns N' Roses - November Rain (5*) (Eb Standard) selected by ALSRC

Mikson has made one with different bass levels if anyone prefers it: here
Intermediate Bonus: Korn - Word Up! (4) (D Standard) selected by c
Advanced: Royal Blood - Dead Company (6.5) (D Drop C) selected by c
Advanced Bonus: Psychedelic Porn Crumpets - Bill's Mandolin (6.5) (E Standard) selected by c
Masterclass: Primus - The Ol' Grizz (9*) (E Standard) selected by c
Masterclass Bonus: Tilly Louise - Join the Club (6.5) (E Standard) selected by c
God of Bass: Death - The Sound of Perseverance Full Album (10) (D Standard) selected by poll [Week 3 of 4]

(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.

How do you guys handle all the different tunings? A guitar for each? I have an sg that is easy enough to change tunings on the fly but I find that for C the intonation can be too far off for accurate registration of notes starting around the 15th fret.

10 minutes ago, ModestMonk said:

How do you guys handle all the different tunings? A guitar for each? I have an sg that is easy enough to change tunings on the fly but I find that for C the intonation can be too far off for accurate registration of notes starting around the 15th fret.

There are some additional mods for Rocksmith that assist in dealing with dropping your tuning by emulating a drop pedal if you're not rocking one already. I'm not too familiar with that myself, as I personally have a couple bass guitars that I swap between for the tuning changes since they can support the lower tunings without issue.

Nice week everyone! Starting to go a little better, but far from where i want to be

Hmm maybe a 7? Not thaaaaaaaat hard, with a little work i think i can crack 90 at least

38 minutes ago, ModestMonk said:

How do you guys handle all the different tunings? A guitar for each? I have an sg that is easy enough to change tunings on the fly but I find that for C the intonation can be too far off for accurate registration of notes starting around the 15th fret.

I have a digitech drop pedal, life saviour.

10 minutes ago, Satinuke said:

I have a digitech drop pedal, life saviour.

I tried some rocksmith + and they have a pitch shifter that I assume is similar to the drop pedal, if I'm playing with headphones or loud enough to make the wife mad its a great solution, but the majority of the time I'm playing without headphones and speaker output quite low and found the dissonance between what I hear from the speaker and the actual strings is almost unbearable. I guess headphones and a mod are the most cost effective way but I was hoping someone was going to say buy a few more guitars!

42 minutes ago, Satinuke said:

Nice week everyone! Starting to go a little better, but far from where i want to be

Hmm maybe a 7? Not thaaaaaaaat hard, with a little work i think i can crack 90 at least

hmm yeah idr rating it a 8.5🤔 ? maybe it was a misclick and i meant 7.5? ill replay it to make sure

Hope I don't get banned for posting off topic, but just saw an incredible performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion - so not feeling like playing electric guitar tonight. Here is a clip of my favorite section from another performance (and never mind that the singer looks like a Batman villain). Best part is it was free and just a couple of miles away. Still trying to figure out why they don't have free tickets for the nearby Metallica/Mammoth show in three weeks - you could buy a pretty nice guitar or two for the price of a decent ticket...

8 hours ago, ModestMonk said:

i tried this for the first few songs I tried (or using dynamic difficulty on learn a song) but for me it was liking learning 3 different songs, it wasn't until full difficulty I could get a grip on the best fingers/chord/movement economy for the phrases. With the prefered submittals being score attack I changed my tactic for the songs last week to just put them on max difficulty on las even if I get low scores at least I can get a better idea of what the end result will be...and I feel like even though I can't play them perfect still I basically know baby your a haunted house and demons are a girls best friend by heart now and there are songs I've spent way more time on and still get confused when playing because I worked by way up through dynamic difficulty. Just my experience.

I try to play it and see where do I struggle more. Then I RR that section(s) at lower speed (75%) or even below 😅

🎶🎸🌘 CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHT!!!!

YEEAAHHH!!! ✌😎✌🤩✌😎✌🤩

Thanks @cacahuate51 for another exciting week! 🤟

I guess you tested quite a lot of songs, since it is not easy to fill all the paths including bonuses with a theme!!!

Thanks for you dedication indeed!!!

--

Royal Blood - Dead Company

This song is so much fun to play!!!! ✌🤩✌🤩

Should keep trying since I sitill don't feel I am in full control when playing at 100% speed...

Full disclosure> I had this song in my pending list of "2026 selection" that I was planning to do in december, but hadnt tested it yet... but now is taken!!! 🤣🤣🤣 (actually, not the first time @cacahuate51 chooses a song I was planning to use from this year, but thats OK! 😆 ) By the way, I am getting the feeling that there are less new CDLCs every day or week, comparing to a few years ago.

Anyway, here are my posts to keep my streak>

9 hours ago, jimmy655 said:

Hope I don't get banned for posting off topic, but just saw an incredible performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion - so not feeling like playing electric guitar tonight. Here is a clip of my favorite section from another performance (and never mind that the singer looks like a Batman villain). Best part is it was free and just a couple of miles away. Still trying to figure out why they don't have free tickets for the nearby Metallica/Mammoth show in three weeks - you could buy a pretty nice guitar or two for the price of a decent ticket...

