We are the Ubisoft dev team behind Rocksmith 2014 Edition - Ask us anything!

I've been surprised at the number of RS1 and RS1-DLC song arrangements that changed when they were brought into RS2014. Generally pretty subtle changes - a note here and a note there - but they seem, for the most part, like corrections and improvements.

I was curious as to what prompted those changes? Were they products of player feedback? Did someone else on the development team decide something was probably played differently? Have you ever had a musician contact you and say "No, this is how I played that."?

Great question. with RS2014 we added more techniques and advanced detection. We also had to make a pass on all the existing note tracks to add bend-contours, slides, fret-hand mutes, etc. so we took the opportunity to enhance all of it!

PS: we've never been contacted by an artist having any issues with the way something was note-tracked.

have you ever contacted artists for help in transcribing their stuff?

Obviously. It's the only way they could get the lyrics to Thunder Kiss '65 right.

Lol.

Thanks for all the hard work. Rocksmith is amazing.

Could you please elaborate what we may or may not see as far as expansions? Is is possible to get some ear training lessons?

Thank YOU! We're talking right now about what we can do to expand in the future - we're taking a look at the stats and usage then considering new ways to expand Rocksmith. More to come!

How did you guys basically eliminate loading times? Seriously, somebody deserves a Nobel Prize in amazingness for that.

A lot of hard work, planning, and sticking to memory budgets. We hated the loading as much as you guys did and are very glad it's gone.

We'll look into the Nobel Prize...

If I've never played guitar in my life, can Rocksmith teach me the basics of playing guitar?

Absolutely, we've designed the game to accommodate all players from true beginners to seasoned pros. You'll learn, we promise!

I never touched a guitar or bass before RS, I can now pick up 1 and just play... Thanks guys!

Hmm, now I'm VERY tempted to pick up the game :O

Do it. We're not biased.

Has any of the data collected from first few weeks of playtime surprised you?

We're a little surprised at the smaller number of people using bass since we think they're some of the most fun arrangements in the game.

Bass player here, I really like Mary Jane's Last Dance and Are You Mine

Bass player here, all I play is Rush.

Nice to meet you, Geddy! We're big fans of yours.

That's all the time we have today - thanks everyone for joining and asking questions! We hope you're enjoying Rocksmith 2014 Edition and please keep an eye out, we've got a ton of amazing new DLC on the way!

Check us out at Rocksmith.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/Rocksmithgame/status/400729749255106560

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/rocksmith.usa

You can follow Paul on Twitter at @CrossieRS , Nao at @NaoHigo , Nick at @NicholasBonardi , and Jason at @JeevesGodfrey .

Can you explain what all the seperate teams in the logo did on Rocksmith? It was interesting to see the ex Rainbow Six developers working on the game. Great game otherwise lads PS Add Pavement or Ween

Ubisoft has a culture of resource sharing and a lot of people were excited to be working on such a unique title as RS2014 - when we looked at our opportunities, Red Storm fit the bill. They were a huge help!

Longtail also helped us with Guitarcade and Score Attack - great guys.

• What lesser known features are you guys crazy proud of? We all love the new Riff Repeater but maybe there's something not everyone has utilised yet
• What's the biggest "YES WE GOT IT!" song you managed to get on-disc for 2014?
• Are there any songs you have licensed but just can't figure out the chart for yet?
• How long on average does it take to chart a song?

Thanks for the game, loving it!

1 - Leaderboard challenges. 2 - Well, check back to see what we release for DLC next week ; ) 3 - Nope, we're pros. 4 - For on-disc we averaged about 2 weeks per song. For DLC, we're moving a little faster so we can get more tunes in the library, but it varies by difficulty. "Hangar 18" vs. "Blitzkrieg Bop" for example.

For the experienced musicians on the team, what is the song that inspired you to pick up an instrument?

For non-guitarists, what song are you the most proud of perhaps learning via Rocksmith?

Brian - The first song I learned on electric guitar was "Sweet Home Alabama." I actually got to note track it when we put it on RS1!

Nick - "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the first song I wanted to learn when I was 15.

Paul - I actually learned to play using Rocksmith! I loved learning Radiohead, Muse, and Oasis tunes. "Plug In Baby" was the tune I was really proud to learn considering how challenging the riff is.

