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Curious about the process people use to create....


ice9

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01. Look for a GP or powertab file

02. Check if GP file makes any sense at all (many aren't complete), using Tux Guitar

03. Load audio into EOF, start with bass and set BPM from GP file despite the fact it's usually way wrong

04. Load gp file and see what happens

05. Fix BPM

06. Fix GP file song structure and notes that are way wrong

07. loop 06 until everything fits

08. Add leading silence from within EOF - what is the advantage of doing that from Audacity?

09. Create song preview from within EOF

10. Cover art, wwise, first playable package

11. Play song in RS with some slapped-together initial tone

12. Notice all the errors, go back to 06

13. Add guitar parts and then loop 06

14. Add vocals by hand usually - I find that is easily done in EOF, don't have to get the notes right anyway

15. Extensive playtest

16. Create custom tone(s) and add them

17. Extensive playtest

 

 

Super interesting to read how everyone else is doing it. I'm just starting out and I'm pretty sure my process is far from optimal. If you notice errors, where do you usually fix them? Do you fix them in EOF or in the tab? I prefer to fix the tab and then reimport it...

I do this too.. I don't really like EOF, but at least I can do something in Guitar Pro. The only thing I wish I had was a program that could change all the notes of the same pitch to other string, so I could import it from Aria and generate a .gp5 file faster. Trust me, Aria is a top-notch program when it comes to making songs, but it can't export .gp5, just .mid, and this way you can't put any guitar techniques like slides on it, so you need something like TuxGuitar or Guitar Pro to finish the process which makes things slow for me... I'm actually thinking of making a tab editor program myself since I'm a programmer, if anybody has documentation of how the .xml files for Rocksmith work I would be glad to see.

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Like a "move measure(s) up/down one string"?  Keeping the note value, but moving it's position on the fret board?

How do I do this? Maybe TuxGuitar could be my savior lol

EDIT: also I tried importing a MIDI file in it and it put the bass in guitar tuning ¬¬

How do I change it to bass already "fixing" the notes (to decent frets)?

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I'm actually thinking of making a tab editor program myself since I'm a programmer, if anybody has documentation of how the .xml files for Rocksmith work I would be glad to see.

 

 

Don't reinvent the wheel :)  TuxGuitar and EOF are open source and they have 95% of the functionality that we all want :)

 

Like I said at the beginning of the thread, I am also a dev, and am looking at a Rocksmith export... but I started this thread to understand how people use the existing tools, and how they WANT to use the tools :)

 

If TuxGuitar is no longer being developed, then we fork it to "TuxGuitar v2" :D

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Like a "move measure(s) up/down one string"?  Keeping the note value, but moving it's position on the fret board?

That exactly. When I changed it from guit to bass, first time it dropped half the notes, the others were on the 22th of the E string. After some fighting I made it keep all notes but they were placed so idiotically it was entirely unplayable. A feature to move the notes around - and a large selection of them simultaneously - would be gold in those instances.

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@@Daikano I've never tried to import MIDI -- does this import differently from GuitarPro files?

 

To me it makes more sense to set the beat markers first -- once they're lined up, the notes should just fall into place, shouldn't they?

 

Anyway, you're lucky to have so many sources for your customs. The songs I'm really interested in have no tabs available at all.

MIDI doesn't import any notes in EOF presently.  It simply sets the tempo, beat, and count.  I use this typically when I'm creating a custom that doesn't have an accurate (or complete) GP tab file available.  I spent countless hours sequencing MIDI in the 90s.  There was a direct link from the official Yngwie Malmsteen home page to my site, and he even sent me an autographed photo as a thank you for my work in sequencing his songs.  There's an archive of the page (which I guess by today's standards would be considered a blog?)  Strangely, the day that I updated the site, I received a notification that Yahoo was closing down GeoCities, so I didn't bother updating it again.

 

http://www.reocities.com/SunsetStrip/venue/4221/

 

When I have a midi file that I need converted, I usually beg on the forum for someone with GuitarPro to do an import/convert to GP5 format, so that I can import the notes into EOF.

Sometimes I use big words that I don't completely understand, just to make myself seem more photosynthesis.

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I use GP, GPA EoF, Ultrastar, and the Toolkit. I don't add the leading silence externally currently (only in EoF, and I don't fill up the empty space because that throws the measures off), which means that my customs have no count in....but you can see the notes coming, so no biggie.

