D'oh! How could I forget that it's
New DLC Day!!!
*Born on the Bayou - Creedence Clearwater Revival
*In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida - Iron Butterfly
*Whipping Post - The Allman Brothers Band

xbox link:
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Pr...5-d80255530873

I seem to recall seeing some red and black bass at best buy before, guess It's time to drop by again to check it out

Guess I really do live under a rock, down by the river. Because I didn't know Pete Wentz was the worst thing to happen to music... EVARRR!

The port-a-potty juice that gets spewed his way is incredible. Found a few other threads about his bass but they all devolve into a PW haters club

But the other common theme I noticed is that the 4-5 people who actually bothered to play the sig bass, really liked it. So after all that, I'm willing to try it, in spite of the logo (actually thought it was suppose to be nasty lips).

Just gotta decide if I want to get a bass now, knowing I won't touch any bass content 'til the end of the year. Or wait to see what possible deals pop up in the future. Think I'll let my RZ certs decide

Well I had a chance to fiddle with the Pete Wentz bass. It was built in 2008 in Indonesia, which means it's coming from the same era and factory as the highly regarded Squier Vintage Modified series, and from the feel of the neck and body it shows. I didn't get a chance to plug it in as the area was kinda busy and since I don't know how to play I didn't want to add further to the noise (also the fact that using someone else's equipment is not really an accurate indicator of how it will sound once you take it home). Most reports say the pickup is pretty hot/overwound.

The guitar itself is sort of a stripped down P Bass Special; it's got a P Bass body with a Jazz Bass neck (not as wide, in fact it's thinner at the first fret than standard sized guitars), but no second J style pickup at the bridge. Lots of people seem to complain about agathis as a body wood for some reason which this has; IMHO your playing style/skills will always be the primary factor in your tone.

I would've liked a chance to open it up to see if the guts can match the Vintage Modified basses as it's kind of a 50/50 shot, either it does because it'd be a pain in the ass at the factory level to suddenly run a single model with different parts, or it doesn't because there could very well be a marketing style price markup for the Artist series. For the average person though this probably doesn't matter; it's just a personal curiosity on my part.

The way it looks...well, let's just say that I felt like I was holding a lingerie advertisement ad with that color scheme and logo. Seems like a really love it or hate it design. Fender says it's a red shell pickguard, but it looks like red pearloid to me.

At its normal price of 300 bucks, there'd be no reason to get this unless you really liked the look, because the Vintage Modified series is at worst the same quality with far more options. At its current price of 150, it's definitely worthy of your consideration as a first bass (unless your mindset is to absolutely get it right the first time, in which case...good luck) as long as you don't mind the looks and lack of anything other than a volume knob. On that note I saw the Peavey Milestone bass at the same store that rbarba4 mentioned was on sale a few weeks ago on MF, and I have to say the Wentz Signature absolutely trashes that Peavey in terms of build quality for only another 30 bucks (and the Peaveys were restocks/refurbished). I never really understood what people meant by sharp frets until I had the "pleasure" of sitting down with that one...

Gonna hafta decide soon if I want this. It's no longer available for shipping and a couple of nearby stores are out of stock.

Thought the PW hate might keep this deal active for a while, but not looking too good. Suppose I could put in an order and lock it in until I make up my mind. Hmm...

Originally Posted by Psybuster Most reports say the pickup is pretty hot/overwound. ->yup read the same I would've liked a chance to open it up to see if the guts can match the Vintage Modified basses as it's kind of a 50/50 shot, either it does because it'd be a pain in the ass at the factory level to suddenly run a single model with different parts, or it doesn't because there could very well be a marketing style price markup for the Artist series. ->part of my interest in this is due to it being a signature model. Not that I expect it to be leaps and bounds better than the non-sig versions (though there's no direct counterpart, iirc). But I do think it gets an extra set of eyeballs looking at it in the factory. At least that's been my experience with the Epiphone custom shop stuff. I've messed with other LPjr's to compare them to the one I got and the non-custom ones usually were the ones with problems Seems like a really love it or hate it design. Fender says it's a red shell pickguard, but it looks like red pearloid to me. ->I'm a sucker for red and like the red pg on black body. But hate the bat logo. Like I said before, couldn't tell what that was when I first saw pics of the bass At its current price of 150, it's definitely worthy of your consideration as a first bass (unless your mindset is to absolutely get it right the first time, in which case...good luck) as long as you don't mind the looks and lack of anything other than a volume knob. ->having a LPjr, I know a simple design can still be a blast to play. Which is why I'm still considering it.

