Steam is advertising a piece of software called rocksmith advertising it as a great way to learn guitar. I have always pondered learning but things like consistent lessons and such are always the bane of my existence due to self employment.
So is this software any good, the steam stuff is kinda vague.
I have least years version and thinking of getting this years. Can’t say it’s a GREAT way to learn Guitar per se, unless your a prodigy. You can learn perhaps a few basic notes with lots of practice and repetition, but won’t be playing opening for Journey anytime soon. It’s kind of unforgiving as well. Like instead of giving you options for notes, you HAVE to play the exact notes they want for a song.
It will work good for people who are already guitar players and perhaps out of practice but beginners might find it a bit akward.
They released a new version that just came out that was supposed to address some of the issues with the previous version. There’s also another game called “Bandfuse: Rock Legends” that has a similar format and is touted as a “learning” game with Actual guitar/Bass. that one comes out 3 weeks from now.
I have the original version for PS3, and I was very happy with it. I took a few guitar classes at a community college while I was in (a different) college, but I would never have said I could play guitar. In the first game, some of the things you got were different effects peddles, which actually changed the sound of you guitar. I think you unlocked different guitar models as well, which also had different sounds.
It plays like a video game, so I think it’s more fun than straight lessons would be. My community college instructor often said that if you wanted to be able to play guitar, you had to put the time in playing. Not necessarily practicing, but playing. So anything that gets you playing is good.
One thing that was a little hard with the first version was that it always pushed you kind of hard. The song would start with a few notes, but if you were hitting them it kept adding more of the notes, so you were always at the edge of what you could do. On the other hand, you never failed a song, and could just ignore the new notes. But you didn’t quite get the feeling of “yeah, I nailed that!”. It sounds like they’ve made some changes to address this.
My brother-in-law and my nephew both play guitar, and they were both impressed with it after playing it at my house. My nephew said he was going to get it.
For me, I already had an electric guitar, so getting it was a no-brainer. It wasn’t much more than any other video game (a little more, for the USB guitar cable). For this, I just need the game-only edition, so I’ll have to get someone to get me it for Christmas. And get out my older version to get in practice.
One thing to be aware of - I believe if you buy the program on Steam, you’re still going to have to buy the 1/4" audio-to-USB cable required to connect your guitar to the computer. That cable comes with boxed versions of the software, but costs $45 alone on Amazon.
I bought the computer version because of the lag issue with consoles/home theater.
I’ve been happy with it, however as others have said, the first release pushes you relentlessly, which I feel is not the best way to learn - I would prefer to get a certain mastery of a level of playing before trying to take on something more difficult.