Jason - "I Got Mine" by the Black Keys was the song on RS1 I was most excited to learn. I actually ended up transitioning to bass.

Peter - Probably some Judas Priest. Those were the first songs that I started playing with Rocksmith and thought, wow, it actually sounds like the song when I play!

Chris - "Layla" by Derek and the Dominoes was the song I've always wanted to learn.

Mike - Marty McFly playing "Johnny B Goode" in Back to the Future. I bought a Cherry Red Gibson ES-345 just like the one he plays.

"Paul - I actually learned to play using Rocksmith! I loved learning Radiohead, Muse, and Oasis tunes. "Plug In Baby" was the tune I was really proud to learn considering how challenging the riff is."

Paul is the trooper of the team!

"Chris - "Layla" by Derek and the Dominoes was the song I've always wanted to learn."

Plugged or unplugged? AKA long or short version?

The electric original long version!

One of my favorite aspects of RS1 was playing with custom tones - not just tweaking existing guitar tones and creating my own, but experimenting with different tones while playing different songs. In fact, unlocking new tones and new effects became a major motivator for me.

The automatic tone switching in RS2014 has added a new dimension to the game, but unfortunately it's made custom tones useless, for all practical purposes. I can choose a custom tone, but it's gone when the tone autoswitches, and then the song goes to the original tone when it switches back. I'm simply not good enough to be continuously mashing keyboard keys as I navigate through a song.

Has the team given any thought to addressing this issue, or even better, giving us a utility that would allow the player to pre-select a custom tone for each of the tone 'slots' in a given song?

Honestly, custom tone plan was something that we looked at in development and it started to get a bit messy with UI management and ultimately time frame.

I constantly recommend this game to people who ask me about learning to play guitar. I'm absolutely convinced that there's never been a learning tool quite like it. But I have one concern about new players, and I thought this would be a good chance to see if you guys share it.

The single most common problem that new players seem to have - one we get asked about in r/rocksmith almost daily - is note recognition on the higher frets, and the problem is almost always related to intonation.

It's such a common issue in fact, that I just assumed RS2014 would have some kind of built-in tuner that would check for correct intonation, along with some info for what to do about it if it's out. I was genuinely surprised to find nothing like that was included.

So I guess what I'm wondering is... is this something you guys tried to do and it just didn't work? Is it something you can see adding at a later date?

We tried to cover everything we thought could help you fix/set up for an optimal playing experience. Guitar intonation is something that requires an experienced guitar tech to handle.

Based on the name of the second installment, Can we expect Yearly Editions?

Love the game BTW, had it for a week now, and I'm already better! Just 100%'d My Own Summer :)

No, we named the new game Rocksmith 2014 Edition to keep from causing confusion over "Rocksmith 2" being a harder, more advanced version of the game.

First of all, thanks for doing this AMA! Secondly, how did you come up with the idea of Rocksmith?

You're quite welcome! Thanks for joining.

Ubisoft is all about games with real-life benefits. Making a game that actually taught you how to play guitar is a perfect example of that.

Hey, guys!

1. Does 60 day challenge apply for bass?

2. Any plans on support 3 people co-op?

1 - Yep! We <3 bass too. 2 - We've got 2 player multiplayer for instruments, but you can have a buddy sing along as well!

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Not this year. Feel free to mess with electric instruments though, we've tried it with an electric violin with smashing results!

Any chance of a Drumsmith game at some point? I'm not a guitar player, but I'd love to give it a go with drums!

Not in the foreseeable future.

What about Rocksmith 2014 are you most proud of?

Great question. We're really proud that we were able to deliver on the promises we made to totally revamp the game to incorporate player feedback and create the game we've always wanted.

Also, that it actually works. We love seeing millions of people learn to play guitar/bass with Rocksmith!

thank you this was the only game that actually addressed a lot of the issues its predecessor had and you succeeded in making it great thank you once again

Thank YOU for playing it!

HELLO ROCKSMITH TEAM

1) How many dinners did you eat during crunch time #RocksmithFacts

2) A recent comment speculated on how a next-gen RS would work (or not) due to the types of audio-out on both systems. If you got to prototype that version today, how would "Rocksmith Recommends" most likely have you set up either system?

3) How often will we see Japanese DLC?

