Smudge Mouse
Established Member
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2004
- Messages
- 386
- Reaction score
- 44
- Points
- 53
Tips
Playing Modes
Having a guitar amp, gives you a few variations on how you can play. So far I've tried four methods,
Observations
- Don't forget to switch your midi adapter to 'G' (especially for those who use it for drums ). 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
- 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,
- 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.
- 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 . 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.
- 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.
- 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
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
- 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 .
- 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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