 

 

@@ice9 @@smirocsmo and others, do you think TuxGuitar is better than Guitar Pro? I use Guitar Pro mainly for changing the strings in which notes are played (which is a really slow process because it just can't select all the notes with same pitch) and for putting slides, hammer-ons/pull-offs, harmonics and vibrato. For main low level editing I use a program called Aria Maestosa which works with MIDI, but has a lot of good things for selection and makes it -really easy to add notes and make riffs/phrases (it has a tab view mode, since the main mode is a music score one). I think I will test it today and se if it solves my problems

 

 

I use EoF for changing individual notes or chords by clicking on the note, then hitting N. I can switch the fret and string without changing the timing, and there's the convenient "Next" (arrow) button that lets you advance to the next note. I use that a lot for bass tabs that unnecessarily require you to keep going back and forth between the 2nd and 5th frets, when there's a perfectly good open string right below. And RAKES!

Words of wisdom for CDLC charters:

 

"When in doubt, steal a tone from Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son"

 

- Billkwando

 

Download my L'Arc~en~Ciel Ken "Love Driver Cat" custom Inlays here

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I've never tried to import MIDI -- does this import differently from GuitarPro files?

EOF's MIDI import is just to import a Rock Band formatted song chart MIDI, it doesn't convert notes to tablature like Guitar Pro does. It can import Rock Band 3's pro guitar format though, which encodes tablature and some techniques using different MIDI notes, velocity values, etc. 

1) if you add the leading (and trailing, if necessary) silence with Audacity, it avoid issues down the line - EOF doesn't always deal with that if you have to reimport a track from GP

It shouldn't matter for regular GP import. The tablature is imported starting at measure 1 in EOF. GPA import is a completely different scenario, since the timing file does include timestamps.

A feature to move the notes around - and a large selection of them simultaneously - would be gold in those instances.

This is the kind of thing I could probably add to EOF. I'm not prepared to add logic for people to define what octave each string is tuned to, it will just have to assume people are using "normal" guitar/bass instruments where standard tuning reflects each string being 4/5 half steps of the adjacent strings.
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This thread is full of great info.  I had not heard about GPA until reading this thread, and I had initially dismissed TuxGuitar due to the age of the program without updates.  

 

I am curious though about one thing though:  If I buy GPA to get the export feature, does it allow you to save directly to a GP3/GP5 format, or anything else that EOF can import?  I downloaded the free version of GPA and was astounded at how easy it was to sync up the tab with the mp3 audio.  

Sometimes I use big words that I don't completely understand, just to make myself seem more photosynthesis.

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What GPA does is export 3 things during library export:  

- the original mp3 you used

- the original .gp5 you used

- a synchronization file (.xml)

 

When you do a GuitarPro import in EOF, you select the XML file, not the GP file.  EOF reads in the XML and GP info and does the rest of the work.  If GPA looks good, then EOF will be perfect.

 

My only recommendation is to add the 3 sec of slience in Audacity before you do ANYthing else.  It will work if you don't and then later add it in EOF, but I just find it easier.

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That's great!  I downloaded TuxGuitar and tried importing some of my midi files, and found that it does it almost flawlessly.  I'm sure that since I can save that converted data to GP5, I can then use GPA to get a syncronized version of the track in 1/100th of the time that it took me to do it manually.  90% of my time in creating customs has been syncing up beats to the audio, so this is a God-send.  :-D

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Sometimes I use big words that I don't completely understand, just to make myself seem more photosynthesis.

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In TuxGuitar I play some of the guitar notes too (if my guitar is not close to me), so I can find out if some notes are correct :) :) especially when I need to change the tuning or move some notes from one string to another, if notes are too far away one from another on frets to play them in fast song.

 

There is guitar fretboard in the program :) you can even emulate all possible instruments there :) I check there bass many times too (I set nice bass emulation sound)

 

I wonder if with the touchscreen it is possible to play there the guitar by hand :) as now there are many laptops with touchscreens :)

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That's great!  I downloaded TuxGuitar and tried importing some of my midi files, and found that it does it almost flawlessly.  I'm sure that since I can save that converted data to GP5, I can then use GPA to get a syncronized version of the track in 1/100th of the time that it took me to do it manually.  90% of my time in creating customs has been syncing up beats to the audio, so this is a God-send.   :grin:

 

I remember reading your post about agonizing over every note and hoped you would follow the trend and move over to GPA. :D

 

Edit: Nice avatar, btw. ;)

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Words of wisdom for CDLC charters:

 

"When in doubt, steal a tone from Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son"

 

- Billkwando

 

Download my L'Arc~en~Ciel Ken "Love Driver Cat" custom Inlays here

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My only recommendation is to add the 3 sec of slience in Audacity before you do ANYthing else.  It will work if you don't and then later add it in EOF, but I just find it easier.