Dont worry, here is a very friendly space!! I personally like people posting off topic!! 👍

12 hours ago, ModestMonk said:

I tried some rocksmith + and they have a pitch shifter that I assume is similar to the drop pedal, if I'm playing with headphones or loud enough to make the wife mad its a great solution, but the majority of the time I'm playing without headphones and speaker output quite low and found the dissonance between what I hear from the speaker and the actual strings is almost unbearable. I guess headphones and a mod are the most cost effective way but I was hoping someone was going to say buy a few more guitars!

Hi! Acutally THERE IS A SOLUTION! You can install the "Rocksmith Audio Bridge" (formerly RS Mods plus), which, in addition to the drop pedal, it has the "Speaker Mode" function. Here it is the actual explanation from the github page:

GitHub

GitHub - Cheesewizard/RocksmithAudioBridge: Rocksmith 201...

Rocksmith 2014 Remastered mod built on RSMods. Play any song without retuning with the Drop Pedal and Speaker Mode, practise note by note in Riff Repeater, play through your own amp sim, use the to...

--

Speaker Mode

Shifts the song to match your guitar instead. Made for playing through speakers, where you hear the guitar itself in the room. The song is pitch-rendered ahead of time, so there is no added latency.

--

The only compromise will be of course that the song itself has a higher ptich, so every lead singer will sound like they just inhaled a balloon full of helium! 🤣

16 hours ago, ModestMonk said:

i tried this for the first few songs I tried (or using dynamic difficulty on learn a song) but for me it was liking learning 3 different songs, it wasn't until full difficulty I could get a grip on the best fingers/chord/movement economy for the phrases. With the prefered submittals being score attack I changed my tactic for the songs last week to just put them on max difficulty on las even if I get low scores at least I can get a better idea of what the end result will be...and I feel like even though I can't play them perfect still I basically know baby your a haunted house and demons are a girls best friend by heart now and there are songs I've spent way more time on and still get confused when playing because I worked by way up through dynamic difficulty. Just my experience.

True, true. My own mileage varies depending on the song (https://customsforge.com/topic/81491-rocksmith-2014-championship-week-679-haunted-riffs-halloween-hits-monster-grooves-supernatural-shredding-%F0%9F%8E%83/#findComment-414965). Sometimes I can hear the notes that are missing but the ones that are there still "make sense" (they might be on the first and third beat only on Easy and sometimes, it's like random and that throws me off).

1 hour ago, aNDESmASAMUNE said:

Hi! Acutally THERE IS A SOLUTION! You can install the "Rocksmith Audio Bridge" (formerly RS Mods plus), which, in addition to the drop pedal, it has the "Speaker Mode" function. Here it is the actual explanation from the github page:

GitHub

GitHub - Cheesewizard/RocksmithAudioBridge: Rocksmith 201...

Rocksmith 2014 Remastered mod built on RSMods. Play any song without retuning with the Drop Pedal and Speaker Mode, practise note by note in Riff Repeater, play through your own amp sim, use the to...

--

Speaker Mode

Shifts the song to match your guitar instead. Made for playing through speakers, where you hear the guitar itself in the room. The song is pitch-rendered ahead of time, so there is no added latency.

--

The only compromise will be of course that the song itself has a higher ptich, so every lead singer will sound like they just inhaled a balloon full of helium! 🤣

I haven't installed yet the AudioBridge but I had the previous mod from Cheesewizard and it's the same feature (I'll have to install this latest mod). And indeed, speaker mode is your friend in these instances.

14 hours ago, Satinuke said:

I have a digitech drop pedal, life saviour.

Note there's a bass digitech drop pedal (blue vs red), maybe one day, maybe soon depending on black friday sales... Otherwise, for the songs where a Drop D is required, I'm fortunate to have a 2nd bass...

Hum, this is going to take more than a couple of attempts 😰

I succeed on Easy and Medium, but not Hard yet. If I look at the screen, my fingers and my brain panic, but I noticed if I don't I get better results for this song, I just need to learn it by heart now, or listen when it's the different pattern (verse vs. refrain I guess).

Not looking until I start looking:

Also, if this song is rated 2 on the bass path, and the Donovan Season of the Witch was 2.5, it doesn't feel right (to me at least, and my little fingers :))

16 hours ago, ModestMonk said:

How do you guys handle all the different tunings? A guitar for each? I have an sg that is easy enough to change tunings on the fly but I find that for C the intonation can be too far off for accurate registration of notes starting around the 15th fret.

I have 2 guitars - the first one is in E and the second is in Drop (bass emulated). And in case I need to tune step(s) down I use Digitech The Drop. But my pedal add some extra noises ( I think cause of power supply ). I didn't managed to use mods with pinch shifter 🤣

I forgot my manners 🥺: Thank you for hosting @cacahuate51 ! :) I hope I can make it to Intermediate!

