Fretlight Guitar Rocksmith Interface

[cozy1]

So are there any Fretlight guitar owners here who also play Rocksmith 2014?

 

Would you like to see your Fretlight fretboard interface with and respond to Rocksmith?

 

I'd like to open up a feasibility discussion.  Would it be possible to do this? How?  I have some ideas to get the brain storming started.  Remember there are no bad ideas here, so feel free to toss in your 2 cents.

 

The goal would be to build a software interface between Rocksmith and the Fretlight guitar.

• Fretlight recently released a SDK for the guitar.  Controlling the LED fretboard is possible.  There are already several projects out there.
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• Extract RS2014 CDLC song data that could be sent to the Fretlight ... now from CSC Toolkit.
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The big question is ,,, can we capture the CDLC song data as it is being played by Rocksmith in real time? Could D3DX9_42.dll or some other driver be used to monitor/intercept the data?  Other ideas?  Waste of time or sound interesting?

 

Note:  In case you are not familiar with the Fretlight guitar.  It has a LED fretboard that lights up the finger position of the notes on the fretboard. Very similar to what Rocksmith is doing visually on your computer screen.

 

 

[firekorn]

I think the hardest part will be to sync the Rocksmith note highway and the led on the fretboard.

 

RSTabExplorer have nothing to do with this, if you want an interface between RS and the guitar, using only RS and the guitar is your best shot or you use the GP6 fretlight compatible if you don't want to use the RS specific fonction but just read tabs.

 

I think only RAM contain information about the actual state of the game and i don't know how easy it is to decode this but i doubt it's easy enough. The idea seems great in the first place but i'm not sure that it is easy enough and i'm not even sure that many people have that kind of guitar in the first place to use it anyway.

 

So unless there's an easy way to extract note highway information when you play Rocksmith (and i don't think there is), it will be too much time for so little end user.

[cozy1]

@firekorn  Good input.  If there is a way to capture the RS note highway data then I can make it work.  Syncing would come from real time capture. How to capture note data from memory?  Do any of the drivers that the game uses have the ability to be used for this? Assuming the game calls functions contained in the drivers during play then data might be intercepted at driver level with a code cave.  What does the D3DX9_42 driver do?  Need to find where CDLC input is converted to Midi output (notes)?

[firekorn]

D3DX9 (Direct 3D and X9 for DirectX9) are for graphics, not sure how 3D rendering information can be use to recreate the note highway in real time. In fact I'm not sure on how you can find and build the note highway outside of the game in the first place but I'm not enough of a programmer to be able to dig into this by myself.

[Wepeel]

It does sound interesting, but here's the problem I see:  The guitar a user is playing interfaces with Rocksmith, but not the other way around.  What I mean is, and I'll use laymen terms to keep is easy, is that RS says "play Em" and waits for the user input.  It then uses the frequencies of each string to determine if the chord/note was played correctly.  

 

RS doesn't actually know whether you have your fingers in the correct place, but rather implies that based on the frequency of the notes you played.  That's why you can have your fingers in the correct place but still miss a note because you didn't pluck the strings hard enough or your guitar volume was too low.  Same with using a guitar with light gauge strings set to drop tunings.  Sometimes there's too much slack in the strings for the frequency to ring out correctly, so RS tells you to move your finger(s) up/down.

 

So there's no interface inside the game that sends out commands, only an interface to receive them.  Essentially, the realtone cable is one way only.  The only chance to grab some output would be to take it after the game outputs to the speakers, but that defeats the purpose of your idea.  If you wait for graphical output, it would be hard to sync with the game and your playing.  Especially with fast moving passages.  You would also run into latency issues with sending things in and out through two different interfaces (the realtone cable in, and the fretlight interface out).

 

The fretlight guitar works with Guitar Pro though, so maybe you can achieve what your after through that software (if you're just looking for a way to play more songs with it).

[cozy1]

Good input so far.  The goal is still to be able to set the Fretlight next to the computer and use it like a 2nd computer monitor while playing Rocksmith.  Just think it would be cool to see the Fretlight interact/interface with Rocksmith this way.  GP6 is good alternative but GP6 is not Rocksmith.

[Wepeel]

I've never used a Fretlight, or the software that comes with it, so I can't say for sure, but this could be easier than initially thought.

