Squier Pro Guitar - Play & Help

Smudge Mouse

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Tips


  • Don't forget to switch your midi adapter to 'G' (especially for those who use it for drums :hiya:). You can switch at any time (out of a song), and the game will recognise this and switch you over to the correct instrument.
  • When holding down frets, it's not as simple as holding down a button (as with the mustang), try to hold down the string as close to the fret bar as possible. If you hold it down too far away it will register as the note below (and if you do this with the guitar unmuted it would sound horrible anyway).
  • Don't try to slide your finger down the High E string :eek:
  • When pressing the buttons on the guitar itself don't blame fender or harmonix, just microsoft.

Playing Modes

Having a guitar amp, gives you a few variations on how you can play. So far I've tried four methods,


  1. Normal In-Game. Enable the mute on the guitar, and disconnect the amp. The strings give out the familiar mustang twang (although each string feels slightly different, which helps). I reckon this gives an accuracy of about 98% (give or take some based on how rubbish I am). For comparison, I would rate the mustang at about 99.5%. Feels like playing with the mustang but with the better feeling of fret selection. I find the string spacing wider, which I find easier.
  2. Amp In-Game. Disable the mute on the guitar, and alter the main instrument volume (in game) to 0. This gives the feeling of directly playing the guitar part, even on the medium difficulty level. I really like this, nail a solo and you really do feel the part :clap:. However I'd say the accuracy goes out of the window, say 40-50%. You'll hit all the correct notes (so your percentage notes hit will be correct) but all those extra ghost strums will destroy your multiplier.
  3. Muted Amp In-Game. Enable the mute on the guitar and turn your amp up. The guitar should still be able to pick up your strums. Whilst you won't get the resonance of normal strumming, it still will give out a noise of corresponding frequency. I do this if I want to hear what I'm actually strumming, not what the game is letting me get away with.
  4. Amp No-Game. Disable the mute on the guitar and switch off the electronics on the guitar (the switch on the back). Although you lose all the visual feedback (for fret selection), it will remove the background midi noise. I'm not good enough to do this yet :laugh:

Observations

  • I find that there are no indications of lag when playing with the squier. Whether this is to do with the direct midi connection, I don't know. What I do know is that I've not had to worry about it :smashin:
  • Playing with mute off, you realise how much more there is to playing guitar than just fret selection and strumming. For instance in "Fly Like An Eagle" I was playing with mute disabled and whilst the note sounded like it was the correct pitch, it didn't feel right. By lightly placing a spare finger on the other side of the selected fret, I found it produced a sound just like in game :thumbsup:.
  • I want a proper amp! Anyone have direct experience of the Roland Cube 40XL. What I've read so far looked good!
 
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The mute on the guitar is basically a bit of foam on a piece of plastic that springs into place when pushed. The strings are already leaving a groove in the foam, so I wonder if over time the mute will become too loose to be effective.

Lets hope not :blush:
 
A dumies guide for what to do out of the box would be nice, tuning etc. :)
 
There really isn't much to do. Take box out of box, take guitar out of that box. Plug adapter into xbox and switch to G. Plug guitar into adapter via supplied midi cable and switch guitar on at the back and then play.

That does remind me of one point, cables...

If you plug into an amp, you'll have three long cables floating about the place, waiting to trip you up. You'll also have fun fighting the midi cable and adapter usb cable as they tangle together when you pick it up from where you stored it.

Also, there isn't a way of attaching a foot pedal, so overdrive will have to be done via tilting the guitar (or via the adapter). This isn't as bad as the mustang, due to it's weight the tilting mechanism can be done usually without penalty.
 
Yeah, its great to play in game, just outside the game just wondered if anything needed tweaking?
 
Tips


I want a proper amp! Anyone have direct experience of the Roland Cube 40XL. What I've read so far looked good!
[/LIST]

Wanted a battery amp, went to buy a Roland Microcube, but ended up with a Fender Mini 3. Both great modelling amps for the size and money.
 
Hi Smudge,

Have you had none of the problems on the Rockband forums? No need to alter any of the pots under the batteries to enable dead strings to register? Bridge and string height adjustment? Intonation correct once tuned? Maybe, you only hear of bad samples on the forum!
 
Hi Smudge,

Have you had none of the problems on the Rockband forums? No need to alter any of the pots under the batteries to enable dead strings to register? Bridge and string height adjustment? Intonation correct once tuned? Maybe, you only hear of bad samples on the forum!

I did wonder if Fender had addressed this issue with the QC in Holland. The EU has much more stringent warranty laws than the US and I wonder if this has been in part some of the delay.
 
