[update: The latest release is v0.9.9, visit the website: http://www.rocksmithtotab.de

This program can convert any official or custom DLC into Guitar pro tab files (either .gp5 or .gpx). All of Rocksmith's features are supported and mirrored in the tabs. There may still be a few bugs left, and the rhythm notation is occasionally weird or just plain wrong, but overall the output is very decent and usable. The program can now be used on a Mac.]

 

Hi all,

 

over the past week I've begun to write a small program that can convert Rocksmith 2014 arrangements to Guitar Pro .gpx files. While Rocksmith's way of showing songs has its advantages, I've always had difficulty to figure out certain things from it, particularly strumming rhythms and quick passages. So for a while now I had been searching for a way to extract tabs from Rocksmith's tracks, and from a quick look through the forum, I might not be the only one. Recently I stumbled upon the RSTabExplorer, which attempted to do just that. Unfortunately, it wasn't in a state where its output was really useful to me, but at least it was a starting point. I had a look at the code and decided that I might have a shot at creating my own attempt.

 

I have chosen to export the tabs to Guitar Pro, and specifically Guitar Pro 6. The reason is that I own Guitar Pro, and the gpx format was the quickest one for me to figure out (because at its core, it's just a very readable xml file, as opposed to the fully binary format of gp5). I also considered MusicXML, but it was a little more awkward to write, and more importantly, Guitar Pro's import is not advanced enough to capture all the relevant features.

 

Now, the program isn't fully finished, yet, but it is in a state where I think it is already useful, and also could benefit from getting some feedback from other users. The program is a basic command-line utility (no GUI, sorry), where you specify the .psarc file and an output directory, and it will process all arrangements found in the archive. It already exports most of Rocksmith's features and does a decent job at rhythm detection, so many arrangements (at least in part) look quite good in Guitar Pro.

 

There is one additional reason I'm releasing this now. Of the two major missing features (sustains and bends), I need help with the bends, specifically in understanding how Rocksmith interprets bends. I read the tutorial post about authoring bends in Eof, and that is all quite straightforward. However, in practice I found several tracks where a note has just a single bend value, yet sometimes Rocksmith interprets it as a simple bend, and sometimes as a bend/release. I can't figure out how Rocksmith differentiates between the two. For example, in Black Magic there is a bend/release on the 6th fret of the 5th string, but looking at the arrangement xml, I only see a single bend value for this note. Can anyone help me out here? Thanks :)

 

Other than that, well, just try it out and let me know what you think. Just a little heads-up: Slides are only semi-working at the moment. Unpitching slides are fine, but slides to a target note only work in some instances. I know why, I just haven't had the time to correct it, yet.

Also, the rhythm. Obviously, since Rocksmith has no direct notion of rhythm, it is quite a challenge to get an accurate rhythm representation out of Rocksmith's tracks. Basically not a single note maps 100% to its original rhythmic duration. I have experimented a bit with this, and my current approach is still quite basic, *but* it works surprisingly well in most instances. However, you have to expect the occasional oddity or error in the output, particularly in fast and "sloppy" solos. I have some ideas about cleverer approaches that I will try in the future, once all other features are implemented.

 

One final warning: By default, the program puts all arrangements of a song (e.g. lead, rhythm, bass) into a single .gpx file. This is generally fine, but one caveat in Guitar Pro is that all tracks share the master bars, which dictate tempo and time. This is almost never a problem, but I did find in "Red Fang - Number Thirteen" that at some points, the lead and rhythm arrangements use different time in some measures. So when you combine them into a single file, this distinction is lost, and the result is simply wrong. There's not much I can do about that. I have implemented a switch to the program (-t) that will split the arrangements into separate files, if you need it.

 

Now, finally, here is the link to the project: https://github.com/fholger/RocksmithToTab

And the first release is here: https://github.com/fholger/RocksmithToTab/releases

The program requires .NET 4.5. I hope I packaged everything correctly, please let me know if something isn't working. There are basic instructions on the GitHub page.

 

I hope you get some use out of it, and please do point out any errors you spotted (besides those already mentioned above) in conversions. Many thanks to all you guys here who created the Custom Toolkit, and also to the RSTabExplorer team, because without you this project wouldn't exist.

@RockNRollKid: If you point me to specific songs that are affected by this, I can take a look. There have been bugs in my GP5 converter in the past which resulted in invalid .gp5 files, so that's always a possibility.

 

@SixStringSlinger2k: The song is converting fine with my development version, so I imagine that one should also be fixed with the next release. (Any day now, I'm pretty much done with my todo list.)

 

Off the top of my head these files have issues:

 

KISS_Cold-Gin_v1_DD_p   (Doesn't export to PDF on Rhythm part)

Kiss_Hotter-Than-Hell_v1_p  (Doesn't have any tabs when GP5 is launched)

Michael-Jackson_Give-In-To-Me_v1_p (Doesn't export to PDF for Lead, Rhythm or Bass. Can't scroll beyond Page 2 in Lead inside of GP5)

Beatles_Mean-Mr-Mustard_v1_0_DD_p   (Doesn't have any tabs when GP5 is launched)

faitmidl_p  (Faith No More - Midlife Crisis - Doesn't have any tabs when GP5 is launched)

Alright, I tested those with my dev version, and Cold Gin, Give In To Me and Midlife Crisis are working there. The other two are still broken, I'll investigate. However, after having looked at the (working) gpx output for those two, I can already tell you that you won't enjoy their tabs either way, because unfortunately these CDLC did not properly sync the beat markers with the music. As a consequence, my program cannot properly determine the rhythm and note duration, and so the generated tabs are very messy. (That's probably also part of the reason that the gp5 output isn't working.)

