Plastic guitars vs Real guitars

[axehappyuk]

I've played real guitar for about 15 years now, and I find it quite strange that there's songs I can play for real, but I suck at in games.

Like, I can play Satch Boogie on real guitar, yet I fail every time on GHWT expert... even though the rhythm on the tapping section is almost identical to playing it on the real guitar, I still suck at it.. lol

There's loads of songs like this in the various guitar games ... does anyone else find this?

On a real guitar my fingers do exactly what I want them to, I can pick everything really cleanly, but not on games!


I guess it might be to do with sight-reading songs in the game, where on real guitar you actually learn them and your muscles remember what to play as well as your brain... I dunno... it disappoints me that I suck at fake guitar...

[wseyller]

I played the guitar for about 10 years. I started playing rockband and I could do only "Easy" difficulty even songs I could play on a real guitar. Not sure this is the best explanation but this type of game is the inverse to a real guitar. No longer than a month I could play most songs on Expert. It takes some time to get used. Not sure, but maybe playing the guitar at least help speed up the time it takes to get good at the game. But in no way in hell will you do better at a real guitar after becoming good at the game IMO.

[rud]

I'm a piano player and a drummer for about 20 and 15 years respectively. While it wasn't too shocking to be good at the drums right away in the game I was a little surprised at how easy I found the guitar. I only ever played a handful of songs on medium and hard then went straight up to expert and never came back down (I couldn't play *every* song on expert right away of course). Not meaning to brag at all there, but I just think the skill set for rocking out on the guitar in rockband is eerily similar to what they teach at in classical piano lessons.

A bunch of my friends are guitarists, and I have yet to see anyone who is great at the guitar be a natural in game.

[ssjfulkon198]

Well I've played guitar for about 2 years and GH type games for less than half thatt, btu apparently im a beast at both... o.o

I can play songs like Crazy Train, The Air That I Breathe, etc on real guitar and I can get 5* or G5* on FoF... o.o

idk, jsut saying.

~Aaron

[jerm138]

I've played real guitar most of my life and here's what I've found:

If it's a song that I can play for real, I suck at it on the games.
If it's a song that I'm real familiar with, but can't play for real, I'm OK at it on the games.
If it's a song I've never heard (or not much at all), I'm pretty good at it on the games.

The only thing I can figure is that if I can play it for real, my brain is trying to get me to play it for real and not what the little colored buttons tell me. The result is a complete mess.

If it's a song I'm familiar with, then I anticipate the notes too much and tend to screw up or play them early.

If I've never heard the song, then I just follow along blindly and do pretty good.


But if I can play it for real, I just put it on 'Practice' mode, and pick up the real guitar instead of the toy one. It's a lot more fun that way.

[SketchMan3]

I agree with what rud said about the piano and GH being related. The game really does seem to depend more on a key-pressing background than a string-squeezing background.

[cervuzo666merol]

Ive been playing bass guitar for 3 yrs now... and yeah i agree.
The games is totally different playing it for real.

Theres even a video of dave mustaine from Megadeth playing hangar 18 guitar hero 2, and he wasnt that great.
He is great on the real guitar, not on plastic guitars

[tyson09]

yes i also agree with this, i myself have been playing guitar and piano for 6 years and i found that it took me alot longer to finish a GH song than learn a whole song on guitar(not perfect it) like for example....it took me 2 days to perfect the day that never comes by metallica on guitar....when i downloaded it for FoFFiX though it took me over a week to finish it on expert it just seems odd how it is so difficult when there are only five buttons and no frets....and on and a guitar there are six strings and 25 frets(well my guitar)

[raph666]

I wouldn't say that playing the guitar games is like playing guitar but to me they are related. Playing the games doesn't feel like playing guitar, guitar requires much more precision and control so in no way someone who never played guitar would learn how to get decent sounds by playing the games. However, you need the same kind of rhythm and timing that the games offer. Fingers timing for ho/po's is not perfect and strumming a plastic thingy surely is far from the real thing but anyone playing guitar have to admit that sometimes, when you get carried away, you get a similar feeling. I'm believe that playing guitar for a long time before trying Guitar Hero for the first time really had an influence on my skills. I got used to the game on "Hard" and moved on to "Expert" quite fast, much faster than my non-guitar-playing friends though some of my guitar-playing friends suck at the game as well heh, I guess it's a mix from having both guitar skills and gaming skills. I'm pretty sure Dave Mustaine is not such a gamer.
I also think that some songs are harder in-game than in real life, fretted in a way that doesn't reflect reality. But the opposite is true too (for me at least), some songs are very hard on real guitar but become pieces of cake in-game.

[axehappyuk]

I know what you all mean.

You'd think it'd be easier though, I mean... there's only 5 notes! I just find playing real guitar way easier at times.


Raph got it right about getting carried away in a song sometimes... lol.. I find myself applying vibrato to the buttons and all kinds of strange things on a well fretted song...

I do try to fret my songs as close as possible to if I were playing them a real guitar with only a choice of 5 notes... I like to think the couple of songs I've done feel as close to really playing as can be in game... not too hard, not too easy.

But, I would say that They're fun to play for me anyway!

I can play both the songs I've fretted on real guitar too, I think that helps with note choice.

[guitarhero23]

It's totally different getting used to the timing.