First go I tried Living in America as its quite easy and got 89% with the mustang on medium, so on the Squier, 51% :rotfl: But 2 more attempts got me upto 80%

What I like about it so far is the chords are easier to play than the Mustang as you dont get confused with the button next to one you are already playing as you can feel the seperate strings indentation so it doesn't confuse you, one thing I was convinced I was holding down the low E string on fret 9 but it was showing up as 8, managed to get there in the end but it did seem odd that it thought it was that, will have to keep an eye on it or if there is any advice I would be grateful.

Tuning wise, I haven't got a clue what I am listening for to correct and dont have a lead yet to connect it upto an ipad for example, it sounds good mostly though when I play a chord but as above any advice in dummy terms appreciated.

Wish the face buttons worked so I dont need to keep going back and forward to the midi adaptor to retry a song, also can you only activate overdrive on this? I know you can attach it to a belt so that might be better.
 
Wish the face buttons worked so I dont need to keep going back and forward to the midi adaptor to retry a song, also can you only activate overdrive on this? I know you can attach it to a belt so that might be better.

Overdrive should be activated by either tipping or pressing the button on the MPA.
 
Ill post my initial impressions in here :)

First of the good points this is for me and others will see thing diffrently :)

Its a real guitar and a top brand Fender lol never ever thought that i'd be playing a real guitar in game that much
respect to that.

Minus points i have/had the problem with the high E string not registering some of teh frets, iv tweaked the bridge for height altered pickup for height, and also tweaked the pots under the battery compartment for better sensitivity on the hight E string only
It seems better but continue to tweak it till i get it perfect, im using the Advanced guitar training section no 18 and second last lesson to test it with that uses fast picking on the high E as my test havnt done it yet or on the mustang for that matter :) once i hit that ill be a happy bunny. Have a look at it as its a good test for sensitivity on that string.

Onto the guitar for feel weight ect well no problem with the weight feels great but the neck is to fat for me, i have a Jackson that was about £700-1000 cant remember what i paid for it but it has thin neck low action and what i tinkered with for years so feels perfect for my needs.
Fender has has high action but if i drop the action lower i sure that you'll lose note accuracy which is and will be pointless with in the rock band 3 game.
Outside the game im sure that it would be fine but it wont use it for that.
another thing i find is that the bridge digs into my palm when playing again something i'll have to look at within my own playing and hand postion and try to correct. This is simply my feeling for the guitar and not any thing wrong with it in any aspect other's will not have any problems at all.

Ok onto accuracy i only played a couple of songs yesterday and did pretty badly at first as Smudge mouse said u need to have better finger postion on the fretboard for accuracy but with time and playing that will come naturally :)

I think for score wise the Mustang would probably be the winner as its a huge guitar controller at the end of the day dont think ill be getting near my Yoshimi score again without a bit of practice using the Fender.
The only other song i tried yesterday was Smash Mouth walking on the sun which iv never played before, and has now become one of my favourites :) took 5 goes to 5 star on expert and feels pretty good but has no notes higher up the fret than the 8th. But it picked those up pretty good after tweaking the pots ect as noted earlier, and that included notes on the high E string i only feel that i was my playing that stopped me gold starring it lol
Also with the high action it feels like cheese wire on my fingers :) again something that will ease over time i hope as the strings are thicker than i normally use.

Gonna give du haste and Beautiful people a go today as they only use low strings and are quite fastish song to test accuracy of the low end although i dont think there will be any problems tbh.

I think on the whole its a great effort by Fender and will be great learning tool for developing guitarist's just hope that the high E string dosent give people any problems as i could see it being very frustrating for new/beginer guitaist's to try to get perfect setup.

One other minor thing why the didnt include the jack plug for the pedal to activate overdrive i'll never know using the drum pedal was/is a godsend although the tilting seems accurate enough until your in full swing and loose your streak lol.

So all in all most of the thing's iv listed is down to my own misgiving's with the guitar no more than that, im sure everyone else will love it its a great product with a few minor niggles

Oh and one more thing that i'v read a lot of people have said that there's a invisible coating on the fret wire/sensor and that they have been using the pick to rub across to clear for even better accuracy, i did it across 5,6,7,8, frets where my slight problems are so hopefully that will help

Bri
 
Just like to add that reading it back it looks quite negative from my POV and can assure you that its NOT and is not the intention to make it look like that, its a great effort and great peice of kit

Now off to test some more songs

Bri
 
Craigy said:
Tuning wise, I haven't got a clue what I am listening for to correct and dont have a lead yet to connect it upto an ipad for example, it sounds good mostly though when I play a chord but as above any advice in dummy terms appreciated.

Does the iPad have any sort of mic? If it does you won't need a lead, there are plenty of free guitar tuning apps available.

If not just google guitar tuning and you should come up with plenty of places that you can play the correct notes and tune to that.

Sent from my iPhone using AVForums
 
Does the iPad have any sort of mic? If it does you won't need a lead, there are plenty of free guitar tuning apps available.

If not just google guitar tuning and you should come up with plenty of places that you can play the correct notes and tune to that.

