One of the best ways to deter players from ending you in Rust is to entertain them. Well, if you manage to pick up a guitar along your travels, you can start playing to show them how friendly you are.
However, guitars have special controls in Rust that won’t allow you to simply play a tune by pressing a button.
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You probably press both the right and left mouse buttons, and it seems like all you can do is either play the A note or an A fifth chord.
To play the guitar in Rust, you will need to use the numpad on the right side of your keyboard to play all notes in an octave. If you don’t have a keyboard with a numpad, you need to set up macros or use a program like Rustissimo.
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How to Get or Make a Guitar in Rust
To start playing the guitar, you will first need to acquire it. There are two ways to get it, either craft it or find it. If you never researched one before, you won’t be able to craft it.
The best crates to loot that have a decent chance to give you the guitar in Rust are the primitive crates. These are the smaller crates that look like they are about to break any second. You will find a lot of these if you are looting the big power lines connected by ziplines.
Since there are usually around 7 to 8 bug power lines that you can loot by just climbing them to the top and ziplining to the next one. As you climb them, you will find a lot of primitive crates, and you will have a 5% chance to get the guitar.
Get it back to your base and research it, so you can craft the guitar in Rust for 100 wood and 10 cloth in the future.
How to Play the Guitar in Rust – How All the Controls Work
The controls that you will need to use to play the guitar in Rust are the 1 through 7 numbers on the numpad. You can also play the A note by left-clicking and the A fifth chord by right-clicking.
If you don’t have a keyboard with a numpad, you need to set up macros or use a program like Rustissimo.
The numbers will represent the basic notes from C to B. So, 1 is C, 2 is D, and that goes on until you reach 7, which is B. 8, unfortunately, isn’t C an octave higher.
If you just press one of the numbers, you will play that note. If you want to play chords, you will have to press two or three numbers at the same time.
So, you might be wondering how you are supposed to play sharp notes and an octave higher. Well, if you hold down the + button on the keypad and play a note, you will play that note’s sharp alternative.
Also, if you want to play an octave higher, you will need to hold down the Enter key, present on the keypad. This, unfortunately, means that you can’t play chords with notes in two octaves since you can only either play notes in the basic octave or the higher one.
Another option is pressing R while holding the guitar, which starts the full keyboard mode. This will make your whole keyboard work as musical notes, but this takes more time to master.
If you don’t like the numpad controls, you can easily change them by following these steps:
- Open the menu and select Options.
- Choose the Controls options.
- Scroll all the way down to find the Instruments controls.
- Change them.
From the Controls menu, you can also add special buttons for sharp notes and change the already established ones. Unfortunately, there is no way to set two octaves worth of notes.
Simple Songs You Can Start Playing Right Away
If you want to practice a bit and learn some easy songs to play on the guitar in Rust, here are some combinations you can use.
When you see a bolded number, it means that you will have to play that one while holding down the Enter key, to transpose it into another octave. If we place a * next to a number, it means you will have to play it sharp. So, hold down the + key on next to the numpad for these ones.
All of these songs are just played with single notes, so you won’t have to play any chords:
Star Wars Main Theme
- 1 5 432 1 5 432 1 5 4342
Avengers Theme
Attack on Titan Theme
- 22431 22431 64534231 64534321
Skyrim Dovahkiin Song
- 434 434 345 345432 212 212 123412 234 456 615432 212 212 123412
Undertale Megalovania
- 22265*54245 11265*54245
Drunken Sailor
- 6 666 666 246 5 555 555 135 6 666 666 71216532
Never Gonna Give You Up – Rick Astley
- 1242665 124255432 124255321154 1242665 124213432 124245321154
Fly Me To The Moon – Frank Sinatra
- 17654 46176543 654323465*4321 1266 175
That’s everything you need to know about how to play the guitar in Rust!
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