Okay, settled at home. Now I can finish this week's songs:

Very enjoyable play! (2) is a good rating here:

This was super catchy, really loved playing this one. (4) is good here:

One of a few Gn'R songs that I really like. (4.5) honestly feels better here, it's just a long track:

With examples like this, Korn Kovers should have been finished. Slapping in this piece is so fun, (4) for sure:

The pull offs on this piece are tricky! A lot of fun, I'll need to run through this and clean it up. More of a (7) to me:

Always love seeing more of this group! Honestly only has one tough section, feels a (6.5) to me:

A catchy pop song for sure! Super fun, didn't ask too much. (6.5) is also a good feel here:

@aNDESmASAMUNE Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out when I have some time to fiddle with the computer.

I guess I will also keep an eye out for a drop pedal sale or one on facebook marketplace.

Week 679 Highlights

• Welcome to our new players: @Andru , @ModestMonk , @CraigDengate , @daijoubu , @jpayne2366
• Welcome back to the championship, @johnal (after 4 weeks away) and @emu (after 10 weeks away)!
• Congratulations on your first of these medals:
@JobwanMojo · Hee Hee: 100% on a Michael Jackson song
@EmbraceTheAbsurd · Silver medal: Lead · finished 2nd on a Lead challenge
@Andru · Silver medal: Rhythm · finished 2nd on a Rhythm challenge
@Andru · Bronze medal: Lead · finished 3rd on a Lead challenge
@ModestMonk · Bronze medal: Bass · finished 3rd on a Bass challenge
@ModestMonk · Uncrowned silver: finished 2nd on a board while playing up from a lower class or as a FreeBird
@ModestMonk · Uncrowned bronze: finished 3rd on a board while playing up from a lower class or as a FreeBird
@daijoubu · Silver medal: Bass · finished 2nd on a Bass challenge
@jpayne2366 · Silver medal: Bass · finished 2nd on a Bass challenge
• 🏆 No lost trophies this week: all 23 challenges have a winner!
• 🙏 Thank you to everyone who submitted their vote for the difficulty ratings of Week 679's songs: @ALSRC , @aNDESmASAMUNE , @cacahuate51 , @drand , @Knippenburg , @Mikson , @Nomgoose

🏁 Season XX (Oct–Dec 2026) leaders after Week 679 (week 4 of 13):
Lead:
Masterclass: @shaggy_malagy (100 pts) · most improved @shaggy_malagy (+1.1 lvl)
Advanced: @cacahuate51 (78 pts) · most improved @drand (+2.0 lvl)
Intermediate: @jimmy655 (83 pts) · most improved @jimmy655 (+5.7 lvl)
Beginner: @EmbraceTheAbsurd (93 pts) · most improved @EmbraceTheAbsurd (+1.1 lvl)
Rhythm:
Masterclass: @Mikson (73 pts) · most improved @cacahuate51 (+1.7 lvl)
Advanced: @aNDESmASAMUNE (90 pts) · most improved @robolechuga (+4.2 lvl)
Intermediate: @ALSRC (68 pts)
Beginner: @EmbraceTheAbsurd (93 pts)
Bass:
Masterclass: @Nomgoose (93 pts) · most improved @Knippenburg (+11.3 lvl)
Advanced: @ALSRC (90 pts) · most improved @drand (+4.5 lvl)
Intermediate: @EmbraceTheAbsurd (86 pts) · most improved @EmbraceTheAbsurd (+0.5 lvl)
Beginner: @MotivatedCF (100 pts)

Keep going!

---

Thanks for a great new week @cacahuate51!!

How was the tournament @Nomgoose?

15 hours ago, jimmy655 said:

Hope I don't get banned for posting off topic, but just saw an incredible performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion

Posting classical music?? STRAIGHT TO JAIL

2 minutes ago, drand said:

How was the tournament @Nomgoose?

Got my ass handed to me, lost the match up lotto and dropped when I hit 2-3. Had a lot of fun meeting up with folks though!

36 minutes ago, ModestMonk said:

@aNDESmASAMUNE Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out when I have some time to fiddle with the computer.

I guess I will also keep an eye out for a drop pedal sale or one on facebook marketplace.

Rocksmith Audio Bridge (a fork of rsmods) just added a drop pedal feature. I'm still trying to get it to work for me but maybe you'll have better luck.

I mainly use a Sonic Cake Pocket Master as my drop pedal. The slider in the mobile app is a bit finicky but works great if you're not changing the tuning for every song. The WebUI for the custom firmware gives more precise control. My next goal is to get the automation working with it. The custom firmware looks promising, but not sure if it exposes the right midi commands.

Just as I expected, whole lots of fun! I will try it again though if Spirit Crusher in this chart gets fixed (kinda sounds like a Children of Bodom track when it's played a string above). I can nail some parts better and play smoother, I absolutely killed Flesh and the Power it Holds which was my main goal as it's my favorite song on the album.

I will play the other songs later in the week.

1 hour ago, daijoubu said:

I mainly use a Sonic Cake Pocket Master as my drop pedal.

I read that as sonic cake pocket monster at first