Sent from my iPhone using AVForums

Good idea Batman, it does have one! Off for a google
 
Cheers for the advice, a load of crap out there but got a little gem called Optima Tuner and its free and my guitar sounds noticably better now.

Now just need to buy an Irig adaptor to get it through my ipad, idea is rock band with mustang connected, no fail mode, sound off and practising along through my ipad amp!
 
Starting to get a real feel for it now didnt take that long :)

my scores on previous songs arnt in any danger at the minute i relearn to play the game find i need stronger attack on teh strings at time for them to register properly again its just down to my style :)

Getting closer to gold starring walking on the sun 300 odd points away assuming that its 170,000 for gold as watching youtube videos for cut off at that area :eek:

Bri

have to remember when i aint played a song for ages and have forgoten it not to PANIC at hard phrases :devil:
 
Cheers for the advice, a load of crap out there but got a little gem called Optima Tuner and its free and my guitar sounds noticably better now.

Now just need to buy an Irig adaptor to get it through my ipad, idea is rock band with mustang connected, no fail mode, sound off and practising along through my ipad amp!

If you get irig, AmpliTube for ipad is free which looks great, better than my small iphone version. Free for basic version.
 
If you get irig, AmpliTube for ipad is free which looks great, better than my small iphone version. Free for basic version.

Cheers, will check that out, already have garage band as well and that seems pretty amazing.
 
AndrewH13 said:
If you get irig, AmpliTube for ipad is free which looks great, better than my small iphone version. Free for basic version.

What do you use to connect to your iPhone? I see there's a special irig lead thingy, but that's $40.

Sent from my iPhone using AVForums
 
What do you use to connect to your iPhone? I see there's a special irig lead thingy, but that's $40.

Sent from my iPhone using AVForums

IK Multimedia AmpliTube iRig Guitar Interface For iPhone & iPod

£23.49 from Dolphin. Hissy but Amplitude has a built-in de-hiss pedal!
Prefer practice through my new small battery amp, but this is ok if you want to play through headphones and does allow recording (4-track is an extra).
Think it would be awesome on ipad with bigger screen. For laptop its really expensive.
 
Just had an hour practicing some sections of songs on hard, I thought the mustang was picky with finger placement on notes but this is something else, it seems to pickup more if you on the bar to the right of the fret, if you go left of the note it is flaky.

My fingers are killing. :rotfl:
 
Getting closer to gold starring walking on the sun 300 odd points away assuming that its 170,000 for gold as watching youtube videos for cut off at that area :eek:

Bri

have to remember when i aint played a song for ages and have forgoten it not to PANIC at hard phrases :devil:

HELP TYLER,

Thought havn't played this song on Hard so will give it a go. Reminds me of Word Up by Cameo.

What does it mean? A little flat blue mark on 4th string and a large blue barrel on 2nd string (3 frets up - urhhh pinky time!) and says strum covered strings on trainer. So is this finger plucking and you cant use a plectrum? And why the different shaped notes?


Update - so its not a chord but it does seem to allow a plectrum strum which includes an open 3rd string.
 
Is it an arpeggio chord maybe?

Sent from my iPhone using AVForums
 
Is it an arpeggio chord maybe?

Sent from my iPhone using AVForums

Dont you go all technical on me now you having lessons! LOL

Wouldnt call it a chord as it's a massive stretch with just two fingers with a gap in the middle, maybe it is though! And it does work playing all 3 strings together now pinky can manage the stretch. Rings a bell though, now you say it, of another song where you have to strum single notes of chord and they had a ghosty image!

Anyway, driven wife mad playing same song all night, but ended up 5-starring it on Hard (shhhh though, I'm using a M@@t@@g)
 
HELP TYLER,

Thought havn't played this song on Hard so will give it a go. Reminds me of Word Up by Cameo.

What does it mean? A little flat blue mark on 4th string and a large blue barrel on 2nd string (3 frets up - urhhh pinky time!) and says strum covered strings on trainer. So is this finger plucking and you cant use a plectrum? And why the different shaped notes?


Update - so its not a chord but it does seem to allow a plectrum strum which includes an open 3rd string.

Yeah u can play it as a power chord as such either pluck the 2 strings i dont get much joy with that, so just play the 2 notes u cant avoid the middle open string but it dosent break your streak pretty easy tbh just play them quite sharply and u should be good.

I totally set the guitar up for use with an amp (which i dont have btw) but i use my Korg toneworks effects unit to earphones which works fantastic.

I dropped the string's dead low then raised the action till i get not fret buzz (well a couple buzz) but not bothered by that action is lower easier to play much more to my liking :clap: but now need to see what the guitar is like in rock band.
As iv messed with the action hopefully i wont have to adjust the sensitvity pots and mess with the action to get it registering in game again gonna test it now :)

Bri
 
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