 

After doing some exploratory research, it looks like there is a CPU and some RAM inside the Fretlight guitar.  So here's what I'm wondering:

 

Does the software upload the tab or track to the Fretlight guitar before you start playing?  And if so, is it then just "playing along" in-sync with the track on the software?

 

Because if so, maybe it's as simple as finding a way to upload the same data to the Fretlight before starting the song in Rocksmith.  Then, syncing with RS would be the only major hurdle.

[ChalkPhoto]

Would Love to see something worked out here.

 

I sent Fretlight an email suggesting that they team up with Ubisoft and come out with a Fretlight ready version of Rocksmith, just like what they did with GuitarPro. I got a responce that they might look into it, or come out with their own game.

I don't know even if Ubisoft would be willing to work with Fretlight seeing how they are already working with Gibson!

 

To me it seems like a software issue. I wonder if there is a way to use the cable that comes with your fretlight guitar and plug that into your second USB port and that activates the LED's on the fretlight from the game?

 

Or how about Ubisoft coming out with a special cable that has a extra USB port so you could plug your fretlight cable into and activate the LED's?

 

There's got to be a way for this to work, glad to see I'm not the only one thinking about this.

[cozy1]

I don't envision changing either how Rocksmith or the Fretlight works.  Each will use a separate USB cable for functionality.  So two USB ports will have to be used on the computer. I have already solved how to get the song data out of RS CDLCs so that it can be sent to the Fretlight.  RS CST provides the tools that I needed to extract the CDLC song data, so my original idea of using RsTabExplorer won't be necessary.  I am working on a mini player version now that takes a RS CDLC data and sends it to the Fretlight.

 

Still the ultimate goal would be to have a real time software interface between RS and Fretlight. 

 

Keep the input coming.

[cozy1]

What file input does GP6 accept?  Midi format?  If so CDLC to GP6 is a done deal.  Will have something together in a couple of weeks. 

 

Syncing is not a big problem, getting the output from RS is.  If someone can tell me how to capture the RS note highway data we will be on way to having an interface.

[firekorn]

except that midi isn't a format made for this, you can try it to see for yourself but you'll loose too many important information.

[zerkz]

Any sort of real time capture would be pretty hard, and you guys are right on target about the potential problems with sync.  

[cozy1]

So I started to working on converting RS2014 to MusicXml since at the moment this seems to be most doable.  I will have to wait to figure out how to tap into the RS note highway for later.  I am currently able to dump CDLC song data to XML.  I have MusicXml XSD and XML schema working. 

 

I need help from someone who understands XSLT.  How do I go from CLDC song schema to MusicXml schema?  Through XLST right?  Is there an easy way to generate the XLST to go from one XML schema to another XML schema,  or do I have to do it line by line?  Would I be better using datasets than XSLT?

[Xstatic]

  LaceyB  I agree with you about the exporting it would be nice because I have lost count of the guitar pro files that were close but needed a few adjustments and so they are only really close to perfect in rocksmith it would be great to easily pop out a guitar pro 5 file with the corrections.  

 

  As far as the fretlight guitar im confused as to why have that work in sync with the rocksmith game.  Isnt the purpose of the fretlight guitar to show you the notes you play in order to play a song?  Wouldnt it defeat the purpose of rocksmith showing the notes if the guitar shows it or vice versa?  Or is this so you can play the songs on the fretlight when not connected to rocksmith?

[cozy1]

@Xstatic  Think of it as a dual display concept.  The notes/chords that you see on your computer in RS, you could also see on the Fretlight at the same time.  The Fretlight visually gives the beginner a quick guide to finger placement on a real guitar fretboard.

[Jimi the monkey]

God you guys are cool.

[zerkz]

So I started to working on converting RS2014 to MusicXml since at the moment this seems to be most doable.  I will have to wait to figure out how to tap into the RS note highway for later.  I am currently able to dump CDLC song data to XML.  I have MusicXml XSD and XML schema working. 

 

I need help from someone who understands XSLT.  How do I go from CLDC song schema to MusicXml schema?  Through XLST right?  Is there an easy way to generate the XLST to go from one XML schema to another XML schema,  or do I have to do it line by line?  Would I be better using datasets than XSLT?

