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Guidelines for Official-Looking Customs
rev. 3.2 (2021-04-05)
Much of this information is probably out there already, but I thought it would be nice to have it in one place with plenty of screenshots and examples with explanations of how to create them.
This tutorial concerns mostly minor details about the appearance of the chart that most people probably do not care about.
1. Basics
1.1 Editing a Note in EOF
Selecting a note in EOF and pressing 'N' or clicking a note with the mouse wheel opens the “Edit pro guitar note” window. This is where you can edit the note(chord) name and apply attributes like sustain, linknext, etc.
Edit note window in EOF
2.1 Single Notes
Normally, short notes should have no sustain. This should be obvious to anyone who has played the game, and customs that get it wrong are thankfully very rare.
You will have to use your own discretion to decide if a note should have a sustain or not. As a bad example, in “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction”, none of the notes in the main riff have sustains although sometimes the second note is sustained. It is unfortunate that Rocksmith has no way of indicating a note that should be explicitly played staccato (other than palm mutes of course).
Sustains should not touch the next note or appear to overlap with the next note. This can make it hard to see notes in the case when a note is partially covered by the sustain of the previous note on the same string. How much you should shorten the sustain may depend on which string the previous note is. A gap of a 32nd or 16th note is a good estimate.
Example of a sustain overlapping with the next note
2.2 Chords
2.2.1 Handshape Sustain
Whereas short single notes should have no sustains, even short chords should always have one.
In official content, there is always a gap between a handshape and the next chord/note. A larger gap is preferable if the chord is held for a long time.
There is a gap even if the following chord is the same one with the full chord box displayed again. (See also section 3.3 below)
Gap between A5 and A5 chords in “Blitzkrieg Bop”
2.2.2 Tail Sustain
From “Tornado of Souls” by Megadeth
Chords can be forced to show the tail sustain by marking them as 'sustain'. Since handshapes also work as sustains, a tail sustain on a chord without techniques applied to is practically pointless, and it is up to your preference how much you want to use it.
It can be useful when a sustained chord follows a flurry of short chords/notes, or it can be used for uniform appearance when a neighboring chord must have the tail sustain displayed because a technique is applied to it.
3. Handshapes
3.1 Quickly Arpeggiated Chords
From “Trust” by Megadeth
Handshapes can be used for quickly arpeggiated chords since they do not have the extra stuff that arpeggios have which can make it harder to see what notes you are supposed to play. As a downside, the chord name will not be displayed (although there is a way to show it).
Example in EOF
3.2 Chord Slides
The destination chord of a chord slide does not have a handshape applied by default. In official content it is often applied. When it is applied, the fingerprints displaying the fingering for the chord will move to the new position.
Here are two gifs that illustrate the matter:
Without handshapes vs. With handshapes
There is an issue in the current version of EOF where it makes the handshape of the slide chord continue to the end of the target chord, even if you mark a handshape on the target chord. DLC Builder fixes this automatically, but to make a valid XML file you would need to mark the handshape manually on the slide chord also.
Additionally, official files have a gap between the two handshapes. DLC Builder automates this, so you do not need waste time manually adjusting them. You only need to mark the handshape on the target chord.
Handshape manually marked on the target chord in EOF
Handshape manually marked on both chords to get an official-like result
3.3 Sustained Chords with Hammer-Ons
From “The Wind Cries Mary” by Jimi Hendrix
Notice that here there is also a gap in the handshape sustain (not that you will notice it while actually playing the song).
Above example recreated in EOF
3.4 Indicating Fingerings
In the Jimi Hendrix DLCs handshapes are sometimes marked even on single notes on the low E string when it needs to be made clear that they should be played with the thumb.
They can also be used to indicate the fingering in cases like below where you bend the B string with the 3rd finger then play a note on the E string with the 4th finger.
From “Fire” by Jimi Hendrix
3.5 Chords with Unpitched Slides
Chords/double stops with an unpitched slide out (when not using linknext) may look nicer if you shorten the handshape.
From "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse
Without shortening the handshape the above would look like this:
4. Repeated Chords with Notes in Between
There are two ways of charting these, both of which appear in official content. Which way you choose is up to your preference. If either one makes the chart easier to read, you should of course use that one.
1. Full Chord Panels
From “Holy Diver” by Dio (Note how the repeated chords have no names)
This is the default way the chords will appear and requires no editing in EOF.
