Is there a way to export CDLC directly into the Go PlayAlong software? What I mean is converting a CDLC into a file with the tab and music already synced and packaged together that would make it automatically plug and play and ready to drop into GPA without needing to go through the process in GPA (exporting the tabs, loading in a song, loading in a tab, then manually syncing everything together?

 

I know about the ability to export tabs but I don't really have the time to do the combining files and syncing processes in GPA, and all of the work has already been done by all of the fantastic CDLC contributors here anyway. It seems like this should not be a difficult thing to do in Tool Kit, theoretically, but I could not find anything relating to this after doing a reasonable amount of searching around.

You can do this with the toolkit. The way to do it are as follows:

 

1. Open the RS Toolkit

2. Click button at the top titled "CDLC 2 Tab"

3. Make sure the circle that says "Maximum difficulty level only" is filled in

4. In the "Output To:" section on the right side, click "Guitar Pro" as this will make a file that Go PlayAlong will be able to read

5. Hit "Convert"

6. When the file menu opens, locate the file you want to convert and click "Open" in the bottom right corner

7. Another menu will popup asking you where you want to store the folder, I personally click the desktop (if you're doing a (1) psarc, it will just export a .gp5 instead of a folder). If you only want one arrangement (Lead, Alt Lead, Bonus Lead, Rhythm, Alt Rhythm, Bass, Alt Bass, etc) move go to ALT Part 1

8. Open Go Play Along, and wait for it to boot up

9. At the top of Go Play Along, click the "+ Add Song" button

10. A new window should appear that says "Add New Song", click the box that says "Score: Browse Score    >"

11. Another file menu should open, go to the folder where you saved the GP5 file, and click on the GP5 file

12. Click the "Open" button in the bottom right hand corner.

13. Go PlayAlong should now show the name of the GP5 file you gave it, commonly done as "Artist - Song.gp5"

14. If you want the audio backing track, skip to part 2 of the ALT, if not continue

15. Click the blue "Finish" button

16. Your song should show up in Go PlayAlong, click the play button

17. After you wait a second, your song should be up in Go PlayAlong. There will be a little part at the beginning that the tab goes super slow, and it is silent, that is the intro silence that makes the tab not start right away in Rocksmith.

18. Hit play, and adjust the instrument(s) to your liking.

19. If you really care, below I will leave a short message on why/ how this works.

 

 

ALT Part 1.

1. Close out of the "Browse For Folder" window

2. Click on the "Packer/Unpacker" button at the top of the RS Toolkit

3. Click the "Decode Audio" checkbox if you want the audio in Go PlayAlong (used in ALT Part 2)

4. Click the "Unpack" button

5. A file menu should open, locate your cdlc's psarc file, normally in your rocksmith directory

6. Click on your CDLC's psarc file and click "Open" in the bottom right hand corner

7. Another file menu should pop up asking you to "Select Folder", put this somewhere where you can easily get to / remember

8. When you're at the location you want it to drop the folder at, click "Select Folder" in the bottom right

9. Wait for the toolkit to do it's magic

10. When it's done unpacking the psarc, it will say "Unpacking is complete" just click "Yes" as it will make it easier to locate the final file

11. The folder that the toolkit makes should be named "PsarcName_RS2014_Pc"

12. Open that folder, it should have some files and some folders

13. Open the "songs" folder inside the unpacked psarc folder

14. Open the "arr" folder inside the "songs" folder

15. Keep this open as you're gonna need it in just a minute

16. Go back to the RS Toolkit

17. Redo the instructions in the main post from 2-6, and come back after you're done

18. Instead of clicking a GP5 file, go back to your "PsarcName_RS2014_Pc/songs/arr" folder from earlier and click XML files (NOT showlights)

19. Continue the steps from the original post from 8-19

 

ALT Part 2

1. Read ALT Part 1 from steps 2-12 (Make sure you CLICK the "Decode Audio checkbox) {If you already did this, move to step 2}

2. Open the "audio" folder

3. Open the "windows" folder

4. Inside this folder, there should be 2 files with .ogg as their extension (One has _preview at the end and has a smaller file size, this is not the one you want)

5. Go into Go PlayAlong and click in the "Backing Track: Browse Audio (Optional)    >" box

6. A file menu should open, go to your "PsarcName_RS2014_Pc/audio/windows" folder

7. Click the .ogg file WITHOUT the "_preview" at the end. The one you click should be bigger than the "_preview.ogg" by quite a lot

8. Click "Open" in the bottom right corner

9. Finish the instructions in the main post from 15 on

 

How/ Why Does This Work?

The way Rocksmith handles the notes, and how charters (are supposed to) chart the notes is all based on beats, and beats per minute. No drummer on Earth can play a beat while keeping the same (BPM) across the whole X minute long song. To combat this, we set the each note to a beat and it changes the BPM slightly, to get the notes right on time. That's why you might see a quarter note sign above the tab with a number next to it. As always remember that your tab in Go PlayAlong will only be as good as the tab in Rocksmith, the tab won't get better in GPA (unless you let it sync the audio and the tab).

 

TL;DR: Rocksmith does keeps track of where the notes are, so we just grab the information meant for Rocksmith and give it to something else than can read it.

 

 

I hope this post helped you out,

Have a great rest of your day and Rock On!

Thanks for the very helpful and thorough response! I'll have to walk through the process in order to be able to actually follow along, but it seems like you laid everything out here.

 

Tough to tell how time consuming and tedious it will be once I get into a groove. I have >400 songs between my ODLC and CDLC with at least 200 of them being of enough interest, so I'll have to see if the juice will be worth the squeeze to go through this manual process for all of them in order to use them in Go PlayAlong instead of Rocksmith.

 

You can do this with the toolkit. The way to do it are as follows: