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The Woodshed achievement in Guitar Hero: Van Halen

The Woodshed

5 star guitar for 'Little Guitars', 'Cathedral', 'Spanish Fly', and 'Eruption'. (expert)

The Woodshed+0.5
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How to unlock the The Woodshed achievement

  • Digital ConceptDigital Concept
    17 Oct 2009 23 Jul 2010
    NOTE: It is hard to write a solution for this, as it is pretty much a test of devotion and/or skill. Below, I simply outline what you need to do. As everyone pretty much knows, Cathedral and Little Guitars and fairly easy songs, and I did not go into details with them.

    *CATHEDRAL
    This is the easiest of the four songs, and you shouldn't have trouble with it. If you do, you're going to encounter a lot of problems when going for this achievement.

    *LITTLE GUITARS
    Though the intro solo is a bit difficult, it is nothing to be intimidated by, as it is, in my opinion, the only difficult part of the song. Past the solo, the song is just a repeating verse/chorus. Unlike the other three songs, Little Guitars is not a guitar solo, and is not that difficult (outside the intro solo, like I said.)

    *SPANISH FLY
    Score Goal: 80,000
    This is where the achievement gets drastically hard. In my opinion, Spanish Fly is the hardest song to five star, because the tapping section is a bit awkward. If your going to five star this, you must be able to play two sections flawlessly. The first is the tapping section. This must be practiced. I practiced for hours before eventually getting it down (devotion scored me the achievement, though.) You must also be able to play the ascending and descending notes near the beginning of the song. Play the intro, building up star power (THIS IS NECESSARY!) Use your star power in the ascending/descending notes. If you play flawlessly (which you must) you will be well on your way to the five star. Then, it is just the tapping. For the five star, it is necessary to obtain the two star power phases during the tapping sections. Once you get it, use it right away, and you should be able to pull off the five star. With this method, Spanish Fly is very easy to five star.

    *ERUPTION
    Score Goal: 117,500-118,000
    Eruption is not as hard as Spanish Fly, in my opinion, because you can pretty much bomb the first half of the song and still accomplish the five stars for the achievement. To get the five stars, simply load up your game, go straight to practice mode, and practice the tapping sections until you can play this flawlessly. Don't be worried if you don't get it right away. It took days to learn this!! Once you can consistently play the tapping section flawlessly, your pretty much good to go. Obtain every star power phase (the one near the fast notes is hard to pull off at first, but easy with a little bit of practice) and save it all for the tapping section. Make sure you whammy the sustained note of the star power phase after the alt-strumming part, as it will net you A LOT MORE star power that you would have originally. When the tapping section comes up, wait until you achieve a 4x multiplier and activate star power. This is where your training will kick in. Play flawlessly for as long as you can with the 8x multiplier, and you should be able to pull off the five stars.
    NOTE: I said before that you can "bomb" the first half of the song. Obviously, that's a little exaggerated. You must be able to hit a majority of the notes in the first half, and pull off every star power phase. But, do not restart if you miss a few notes or break multiplier during the first half. As long as you perform extremely well in the tapping part, you shouldn't have a problem.
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  • Potato HandlePotato Handle
    25 Apr 2010 18 Apr 2010 24 Jan 2011
    For the tapping section of Eruption it makes it much easier to keep a combo if you "drum" the higher notes of each triplet.

    Sorta difficult to explain, if you were to play the triplets exactly as they were charted, you'd have the lowest note anchored, and play the highest notes with a rhythm of 1, 2, rest, 1, 2 rest, 1, 2, rest, etc. The rests being where the anchored (Lowest) note registers.

    What I'm proposing that you so instead, is leave out the rests and just tap a steady rhythm on the higher two notes, alternating between your left and right hands (Like a slow drum roll) to the beat of the music on the relevant frets. The timing window is large enough to comfortably ignore the anchored note, and it will still register in between your taps.

    Best of luck!
    Showing both comments.
    xs Silence sxI agree with this strategy. If you're good enough to pass the song without much trouble, just spend a couple hours practicing fingertapping the ascending trips. Me, I'm not great at the first half of the song, but I'm now a beast at the fingertapping. Use your SP there and keep a good combo and you can get 5 stars.
    Posted by xs Silence sx On 20 Oct 10 at 02:03
    TrombonafideThis is the method I used to get Eruption and Spanish Fly. I was also using the Beatles Rock Band guitar and using the solo buttons, which was a bit easier on my dainty fingers.
    Posted by Trombonafide On 18 Jul 21 at 13:57
  • Removed Gamer
    Gamer has been removed
    This achievement is very hard to get. Even some of the best players will have trouble with this one. You must complete Little Guitars, Cathedral, Spanish Fly, and Eruption all on expert guitar (not bass). The easiest song in my opinion is Cathedral. It is the 3rd to last song in the career guitar list, and is basically all hammerons and pulloffs. I was able to 100% FC it my second try. This song should not be too much of a problem. The next hardest is Little Guitars. Not too difficult in my opinion, but depending on your skill level you may or may not find this one easy. The third hardest is Spanish Fly. This song took me about ten or so tries before I 5 starred it. You must learn the ending by tapping, or if you are good with the touch pad (I am not) you need to keep a 4X multiplier for a decently long time. Learn where you get the most points during star power phrases. The hardest song for me by far was 5 starring Eruption. For some reason, I had a lot of trouble with the beginning keeping a 4X multiplier. I got this by saving all of my star power until the first set in the tapping section of the song. You may or may not be able to get a full star power meter, but once in the tapping section, you need to hit just about every star power phrase to get enough points. You will 5 star the song at around 117K maybe a little more or less. I got 116,463 one time and that still wasn't a 5 star. I finally got 118K for the 5 star. The real key is to be able to play the ending almost perfectly, and to use the star power to get optimal points. If you need any more advice, just send me a message.
    Showing most recent comments. View all comments.
    Zacry072Wow, I got Eruption easily but still can't even four star Spanish Fly. Then again I let a friend borrow it and only tried Spanish Fly a handful of times. Any particular tips for Spanish Fly?
    Posted by Zacry072 On 07 Dec 09 at 00:41
    Data555doughAurghhhh Eruption is destroying me!!! I got like 109k and that was on a really good run for me :/ Spanish Fly though I was super shocked to see that 5 star at the very end, but it helps if you can full combo up to the tapping section ( I bombed the tapping part and still got the 5*s lol)
    Posted by Data555dough On 26 May 10 at 23:49
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