[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.

You can't tell which note you should hand mute in GP5 either but there's always an obivous solution while you play it (in Bleed It Out you simply keep the chord shape and just handmute or not the chord).

I might be completely wrong about that, but to my understanding, Rocksmith's fret hand mutes are just dead notes. In fact, in the Guitar Pro .gpx format, the corresponding attribute for dead notes is even called "muted". They also do occur in official content, e.g. Hotei's "Battle Without Honor" has one or two, and Rocksmith 1 songs like Blur's "Song 2" or Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" have them, as well. In those instances, they are very clearly meant as dead notes. If they appear in CDLC, and you think they should be palm-muted instead, then that might be a mistake in the CDLC?

 

In tab and standard notation you don't usually give an explicit fret to mute at, because imho dead notes are primarily a rhythmic device, and the alteration in sound between different muting positions is normally negligible. In both .gpx and .gp5 I can and do actually give a specific fret for the dead notes, it's just not displayed. Funnily, though, I believe that at least Guitar Pro 6 with RSE output does actually take the fret position into account when sounding dead notes - they sound slightly different depending on the fret :)

 

Either way, I don't think there is any other way to map fret hand mutes to Guitar Pro.

Ok thanks guys I get it... fret hand mutes and dead notes are just different names for basically the same thing.

 

You can't tell which note you should hand mute in GP5 either but there's always an obivous solution while you play it (in Bleed It Out you simply keep the chord shape and just handmute or not the chord).

Sometimes (Valentine's Day by Linkin Park for example) there are changes of fret position while you keep playing fret hand muted = dead chords.

But that is a problem of the TAB notation, and not Rocksmith or the converter, alright...

Dead note are X on GP and muted notes are P.M. notation

As far as

 

In both .gpx and .gp5 I can and do actually give a specific fret for the dead notes, it's just not displayed

 

Not in tab view but if you add in GP5 the fretboard view you can see the chord shape/fingering of what is fret hand muted. Its like in EOF, on the main view you only see the X but when you hit N you can see the notes.

In fact even in the standard music notation you can see that the note do have a specified value but it's hide in the tab notation like you said.

You will notice that I keep coming with less relevant ideas, but that's only because the program is working so good.

Since quite a while charters have the possibilty to write their name as "package author" into the psarc file. I have always wondered what this is good for, because there is no way for users to access that value.

 

Now I don't know if the gp5 file properties are handled the same in Guitar Pro, but in TuxGuitar they contain Song Title, Artist, Album and e.g. "Tab Creator".

The latter is where you could parse the "package author" from the psarc file, if possible!

 

Moreover: When I print the notes from TuxGuitar, the page header consists of the Song Title, the instrument, and (for whatever reason) not the artist name, but instead the value of the property "Author".

So if you could parse the artist name into the "Author" field as well, then this would look way prettier. :-)

 

Edit: I don't know if the Toolkit actually saves the version number inside the package, or if it is only used to create the psarc file name... but if the version number is part of the package, you could write that into the "Comments" property. I imagine myself having a collection of the gp5 files of all my favourite CDLCs and this will be easier to manage if I can compare the version numbers of the gp5s and psarcs.

Yes in gp file you can add song title/artist/ etc. tux guitar is just an open source version of guitar pro, i don't know exactly for what reason they did Tux guitar (for a free legal guitar pro version?) but they basically have all the same thing inside between gp5 and tuxguitar.

@Azrael: I'll look into it. Do feel free to also open an issue on Github. Easier to keep track of those :)

Alright, time for a new release: https://github.com/fholger/RocksmithToTab/releases

 

This release focuses purely on fixing known bugs, so there are no new features or usability improvements. As such, it may be a little more boring than previous releases, but I think it's an important release, nonetheless. It should give considerably cleaner results. For example, in Rocksmith's main songs.psarc and in all RS1 arrangements, there are no more complaints about unhandled note durations or any other error. Test for yourselves, and let me know of any bugs that I have missed :)

 

Now, if any of you could help me "advertise" the exporter, I'd really appreciate it, as my ongoing refusal of social media means I have a fairly limited reach. So far, it can't even be found with Google :)

Sorry, just discovered a regression in the rhythm detection. v0.9.5.1 is up.

