
Guitar browser game with a real guitar - makaronich
https://makaroni4.github.io/guitar_bro/
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aequitas
Nice, but a little hard if you don't yet have chords associated by name and
I'm missing background music/tempo to keep track.

Personally I'm really fond of the Rocksmith game for learning guitar. It's
like Guitar Hero, but with your own real guitar (and interactive lessons). I
have no real ambition (or talent) for playing musical instruments, but somehow
it lets me enjoy music interactively at my skill level while also giving the
gratification of game progress.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDQ_U3lukAQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDQ_U3lukAQ)

~~~
1337biz
Thanks for making me aware of Rocksmith. Wish there were more games which
teach a real skill!

~~~
trumbitta2
Rockband 3 with Pro Guitar? [http://www2.fender.com/experience/fender-
tone/introducing-th...](http://www2.fender.com/experience/fender-
tone/introducing-the-revolutionary-rock-band-3-squier-by-fender-stratocaster-
guitar-controller/)

~~~
MagnumOpus
I have the pro guitar and played with RB3 before Rocksmith - Rocksmith is an
order of magnitude better for someone who is still learning (and I think
that's 90% of the target market).

The only advantage of RB3 is the ability to play together with plastic
instrument aficionados, but the unforgiving implementation of the real guitar
experience just made it _not fun_ for me.

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wlesieutre
Error message tells me "You need to update your Chrome browser" when I'm
running Safari. Would be more helpful to say "You need to use Chrome instead
of Safari".

Didn't test beyond that as I don't have a guitar, was just curious to see what
it looked like and thought I'd point that out.

~~~
haburka
Imo if you are using safari and you are playing a demo, you should expect the
demo not to work. Safari is the new IE and most demos use advanced browser
APIs that safari doesn't support. You shouldn't need an error message to
understand that.

~~~
pls2halp
The list of APIs which Webkit doesn't support(at least in the preview version)
is surprisingly small[1]

Chrome is a lot closer to IE in that it incorrectly implements standards to
encourage developers and users to priorities it's platform(like a certain
company[2])

[1]
[https://webkit.org/status/#?status=under%20consideration,in%...](https://webkit.org/status/#?status=under%20consideration,in%20development,removed,not%20considering)

[2] [https://brattahlid.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/is-docx-
really-a...](https://brattahlid.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/is-docx-really-an-
open-standard/)

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gus_massa
If you don't have a guitar, you can use a use a piano (or a virtual piano in
the phone) or even sing.

I think it's not clear enough when you hit the note or when you miss it. It
has some animation, but it's confusing.

Anyway, I need more lives :( Can I have a sandbox mode where I can try
forever?

~~~
makaronich
Here you go, I've added Sandbox and Survival mode you can choose from. Is
"Survival" the right word to indicate that game has "health"? (I'm so far away
from gaming haha)

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scopecreep
Neat tool. Would be nice to be able to set tuning as I keep my guitars in Eb.

Also I'll be "that guy": Can we get a tab mode - maybe with an option to
display the note as well for us complete amateurs?

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tbarbugli
I suggest adding an explanation what what the game is about (or fix the "How
it works" link)

~~~
makaronich
Amazing fail by me, there is a little blog post with some details and
visualizations: [http://makaroni4.com/2017/07/10/guitar-
bro/](http://makaroni4.com/2017/07/10/guitar-bro/)

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uglycoyote
This is an interesting idea to me. I'm also working on some web music-learning
ideas so I thought I would check this out. I have played guitar for about 20
years but found this game to be nearly impossible. Granted, I don't know the
fretboard well, I tend to be more of a chord-strummer, tab reader type.

I found that just when I was starting to succeed at hitting a note or two, the
game ended. I tried using a lower tempo, but that did not seem to extend the
duration of the game.

I also agree somewhat with a previous (controversial, deleted commenter) that
the use of "bro" in the title of the game is off-putting. To many, the word
bro may not register as negative, but when you live outside of the
testosterone-fuelled brotherdom, it sticks out like an unwelcoming red flag.

~~~
makaronich
Thanks for a good feedback! Btw I've added Sandbox mode where one can practice
without restarting the game every time. I hope Sandbox and lower BPM will make
the flag a bit greener :)

~~~
uglycoyote
I like sandbox mode much better, it seems better for learning if you can just
keep going until you are tired.

It seems like there's a bug, I tried changing the settings (different string,
different tempo) and with the radio button still set to "sandbox" but it seems
like it went into survival anyhow. (I had five hearts and the game ended
quickly)

Just fiddling around with it, it seems like you have to let a note ring for a
fair amount of time before it figures out what note you are on (just like any
tuner I have ever used). I suppose it's just a hard problem to solve, but it
seems like that would get in the way of playing the game at a higher tempo or
trying to do a similar game that used more than one string at a time (having
multiple notes ringing at the same time also seems to inhibit it from zeroing
in on what note you just played). Is this why you restricted the game to a
single string at a time?

I have not played Guitarsmith, Guitar Hero, or whatever the commercial games
are which teach you guitar, but people who use them have told me that they are
very accurate with recognizing whether you are playing the note or making a
mistake. I'm curious if you have any sense of whether that's true. If so do
they just have much more sophisticated algorithms for examining the waveform
and extracting the notes?

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gicadin
A suggestion - Option to take out the lives so you can keep playing even if
you make mistakes. This would be nice for beginners like me.

~~~
makaronich
That's a very cool suggestion, added "Sandbox" mode (next to existing
"Survival" one):
[https://makaroni4.github.io/guitar_bro/](https://makaroni4.github.io/guitar_bro/)

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spacec0wb0y
Nice idea, a good way to learn the actual notes of the frets, which a lot of
gamey guitar apps miss.

BPM settings seem a little odd. Some samples race along at 60 bpm.

Displaying the 12th fret instead of open string makes it unnecessarily
difficult.

I'd love to see this grow and improve into a really cool app!

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geofft
I feel kinda stupid - how is this supposed to work? Microphone input?

(Does it only work in Chrome?)

~~~
makaronich
Yep, it works only in Chrome (it should show a note in non-chrome browser).

Problem is only Chrome allows tuning FFT precision now.

More details here: [http://makaroni4.com/2017/07/10/guitar-
bro/](http://makaroni4.com/2017/07/10/guitar-bro/)

~~~
padenot
> Problem is only Chrome allows tuning FFT precision now.

This is plain wrong.

Source: I maintain the Web Audio API in Firefox.

~~~
makaronich
Sorry, my bad. I meant you can't set FFTSIZE higher than 2048 and we need at
least 8192 to identify notes correctly (at least in Safari). Does Firefox
allow higher FFTSIZE than the default?

~~~
padenot
Yes, up to 32768, per spec [0]. It's just that Safari does not implement this
part of the spec, which has changed in early 2015 to allow for longer FFTs
[1].

[0]: [https://webaudio.github.io/web-audio-api/#dom-
analysernode-f...](https://webaudio.github.io/web-audio-api/#dom-analysernode-
fftsize) [1]: [https://github.com/WebAudio/web-audio-
api/issues/375](https://github.com/WebAudio/web-audio-api/issues/375)

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greatNespresso
Cool idea really !