You're right. XSLT is meant for transforming XML documents into other XML documents. Not sure what you mean with  "line by line". There's no 'easy' way I think to generate an XLST either. But there seem to be a few tools to help develop, like this one. http://sourceforge.net/projects/treebeard/

[cozy1]

Guys ... @cabalistic has produced a nice command line *.gpx exporter for RS2014 CDLC.  Look here. 

 

I just released a new feature to CSC Toolkit that converts RS2014 CDLC to printable ASCII Tablature.   The new converter is located under the SngToTab menu.  You can also printout a RS2014 CDLC song info summary for multi-song archives.

 

I am currently working on a feature for converting RS2014 CDLC to MusicXML.  Will have it out soon.

[Azrael]

@cosy1

Just wanted to give you some feedback on sng2tab:

 

1.

I found one case where it doesn't get the tuning right.

The report shows E standart, where it should be Open C (CGCGCE)

http://customsforge.com/page/customsforge_rs_2014_cdlc.html/_/pc-enabled-rs-2014-cdlc/life-r2722

 

2.

It is good that the "select a file to convert" windows remembers its location from the last conversion, but the destination window should remember it as well.

 

3.

Maybe the output files should be named "Artist Name - Song Title - Arrangement" (or maybe give us an option for this in the Toolkit)

 

Regards, Azrael

[cozy1]

@Azrael  Just a quick explanation.  RS2014 CDLC is converted to RS1 CDLC and then ASCII Tab is generated with the old SngToTab generator.  I don't believe that RS1 supported open C tuning thus the error. 

 

I will work on fixing items #1 and #2.

 

Item #3 - the file naming is consistent with RS1 ASCII Tab naming convention and CSC Toolkit developer guidelines for file output.  This new tool allows for multi file select, cross platform, and bulk converting.  Files can be renamed after generation if desired. 

 

Thanks

 

Followup Footnote:  (I like suggestion #3 and have decided to incorporate the file naming suggestion into CSC Toolkit though this can only be done for RS2014 CDLC conversions.)  #2 and #3 suggestions are done.  #1 is an ongoing problem.

[cozy1]

Guys.  Has anyone had luck with GP6 importing MusicXml files.  I can not even get GP6 to successfully import a MusicXml file that it created.  I decided to put the CSC Toolkit, RS2014 CDLC to MusicXml converter feature on hold for now.  I would really appreciate it if someone can send me a working MusicXml file that has been imported and is confirmed working with GP6.

 

@cabalistic new command line tool for converting RS2014 CDLC to *.gp5 is now working very nice indeed.  I had the chance to fully test it out and his program works great for gp5 exports.   Look here.  This is really a great tool for all RS2014 players, not only the Fretlight owners.

 

Only problem is the tool requires NET45, so there is no WInXP support.  With help from Alex360, I converted the tool to VS2010, NET40 with full WinXP support.  You can find deprecated source here.

[firekorn]

GP6 has kinda his own musicxml standard which is a pain in the ass (a musicxml file created by Sibelius 7 won't load into GP6).

 

It's a common and known issue with GP6 apparently. I can try to see if your file work on Sibelius 7 (not before sunday since i don't have it on the pc i have at the moment) if that would assure you that's is really just a GP6 issue.

[cabalistic]

Yeah, that is exactly the reason why I decided against MusicXML. Originally, it was my first choice, because it is well documented and theoretically offers the possibility to export to any music program that supports it. But when I found out that GP's understanding of MusicXML is limited and it didn't import all of the features (e.g., frethand mutes are impossible to notate in MusicXML in a way that GP would understand, it doesn't even import/export capo placement), I turned to GP's own formats instead. Because GP is the only program I use, and so I needed the result in GP to be perfect :)

[cozy1]

Back to the original subject.  There may be a way to capture the fret and string data as it is played.  Please PM me if you have experience making game memory detours, injecting or reading game memory in C#   eg WOW

[cozy1]

Attention all you Fretlight owners  ...

 

EOF r1424 can now produce Fretlight M-Player compatible midi files as part of the normal RS XML authoring process. 

 

The process is exactly the same as authoring a song for RS2014.  Be sure to check the box "Save separate musical Midi file" in EOF Preferences.  Then next time when you press File and Save (F2), EOF will also generate a new "notes_fretlight.mid" file that can be played with the Fretlight M-Player software which controls the LEDs on the guitar.

 

Thanks @@raynebc for adding this support.