Argh! It'd be so much easier for me to decide if I already had the bass content. But I really wanna wait for a deal on the new disc version.

Yeah I'm kind of in the same boat, I recognize that this is anywhere from a good to an awesome deal depending on the guts but I don't want to fall into the trap of buying something I'll likely not be using right away only to see more appropriate deals come by later on. Not that I have much experience with basses in general, but I'm pretty I'm more of a Jazz man myself.

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Has anybody actually learned how to become a better guitar player thanks to this game? I got the game for Christmas last year and I've owned a Les Paul electric guitar for a couple of years and still cannot play the thing worth a damn. I've only dabbled in the game a little but not enough to actually feel like I'm learning anything.

Should I go back to it and stick with it, or is this more fun than an actual learning tool?

Originally Posted by FaintDeftone Has anybody actually learned how to become a better guitar player thanks to this game? I got the game for Christmas last year and I've owned a Les Paul electric guitar for a couple of years and still cannot play the thing worth a damn. I've only dabbled in the game a little but not enough to actually feel like I'm learning anything. Should I go back to it and stick with it, or is this more fun than an actual learning tool?

I occasionally question some of its dynamic difficulty (I actually had to manually increase difficulty on House of the Rising sun until it showed full or most parts of chords to be able to play it much and accept additional notes as they appeared. When it was just showing one or two notes of the chord I wouldn't have my hand placed properly to play the next note). There are things it won't teach you, like strumming methods for example. But on the whole, it has made me a better player. My dexterity has increased, my ability to fret the notes without looking has been improving, and I know more chords than before.

But here's the thing- if you don't practice you won't get good, no matter what source you use to learn. If this game didn't make you have fun then it failed to do for you what it does best: motivate and entertain. For me it keeps me playing (when I have time). Before the game it was easy to not play because it didn't sound much like music when I would just fiddle around. And if I was reading tab I'd usually get a few notes into a song and all of a sudden it would get unbearably hard, and again it wouldn't sound like music because I couldn't keep up pace enough for the notes to sound like they were chained together. The game lets you play a song from start to finish with all the backing tracks & vocals. The dexterity, muscle memory, and even skill will come from sticking with it.

I thini it is an amazing tool. Its not surprising pawn shops are filled with guitars. It is a slow process and takes a long while to get the feel for it. This is where I think rocksmiths greatest strength is. Slowly learning to play is just no fun when it doesn't feel like your improving much. The simple act of getting a score for how well you play gives you instant gratification. You get feedback telling you are better instead of things slowly getting easier.

Originally Posted by FaintDeftone Has anybody actually learned how to become a better guitar player thanks to this game? I got the game for Christmas last year and I've owned a Les Paul electric guitar for a couple of years and still cannot play the thing worth a damn. I've only dabbled in the game a little but not enough to actually feel like I'm learning anything. Should I go back to it and stick with it, or is this more fun than an actual learning tool?

This made me LOL. No, you will not become Eddie Van Halen by playing Rocksmith for 20 minutes. I have 300 hours in and I am MUCH better at guitar than I ever was. It was far better, for me, than what I would have grinded out in 300 hours of lessons/practice...

What kinda gets me angry is that they are charging $30 for the Bass DLC. This is what I wanted it for originally. So my only choice is to download it for $30 bucks. Where then I've spend MSRP $79.99 plus 30 for this. Where as the combo is going to sell for $79.99 anyway? Am I missing something? or are previous owners just getting robbed.

Originally Posted by rivacom What kinda gets me angry is that they are charging $30 for the Bass DLC. This is what I wanted it for originally. So my only choice is to download it for $30 bucks. Where then I've spend MSRP $79.99 plus 30 for this. Where as the combo is going to sell for $79.99 anyway? Am I missing something? or are previous owners just getting robbed.

Yes, you got screwed. You owned a game for months and played the crap out of it. The developer came out with a HUGE expansion - a whole other game, really, but charged $30 for it. You now have to pay $30, while the people that wanted the game, but didn't buy it now have to pay full price of $70...

How is this ANY different from a GOTY edition? Did I feel screwed when I played Red Dead for a year and paid for the expansions and then they have a GOTY edition that included all of them? No, because that's how games work. You really can't expect devs to keep producing new things for a game then give it all away for free just because they're feeling philanthropic.

Sorry - that hits a hot button with me.

Am I missing something with dlc? I thought I remembered seeing song packs that were themed (like a classick rock pack or something like that) and not just song packs of bands. I recently got some points & went to download some new songs & only found band track packs. Did they do away with some of their discounted packs or am I way off here?

