pierrot wrote:I've had one of the Rocksmith 1/4" stereo to USB cables for years, from when I was looking into cheap recording methods, and ways to poke around with Garage Band's peddle effects. I might think about just grabbing the actual game. Do either of you play it on PC? Does it actually reproduce the guitar's sound well in the game?
I would actually recommend going the PC route. Among other factors this will allow you to (much more easily) 'mod' the game with CDLC (custom DLC) tracks (read as: user created tracks for music not officially included in the game/DLC). Having said that, I've never played it on console so I don't have much in the way of direct comparison. I will say that Steam cloud saving is a super nice feature in this case as it will allow for play on multiple PCs with no loss of progress (I have it installed on three PCs - living room for big screen play on the TV, office for when I want to play but the TV is otherwise occupied, and laptop for when I want to take it out to the garage, more on that in a sec.)
I've never had any issue with the in-game guitar tones (as a bassist), but I suppose your mileage could differ significantly depending on your own tolerances, desired level of fidelity, 'quest for the ultimate tone', etc. The game does offer considerable options in this regard. Typically every song in the game will have it's own associated guitar tone that you can use anywhere in the game. It also features in-game amp and effects modeling all of which has it's own dedicated in-game 'sound lab' (the official name of which escapes me at the moment). There are a number of licensed amp and effects manufacturers represented (Orange and Marshall are springing to mind), and you can spend
a ton of time designing and saving your own custom tones if you like.
In terms of tone there's also a 'dark horse' option.
If you get yourself (or already have) an ABY splitter you can split your output to the game
and to your existing amp setup. I use a
Radial Bigshot for this purpose, but there are cheaper/more expensive options available depending. Basically you run the cable from your guitar to the ABY which has two ouputs; one with the RealTone cable going to your PC/console (the laptop I mentioned earlier), and the the other one going to your amp and/or existing effects chain. This affords a couple of huge benefits. The first is that you're playing with your familiar equipment and not the in-game tones. The second is that it allows you to control the volume of your output
independent of the volume of the game. RockSmith can be
just a teensy bit 'generous' in it's note detection, particularly when playing fast, and often this 'generosity' results in sounding sloppy when you play a song outside the game.
So after I learn a song in the game (but before I have it fully memorized) I like to run it though my actual setup to get it dialed in. Definitely not necessary to the enjoyment of the game, but a fun possibility nonetheless!