I look forward to your updated version so that I can get Cold Gin, Give Into Me and Midlife Crisis. Thanks for looking into this. Sucks about the other 2 tabs though. 

As a workaround in the meantime, you could export to gpx and open them with TuxGuitar, then save them to gp5 (if you wish). TuxGuitar has just yesterday released a new official version with gpx support.

Thanks for the heads up. I will give that a try. Thanks again. 

Alright, found the problem and fixed it. The remaining two can now be opened in GP5. But as I said, the tab output is messy and probably not very useful. Nothing I can do about that, it's something the CDLC author would have to fix.

 

In any case, I think I'm done with all the bugs I had on my todo list, so I guess I'll go ahead and prepare for a new release :)

I will probably look into those Tabs in GP5 just so that I can see how messy they are. You know, to satisfy my curiosity and all. :)

Alright, the new version is ready: http://code.fosshub.com/RocksmithToTab/downloads/

 

I also decided to create a new thread over in the mods & projects forums, because I think that forum is now a better fit. So, please head over there :)

http://customsforge.com/topic/25675-rocksmithtotab-generate-guitar-pro-tabs-from-rocksmith-2014-songs/

@@cabalistic, gotta try to update this dep for rstk, thanks :)

You guys are killing me with the notifications. ;)

 

I wish there was a way to set this thread _only_as a "digest version" where they only email you once a day.... :P

 

Carry on, my wayward guitar brothers...I love you all. I just thought I'd pop in and say hi, and grumble to myself like a crazy person.

 

 

http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/907/520/9a9.gif

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@RockNRollKid: If you point me to specific songs that are affected by this, I can take a look. There have been bugs in my GP5 converter in the past which resulted in invalid .gp5 files, so that's always a possibility.

 

@SixStringSlinger2k: The song is converting fine with my development version, so I imagine that one should also be fixed with the next release. (Any day now, I'm pretty much done with my todo list.)

I basically took the exporter file and the cdlc and put in in a file and ran the program and nothing happened.  Am I doing something wrong?

I'm not sure what you mean by that?

For the most basic operation, run the RocksmithToTabGUI.exe and just click "Convert tabs". It'll generate tabs for all the songs you have installed (including CDLC) in Rocksmith 2014.

I'm not sure what you mean by that?

For the most basic operation, run the RocksmithToTabGUI.exe and just click "Convert tabs". It'll generate tabs for all the songs you have installed (including CDLC) in Rocksmith 2014.

Sorry, what I meant was I took the RocksmithtotabGui.exe and the Bounce file and put both in a file and activated the exe file.  Nothing happened, it just says processing songs.psarc.  I left the exe file in the folder I extracted to and tried with all rocksmith files I have and it still says processing songs psarc.

It doesn't work like that. RocksmithToTabGUI.exe always operates on your Rocksmith installation. You must give it the path to Rocksmith (normally C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Rocksmith2014), which it should auto-detect, and then it will process all the dlc and the original songs (the songs.psarc) installed there.

 

If you want to convert a single psarc, then drag'n'drop it onto the RocksmithToTab.exe (not GUI).

It doesn't work like that. RocksmithToTabGUI.exe always operates on your Rocksmith installation. You must give it the path to Rocksmith (normally C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Rocksmith2014), which it should auto-detect, and then it will process all the dlc and the original songs (the songs.psarc) installed there.

 

If you want to convert a single psarc, then drag'n'drop it onto the RocksmithToTab.exe (not GUI).

I apologize for this being so difficult.  I don't have Rocksmith installed in my program files on my C drive.  I have it installed in a folder named Rocksmith on another drive.  The folder I have it installed does not have this folder "(x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Rocksmith2014.  I open a folder named Rocksmith to Tab and tried the GUI file and dragging the bounce file on to the exe file.  What I've described above has happened.  I really hate to take up your time, is there anyway I could just get the lead guitar file in guitar pro file through emailing you through private message?

If you dragged it onto the non-GUI exe, then you should have gotten a new folder RocksmithTabs there containing the converted tab.

 

If you have installed Rocksmith 2014 elsewhere, then just enter that directory in the GUI, it's the very first option. Although, if you have the newest version of RocksmithToTab (1.1) it should warn you if the directory is incorrect, so I'm not sure what you could be missing. At this point, you'll either have to describe to me in detail every step you are doing or even make screenshots, because I simply don't know where your problem lies.

Does this come with some of the dlc? because for some reason when i converted my RS folder it has dlc of songs i never bought like i hate everything about you, When I'm Gone, Burnin' for You and other songs that i don't own.

@@Capta1n_GuitarHero it's just that the RS1 DLC are all in the same file so even though you don't see them ingame because you don't own them, RS to tab is able to extract the tab from that file.

I see, thanks :)

Can this tool also be used to export the tabs synced with the audio file in a packaged format that is ready to use with the Go Playalong software without needing to resync everything in GPA?