2. Repeat Panels
From “The Number of the Beast” by Iron Maiden
Requires editing in EOF. This is most appropriate when the single notes are the lowest note in the chord. In other cases it might be confusing.
You only need to mark the handshape to include all the chords and that's it. Previously you needed to use "high density". (Note: the "high density" status does not do anything at all anymore)
5. Chord Names
Chord names can be removed from any chord by using a space as the name. Double stops should not have names. EOF has a "Don't auto-name double stops" setting in the preferences. Note that it will also leave two note power chords nameless.
In some official content power chords have no names.
Chords that are merely effects (most common example: hitting three or more open strings) are best left nameless.
Otherwise, more complex chords should obviously have names (preferably correct ones).
Nameless power chords in “Run to the Hills” by Iron Maiden
6. Pick Slides/Scrapes/Scratches
From "Call Me the Breeze" by Lynyrd Skynyrd (tap, tremolo + vibrato)
In official content pick slides are marked with an unpitched slide and tremolo (and/or vibrato) and possibly tap and in rare cases with a fret hand mute.
From "Metropolis Part I" by Dream Theater
The above in EOF (both tremolo and vibrato are used)
In the above example, the FHP at the pick scrape is set at low position of the fretboard, to indicate that your left hand should stay where it is. In these cases a two note pick scrape is split into notes (otherwise the chord panel would stretch to cover the whole anchor zone which would look really bad. As an aside, I suspect that with the tools Ubisoft uses it is not possible to make a chord with tap notes.)
If you do not like the way the split notes look and want to use a regular chord at a high FHP position, you should use the 'fingerless' status on it. The 'ignore' status should always be used.
7. Bends with an Unpitched Slide Outward
From “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix
It is not necessary to chart a bend down before the outward slide, unless it is audible of course.
You can also chart a bend down during the slide:
From "Always With Me, Always With You" by Joe Satriani
8. Lyrics
The preference is for short lines, each line beginning with a capital letter (exceptions are found in early DLC and RS1 imported songs).
Words are broken into syllables.
Periods and commas (barring a few exceptions, e.g. "American Pie") are not used for punctuation. Exclamation marks are also used very rarely. However, periods are used in words such as S.O.S., L.A., "G.I. Joe", etc. Other special characters appear occasionally. (An exception are the romanized lyrics in the Japanese DLC, where periods, commas and exclamation points are used)
Double quotes in “Peace Sells” by Megadeth
In the romanized Japanese lyrics, を is romanized "wo" (instead of o), and katakana loan words may be written in English. For example, in the lyrics for "Paradox Taisou", アフリカ (afurika) is romanized as Africa, but broken into syllables "A-f-ri-ca" like the Japanese word (the correct English hyphenation is Af-ric-a).
Enabling "Allow RS2 extended ASCII lyrics" in EOF allows you to use all the characters that are included in the default font.
Newer DLC seems to stick with 1.3 as the fastest scroll speed, even for fast and difficult songs like "Through the Fire and Flames", "Play With Me" and "Starship Trooper".
11.2 Preview Audio
In official content, the preview audio is 28 seconds long and has a fade-in of up to about 2 seconds and a fade-out of around 3 seconds.
11.3 Tremolo/Whammy Bar
11.4 Examples of Ignore Usage
Here a some examples of when the ignore status may be used.
This is the only case where the ignore status must be used. Newer versions of EOF handle this automatically.
From "'Little' Fugue in G minor"
From "Foxey Lady" by Jimi Hendrix
From "Gimme Some Money" by Spinal Tap
From "Rainbow in the Dark" by Dio
This will prevent getting "random" misses on a note in the chord.
From "Stray Cat Strut" by Brian Setzer
From "Pull Me Under" by Dream Theater (Bass)
A harmonic slide up and down the string from "Nemesis" by Arch Enemy
From "La Bamba" by Ritchie Valens
12. Showlights
Time is obviously the time when the note will take effect.
13. Further Reading
DDC Improver - A tool created by me that has some features that help you make your customs look more like ODLC when using the Toolkit.
Few Misc. Tips for Beginners (by me) Concerns some basic problems that many customs have.
Polishing Your CDLC (by L33tr) Covers some of the same things as this tutorial. Still, I highly recommend that you read it.
Edited by iminashi
Removed section about multi-part tone descriptors
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