Musiciansfriend has a Marshall mini amp for $50 (mg2fx 2watt model) as today's Stupid Deal
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/stupid/
Guitarcenter has a new sale/coupon (save100) going right now. Save $10off 49, $50off 249, $100off 499
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Promos/C....aspx?pid=5646

Hellomusic has a Squire p-bass for $139, but it's the Affinity series model
http://www.hellomusic.com/ec/DealMain.aspx?did=15637
The ESPltd h-330nt strat from the other day got dropped to $279 + free shipping.
http://www.hellomusic.com/ec/DealMain.aspx?did=15629

And gonna say that the PW bass deal is dead. Bestbuy pulled it from the site the other night and it hasn't come back. You might try to go in-store but think the price was only dropped online

Originally Posted by FaintDeftone Has anybody actually learned how to become a better guitar player thanks to this game? Should I go back to it and stick with it, or is this more fun than an actual learning tool?

It made me better in that I went from ZERO playing experience to being able to use a guitar. Not that I'm a shredder (though I am proud that I've worked my way up to 70k in Freebird), but I've established a solid foundation to take those next steps of freely playing songs w/out RS. Only play about 1-2 hours a night and feel good with my progress. Coulda been farther along if I had put in more time but then I probably woulda burned out a long time ago. So at least this way I still enjoy my time with it.

Sounds like you haven't done much with it. Maybe go back and work on the guitarcade games. Scale Runner is the most helpful for moving up and down the strings and Ducks really helps with shifting up and down the fretboard.

Originally Posted by rivacom What kinda gets me angry is that they are charging $30 for the Bass DLC. This is what I wanted it for originally. So my only choice is to download it for $30 bucks. Where then I've spend MSRP $79.99 plus 30 for this. Where as the combo is going to sell for $79.99 anyway? Am I missing something? or are previous owners just getting robbed.

It is what it is in this day of DLC. At least there's going to be a physical disc (including bass content) so you should eventually see a sale price on that.

Originally Posted by jsivley Am I missing something with dlc? I thought I remembered seeing song packs that were themed (like a classick rock pack or something like that) and not just song packs of bands. I recently got some points & went to download some new songs & only found band track packs. Did they do away with some of their discounted packs or am I way off here?

Yeah, the band packs get the discount. But the general song groups are just meant to describe the type of music, so no discount.

Guessing they work out a deal when it's all the same band

Originally Posted by crazedracerguy This made me LOL. No, you will not become Eddie Van Halen by playing Rocksmith for 20 minutes. I have 300 hours in and I am MUCH better at guitar than I ever was. It was far better, for me, than what I would have grinded out in 300 hours of lessons/practice...

I'm not saying that I should be Van Halen by playing it for 20 minutes. Don't put words in my mouth. I just have put this game on the back burner for so long and I was just curious if folks who put a lot of hours into it feel like better guitar players. Chill man.

I played it a lot forth first two or so months. But I hit a wall in how mu h better I could get and ended up working a lot of overtime. So I have not played much in the last five months. I wouls play it more than any of my other games but still no much. I misinterpreted how the game taght I thought it was the songs that made you better when it was actually guitarcade. So I have been playing a lot of scalerunner since I was having a lot trouble moving string to string. Its been a ton of fun now that I figured out what the game uses to teach things. I am only level 4 so I couldn't even be called a terrible play but I am gatting better.

My daughter started playing the game about a month ago with my 25 year old guitar. She had never played before. She played the game an hour or so a day, about 4 to 5 days a week. Before she left back to college, she showed me how she can play an entire song in master mode, no visual cues at all. I was quite impressed.

Just saw this over at ProAudioLand. And thought it was relevant since the topic of straplocks came up earlier
Fender straplock for $10. Design is similar to the Hennesseys I bought
http://www.proaudioland.com/fender-c...rap-locks.html
Deal ends in a little bit. EDIT: Well, the daily deal has changed but the straplocks are still showing the $10 price

While there, I saw the bass fatfinger for $12
http://www.proaudioland.com/fender-f...-for-bass.html
Interesting piece if it works. Not so sure it's really useful though

EDIT 2: American Musical's daily deal is for the Kramer Striker 422 bass @ $140 (usually 200; over 300 at other sites)
http://www.americanmusical.com/RSS_Feeds/Ndnd.aspx

I have my audio through the RCA cables and video out on HDMI. But can I use the optical out instead of RCA or does it have to be analog all the way? I was just wondering if there's a difference in sound between the two connections.

And I also have my HDMI directly through the tv, but could I use the video switcher in my receiver as well as the RCA or optical audio? It takes up an entire HDMI slot on my tv while I can direct four through my receiver.