Generally the electric acoustic won't work. There are some that do of course but it might be less hassle to get an inexpensive electric.
It doesnt make a lot of difference but which system will you have it installed?
Steam has a problem where not all the original (Rocksmith aka RS1) downloadable content (DLC) is available for Rocksmith 2014 (RS14). Steam has a rule that you must own the game to buy DLC for it so Steam has been modifying the RS1 DLC a little at a time. But if you own RS1, all the DLC is immediately available for purchase and transfer to RS14. For an additional $10, you can transfer all but 5 of the original songs from RS1 to RS14.
RS14 also works on the Mac but RS1 does not. You can still get the songs as noted above.
On the Xbox360 and PS3 there are no problems with RS1 DLC. The same applies WRT the RS1 original game. Buy it and the transfer tool and have an additional 50 songs to play.
Make sure you get the one with a cable. It is propritary.
RS1 is generally considered a bit easier since the dev team couldn't put all the tinings in so there are mostly E Standard tunings with some Drop D and one or two odd ones. The game has a track where you learn a few songs then play in front of a gradually increasing crowd and venue. You can get to level 11, Rocksmith and/or Rumblesmith for the Bass track. You can also just play songs however guitars, effects, and hidden songs are only available through the concert series. It took me 2 years to finally win Star Spangled Banner.
One of the cool things is it starts with minimal notes and adds more notes as you get better until you have them all. When you think you have it all, there's a Master Mode where none of the notes are displayed, as if it were a backing track. It does play it back for you so you can see where you missed. There are technique challenges for things like Bends, hammer On/Pull Off, Chords, Harmonics, and Slap and Pop for Bass. There are games to help learn various techniques. There are learning tools as well. The best was a patch where you could set speed and difficulty of a section and play over and over until you mastered it.
RS1 is a guitar game that happens to teach you how to play
RS14 is more a learning tool that has games. There are three main tools.
Learn A Song. You can play any of the arrangements, Bass, Rhythm, or Lead. Like RS1, you start with fewer notes and they're added as you get better. Then, unlike RS1, the sections begin to disappear. There is no score but it does tell you how well you did with the notes presented and an overall percentage for the song. So if you only were given 50% of the notes, you could get a 100% accuracy but a 50% mastery because you were only given half the notes. When the sections begin to disappear, your mastery increases past 100%. One of mine is at 108% now.
Part of Learn a Song is continuous mode where you select songs to play and it runs them all through for you.
Session Mode. You select up to four instruments and they play as a backing band trying to follow your lead. There are loads of preset instruments for things like jazz, blues, and country.
Games. The games are still pretty cheesy 80's looking game graphics. But they still do what they did in RS1, help you learn how to play the various techniques.
One of the games is Score Attack. This lets you pick Easy, Intermediate, Hard, and Master and play a song. The song doesn't get easier or harder but there is a score involved. And if you miss three (you get a big *bang* like a cap pistol going off), the game ends and you're scored.
Personally I don't like Score Attack, specifically the *bang*. at times it pisses me off. But you have to realize this is a game and you're competing so there will be failures.
One other good thing is the Technique challenges changed into a series of lessons that are much better than RS1.
There was another product out but only for the Xbox360 and PS3 called BandFuse. It did a scrolling TAB vs a note highway which some folks preferred. Unfortunately they didn't market themselves well (some folks knew about it because of the Rocksmith discussion thread
), over promised, and didn't have a PC version. You can probably still find it and it might also be helpful.
I'd suggest getting RS1, the conversion tool, and RS14. By the way, I believe Steam is having a DLC sale right now.
Carl