4) How do you brutally, honestly feel about BandFuse? (please? :p)

5) What was the budget for on-disc/DLC/development like for RS1 in comparison to 2014?

6) Though I don't own a Wii U and therefore show no interest in such a version... was a version ever prototyped?

Thanks :)

• 1 - Approximately 100. Do Saturday and Sunday lunches in the office count? #RocksmithFacts
• 2 - That is a good question for the future. HDMI and Optical is obviously not ideal based on our history. We’d need to research exactly how many milliseconds it takes for the audio signal to come out of the back of the console. Then figure out what we could do to get that as low as possible. Then we’ll need to figure out what the best home setup could be to minimize HD TV latency. Definitely a challenge, but we’ve been dealing with it for years.
• 3 - For the next couple of months you should see something every other week. Our Japanese team has promoted some of the bands to come already.
• 4 - We're looking forward to checking it out.
• 5 - Comparable. We have made things much harder for ourselves by adding so many techniques and modes. However, we also got better tools so we were able to balance it out by saving time in other ways.
• 6 - Early experimentation, but nothing that made it to a prototype.

How do you chart songs? Do you get tablature straight from the artists/labels?

We almost always transcribe by ear, cross referencing transcriptions, live footage, and a peer-review system to make sure it's as accurate and fun to play as possible. We note track by consensus; as a team.

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Instrument teaching, yo.

Will we ever get DLC of a full album? The guitar hero games did this and I thought it was a great idea. Something like Weezer's Blue Album or Pearl Jam's Ten.

Full albums can be hard - we try to choose songs that are not just popular but fun/good to learn on guitar/bass so an entire album can be difficult to justify.

That said, fuck yea Weezer.

Huge fan of Rocksmith, I purchased the game when it first came out 2 years ago and it got me back into playing guitar and I was having fun doing it again. Thank you guys for that!

What is the biggest challenge for you guys?

Thank YOU for picking it up!

Timeframe. It was very hard to finish up RS1, the bass expansion, the guitar/bass edition, then Rocksmith 2014 Edition all to be ready for October releases was a big challenge for our small team.

Very interested in picking up the game and have watched the 60-day challenge videos. They really seemed to pick up a lot in that short time. How common is that level of improvement? Ie, how much cherry picking was there?

The folks in the 60-day challenge videos were either totally beginners or had very very little experience - they actually did learn as much as you see in just 60 days! Obviously everyone learns a little differently, but we truly feel if you play Rocksmith 2014 Edition for 1 hour a day for 60 days, you'll be playing guitar.

RS2014 has been out for a few weeks now. Given the feedback you've been getting, can you give us an idea of what you'll incorporate into the first patch?

The way patching works is we try to make sure we're addressing the most important issues with fixed that we know will address the core problem. For that, we need to reproduce the issues in the office under controlled circumstances, determine exactly what the problem is, and make a fix.

From there, we put it through the Ubisoft QA process which takes some time, and after that we submit to Microsoft and Sony. That process can take an additional two weeks. If anything doesn't get approved, you have to start over. We have a patch that is currently finishing the QA phase. It won't address absolutely everything that's been reported but it will address a lot of the big issues that we can successfully reproduce.

Any plans on making 5-strings bass fully usable in-game?

We talked about this a lot. The problem is once we devide this up a smaller percentage of material can be played by all users. One thing we're doing in this vein is "capoed" material - in the future there will be capo-specific DLC!

Hey guys absolutely love the game and have been playing nonstop since the first release.

Will we be seeing more songs from THIS generation?

"My Generation" wasn't good enough?

We're definitely looking to include newer songs! Hopefully we can catch some stuff as it's currently popular as well as classic favorites and hits.

what ideas were scrapped because they didn't work?

and some ear training mini games would be nice

Scrolling tab is something we tried in the original prototype of the game (Guitar Rising) and found that at low levels it's okay, but reading anything more challenging became very difficult to follow. It was too hard to see the shape of your hands for chords or the flow of the notes.

I mostly use a acoustic electric. Is it easier to use it in Rocksmith 2014?

Your acoustic electric will work with Rocksmith if it has a 1/4'' jack on it! Make sure to keep your volume and tone all the way up.

are the Eagles impossible to get like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd? I love Rocksmith btw, thanks for your hard work!!