I found your wiki page BatFileTricks and tried the BatchConvert.bat

Then I changed the code so that you don't need any comand line input to start it. Instead, now a double click on the BatchConvert.bat is all you need (because Windows users don't like command line inputs :-D)

It will also convert the retail songs :-)

 

So for anyone who is interested, just create a txt file in the folder of the RocksmithToTab.exe, name it e.g. "BatchConvert.bat" and paste the following code. Don't forget to change the paths.

Then double click the file :-)

title RocksmithToTab Batch-Convert

REM Define your paths:
set RS_PATH=D:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\Rocksmith2014
set GP5_PATH="D:\GP5 Sammlung"

REM Convert all files in the DLC folder:
for /r %RS_PATH%\dlc %%f IN (*.psarc) do (
  RocksmithToTab.exe -o %GP5_PATH% %%f
)

REM Convert retail songs:
RocksmithToTab.exe %RS_PATH%\songs.psarc -o %GP5_PATH%

Nice! Feel free to add it to the page.

 

I just noticed the topic is pinned. Thanks!

This work is amazing. Any chance you could turn your big brain toward Audiveris next?

 

http://customsforge.com/topic/7323-scanning-tabs-into-gpxml-format-not-possible-yet-but-could-be/?hl=audiveris

https://kenai.com/projects/audiveris/forums/message-forum/topics/533281-Any-progress-on-Audiveris-reading-guitar-tabs-

Thanks. I don't have permission to view the first topic you linked, but from what I gather you're looking for a way to scan printed tabs? If so, I'm afraid I can't help. Image recognition is not something I'm familiar with.

I released another small update. It should finally fix missing frethand mutes: https://github.com/fholger/RocksmithToTab/releases/tag/v0.9.6

 

@raynebc: I've added an --xml parameter. This will switch to processing xml arrangements, instead. You can supply any number of input files, and they will be put into a single tab file. Or into separate ones, if you also specify the -t option.

Is there a list of all the command line parameters the program accepts, or does EOF just need to concern itself with the --xml parameter?

If you just call it without any parameters, it will display its help text with all the parameters. I've also included the help text in the readme on the project page: https://github.com/fholger/RocksmithToTab

If you enable --xml, then t,d,o,f should still function, the rest are ignored.

Hi what a great work you've done here !  Could you release a mac version ?  I tried to compile it with the source code but it's beyond my capabilities :/ 

Thanks anyway :)

A Mac version is on my list, but it may take a while. I haven't set up a build environment on my Macbook, and I have no idea what kind of problems I will face :)

@@MadMaxx, now package version number stored inside toolkit.version (with author and toolkit version) so you can parse that file and get it (author by default is and version is 1)

 

I get this one to work with my NET 4.0. Tool works great, nice conversion ratio, annoying sustains catched sometimes for chords(after you import back to EOF) but that looks great in GP/tuxguitar. Thank you :)

@Alex360  please share secret to get this to build in NET40.  I know I have to change all references from NET45 to NET40 and remove all *.config.  Remaining problem is with StreamReader, StreamWriter.  Thanks

@@cozy1, xD

Here is my build for NET 4.0 (i.e last NET for win XP :'( ) with binaries ;)

 

DL (commit 331d7d09a4) : https://copy.com/IkKkFjyZmRFZ

@@Alex360

Many thanks.  I converted code to VS2010 and it works fine now.  I see your secret with MemoryStream and StreamWriter.  You rock.

New version v0.9.6.5 is out: https://github.com/fholger/RocksmithToTab/releases

This version adds support for the Mac and should now be fully functional under OSX. You'll need to install the Mono runtime, if you haven't already. Details are available in the wiki: https://github.com/fholger/RocksmithToTab/wiki/MacUserGuide

 

I've also retargeted the project to .Net 4.0, because in the process of supporting Mac, I had to implement some changes on how the psarc is handled. That got rid of my previous need for NET45 functionality.

SUPERNIFTY!  Thanks!