 

Definitely before you try to time lyrics with Ultrastar, or you're screwed! In UC, if you ever need to use it, you navigate to your guitar.ogg (with leading silence already added) rather than the MP3, cos you want the lyrics to be timed with the added silence in mind.

Words of wisdom for CDLC charters:

 

"When in doubt, steal a tone from Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son"

 

- Billkwando

 

Download my L'Arc~en~Ciel Ken "Love Driver Cat" custom Inlays here

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I keep hearing people talk about GPA here. I guessing this is a Guitar Pro app for iPad & tablets.

If so I'm tempted to give it a try but I don't own a iPad. I do have a iPod touch but they only have a 3.5" screen.

Do you think that with such a small screen that this would still be something worth purchasing? 

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I keep hearing people talk about GPA here. I guessing this is a Guitar Pro app for iPad & tablets.

If so I'm tempted to give it a try but I don't own a iPad. I do have a iPod touch but they only have a 3.5" screen.

Do you think that with such a small screen that this would still be something worth purchasing? 

I hadn't heard of GPA until I read this thread either.  What they're talking about is "Go PlayAlong" (GPA) which is a tab player that lets you link a tablature file to an MP3 and then syncronize them.  When I saw how powerful this tool was today, I purchased it.  I think it will save me hundreds of hours of banging my head on the desk because a drummer dropped tempo 4x in a 10 second timeframe.Helpful linkage:  http://www.goplayalong.com/

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Sometimes I use big words that I don't completely understand, just to make myself seem more photosynthesis.

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 When I saw how powerful this tool was today, I purchased it.  I think it will save me hundreds of hours of banging my head on the desk because a drummer dropped tempo 4x in a 10 second timeframe

 

Yeah, I bought it within, like, an hour of downloading it.

Words of wisdom for CDLC charters:

 

"When in doubt, steal a tone from Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son"

 

- Billkwando

 

Download my L'Arc~en~Ciel Ken "Love Driver Cat" custom Inlays here

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I keep hearing people talk about GPA here. I guessing this is a Guitar Pro app for iPad & tablets.

If so I'm tempted to give it a try but I don't own a iPad. I do have a iPod touch but they only have a 3.5" screen.

Do you think that with such a small screen that this would still be something worth purchasing? 

I hadn't heard of GPA until I read this thread either.  What they're talking about is "Go PlayAlong" (GPA) which is a tab player that lets you link a tablature file to an MP3 and then syncronize them.  When I saw how powerful this tool was today, I purchased it.  I think it will save me hundreds of hours of banging my head on the desk because a drummer dropped tempo 4x in a 10 second timeframe.Helpful linkage:  http://www.goplayalong.com/

 

 

I was checking out the $7.99 Guitar Pro app for androids thinking this was what everyone was talking about when they mentioned GPA.

Thanks for clearing this up for me. I'll check out Go Play Along.

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Yeah - it was an easy $20 to spend... gotta give thanks to @@raynebc for having the GPA import in EOF!

 

The nice thing is that it can be fun outside of Rocksmith as well - if you want to learn to sight read score/tab, but still play along to an mp3.  As good as Rocksmith is, for some, I hope it is a stepping stone towards not NEEDing it to play songs you like :)

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Yeah - it was an easy $20 to spend... gotta give thanks to @@raynebc for having the GPA import in EOF!

 

The nice thing is that it can be fun outside of Rocksmith as well - if you want to learn to sight read score/tab, but still play along to an mp3.  As good as Rocksmith is, for some, I hope it is a stepping stone towards not NEEDing it to play songs you like :)

Actually trying to play along with Go Play Along would give me a headache. I'm glad we don't need it for that!

Words of wisdom for CDLC charters:

 

"When in doubt, steal a tone from Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son"

 

- Billkwando

 

Download my L'Arc~en~Ciel Ken "Love Driver Cat" custom Inlays here

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How does the syncing with GPA work? Is it automated somehow? And does it require a Guitarpro file to work or will it sync without it?

 

I didn't realize people were syncing the audio and the temp and the guitarpro file all at the same time -- that would definitely make a huge difference!

 

On the other hand, many of the songs that interest me don't have any tab available.

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