Nothing is impossible.

Are there any plans to do anything like Rock Band Network or CS:GO Operation Payback where the community can submit content for official inclusion in Rocksmith?

As a resident of Athens, GA, I know tons of bands who would love to be a part of Rocksmith. In fact, two bands have already given me explicit permission to act on their behalf to get them in the game, despite my insistence that I can't actually do that yet.

It's not in our plans at this time. We try to add smaller bands through our existing music licensing relationships, so keep an eye out on things to come!

RS 2014 shows a marked improvement on original RS in terms of user experience. How did the development process of 2014 differ from what you went through for RS1?

With RS1 we were trying brand new things and trying to prove that this idea could work. Because of that some other aspects of the product were not as good as they could be (menus, navigation, ect).

With RS2014 we took all the best elements of RS1 and improved on all the areas we felt needed reworking, while adding brand new features like Session Mode, to make the product we always wanted to make!

Just want to start by saying Thank You to all of the people involved in the making of this game. RS14 is revolutionary and it's not too far away from being perfect. Sorry for the long post and numerous questions. I have been a long time reddit lurker and I started a profile just for this. I'm at work and can't respond til late tonight, so if you respond, thank you so much, if not, that's cool too and I still love ya RS.

Not really sure where to start but I've noticed a few things that I want to mention/ask, sooooo....

1. My RS14 has frozen every day since launch at least 2 times or more each play session. My game freezes in all possible situations...after a song, loading a song, in the middle of a song, loading the game at start menu, during navigating menus. I know it is not my particular Xbox360 per it doesn't (continually)freeze in other apps/games, so is this a known issue?

2. My favorite part of playing RS is playing co-op with my wife...when we play learn a song, no song progress saves for player 2. It's beyond frustrating and hinders the dynamic learning process, IMO. Look at this question like YOU are the little brother/sister/friend/SO who always plays as player 2 and it's YOUR progress that is not saving. Is this a problem coming from Ubisoft bc of having to connect to UPlay and only having 1 person connected to their server at a time? If so, what can we do to work around this for a fix?

3. In Duet Score Attack, it specifically shows "High Score" beside every song. Also, not only does it score for both players together for a combined score, but it score each player individually as well. But at the same time, there is no scores that save for each player individually nor combined and no leaderboard is available for it? Why?

4. String colors at times can be confusing, to me. The orange and red notes look very similar. Open notes are very difficult at times to even know they are there, esp during parts where chords are hammered and there is a mix of open and held notes(Hope that makes sense EX. Lead for Knocking on heavens door and Mary Janes last dance)

5. The one thing I kept noticing in videos before the game was released was on bend notes that you changed the note box and added an arrow on top or below it. I personally really really miss the RS1 bend note box bc it makes it a lot easier to notice a bend in the middle of a faster, more intricate section. any chance that could be added?

6. Session Mode has already made me a more confident guitar player but I would love to have a way to know the progression being played and to have the ability to be able to "keep the band here". To explain the latter of the 2, there are so many times where I bring the band down to a softer, quiter sound and by the time I play a few notes, it quickly goes back up and they play harder and it would be great to be able to "keep the band here." Session mode is FUCKING INCREDIBLE btw!

7. Not really that important but why did you stop the RS1 dlc sale on the last batch of songs on Xbox 360? I would love to pick up those last few songs that didn't go on sale :)

Thanks for all your time and hard work and I can't wait to see where RS goes in the future. Rock On \m/

• 1- It is a known issue. We are investigating, but haven't been able to reproduce it in the office or in our homes, which means we can't figure what's going wrong. We can't make a fix until we know what's broken. To ANYONE having this problem, make sure your get your case sent through Ubisoft Customer Support with as much detail about your profile and the moments before the crash as you can give us.
• 4 - Have you tried adjusting brightness or contrast settings on your TV to see if that helps make the difference more noticeable? Colorblind mode can be a big help, even if you aren't colorblind.

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We're still working on it, but it's on the way! Thanks for the love.

I was really happy when I found out my favourite band Hail the Sun had a song on the game I spent a whole day playing just to unlock their song any chance on more tracks from them? Or bands similar to them like Dance Gavin Dance, Tides Of Man, or A Lot Like Birds?

Dude. You know Shane from Hail the Sun worked on the game, right?