I've talked to several people, and I was curious what different people use to create CDLC.

 

Obvious EOF and RSTK are a given, but there are a lot of different paths:

 

Personally, I do:

 

• GP5/tab file-> TuxGuitar -> GoPlayAlong (to get sync file), editing in TG as necessary for accuracy
• lyrics -> UltraStar
• Combine using EOF, and tweak as necessary for bend strength, unpitched slides, etc.
• RSTK->DDC->finished PSARC.

 

EOF is great, but I have a lot of issues with note placement/time sync, so I tend to import from TG/GPA.

 

I do have an ulterior motive here... a direct TuxGuitar->Rocksmith file export.  No EOF needed (but GPA would be).  Would this be of interest to the community?

 

Assuming the musicians are playing on the beat, it shouldn't be necessary to hand-sync every note. It makes much more sense to hand-sync every BEAT instead -- you only have to do that once, since the beat map will be the same for all the instruments. I do this directly in EOF -- it helps to have the metronome turned on. I don't sync every beat -- usually just the snare (which is usually on the 2 and 4) -- unless there's a lot of drift.

 

After that, the GP tab should just line up with that (assuming you've corrected the GP tab and made sure it matches the beatmap).

 

 

I find doing the beatmap to be the easiest part... in fact, I've got the beatmap for about 10 songs all done. It's the tab part that's difficult for me, since tabbing by ear takes such a long time (most of these songs either don't have a GP tab or the tab is so far off, I have to tab it by ear anyway).

There's an interesting Q&A on the Ubisoft forum with one of the Rocksmith developers, he talks about the charting process... they call it "notetracking" there...

 

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/881083-The-Notetracking-FAQ?p=9980595&viewfull=1#post9980595

There's an interesting Q&A on the Ubisoft forum with one of the Rocksmith developers, he talks about the charting process... they call it "notetracking" there...

 

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/881083-The-Notetracking-FAQ?p=9980595&viewfull=1#post9980595

 

That was an interesting article. Obviously they have the budget and the manpower, but I think we do pretty well with the "1 dude + teh internets" method of "notetracking". or dudette

Well, I do what I wrote in the tutorial: http://customsforge.com/topic/856-tutorial-for-proper-gp-tab-sync-sectionphrase-authoring-and-more/ and I have use some scripts for rebuild and tone switching (requires custom toolkit version).

 

I find it to be very efficient but there is only so much a tool can do for you and I got stuck on creating tabs...

 

@@ice9 there was some discussion on where can we co with TuxGuitar but I'm not a Java programmer and wasn't particularly motivated to proceed since I already can do anything I want to outside of EOF. I was able to build latest version with GPX import from source on Linux and Windows which was definitely tricky for non-Java programmer so I can help with that... There was also some Python code done by xavatar, see http://customsforge.com/topic/1599-scripts-for-rocksmith/

My process (for what it's worth):

• Gather as much material on the song as possible, including YouTube covers. Usually no single source is 100% accurate. I was so frustrated by the general lack of quality tabs that I started tabbing songs myself from scratch lately.
• Tempo map in EoF as accurately as possible. I prefer to use the spectrogram. I start with an approximate BPM, then drag around beats where I can see clear transients. Afterwards, I listen to the entire song with the metronome on, and tweak where necessary.
• Enter notes directly in EoF. EoF's interface not the best, but you get used to it after a while. Knowing hotkeys helps quite a bit. I try to copy & paste as much as possible, with resnap (Ctrl+Shift+R) afterwards.
• Create tones in RS, import them into the toolkit, add the rest of the files (song itself, album art, preview file etc.)
• Test, release.

Well I just got access to this little hidden gem of a topic and there is some great information. It sounds like there are some cool tools out there that I need to look at (like TuxGuitar and GPA). I am afraid that I am a purist when it comes to charting. I prefer to always work from full sheet music, either from magazines or sheet music books I have bought over the years. They are usually pretty accurate with only a few mistakes.

 

I also prefer to have full control in EOF. For example, I am working on a Victor Wooten song right now that overlaps a lot of natural notes and harmonics for differing lengths of time. They are not chords, but notes overlap, so you need to start and end at different times and keep them ringing. He as includes combining natural notes and harmonics in the same fricken' chord! I have had to work out a series of connecting notes and arpeggios to trick EOF into showing and reading the notes in the song. It is fun to find a way to code it, and I am not sure that any tool can import that kind of weirdness, although I need to explore a little more.

 

Anyway, I like to match the music so I prefer to match each measure (usually 4 beats in 4/4 time). I usually use 4 beats for the 3 second space so that the measures in EOF match the music. The music then starts at measure 2 in EOF and I just match that the measure that the music starts in EOF. Then I match each measure to the music and after that, I am literally coding the notes just by reading them off the sheet music and making EOF match. I've looked at some other songs out there and there are some pretty odd ways of synching the beats. It all seems to work, but I find that synching to the actual music is pretty easy for me. Then I hand-code all the notes, chords and vocals in EOF.

That sounds like a lot of work.

 

Eeeewwww.

That sounds like a lot of work.

 

Eeeewwww.

 

Yeah. For me, GPA + Bad GP file + Official tab = Happiness

 

I'd much rather go through and correct mistakes than have to do it from scratch, I'd imagine it's much faster. I do admire the herculean effort though. ;)

:D After reading this, I might do some research and start using the tools too. It does seem faster to do corrections, although some of my music is quite different from tabs I've found. Still, most of the songs might go faster that way.

After my first few I learned the general process most people here did (and updated my pre-non-idiot ones, though about five still aren't up to snuff with my current fountain of information).

 

Recently, though, I hoarded a ton of the multitracks from Rock Band and Guitar Hero bluzer made available on the Frets of Fire forums (about 80 gigs total). These have some really cool advantages, especially if you're looking at a less well-known song.

 

Programs used: Editor on Fire, occasionally Guitar Pro, Audacity, Melodyne editor

 

THE PROCESS

1. Start a new project loading one of the individual oggs from the song folder, which already have the lead-in silence. It doesn't really matter which because it'll default to guitar.ogg when we MIDI import in the next step.

2. MIDI Import the notes.mid for the song. This gives a proper beatmap and practice phrases for Rock Band, which gives you a good skeleton for section markers for Rocksmith.

3a. If the song had a Rock Band Pro Guitar part, listen through the isolated guitar part and modify it as necessary. These are usually 98+% accurate (they should be seeing how they had the isolated guitar part and were paid to do this), but they made a few issues here and there such as some notes dead that you can hear fine, some omitted slides, and Rock Band Pro didn't have bend support so you have to add those.

3b. If the song doesn't have a Pro Guitar part (the overwhelming majority, unfortunately), check online for Guitar Pro tabs. Because of silence and beatmap, usually you have to add an empty measure or two at the beginning of the Guitar Pro file before importing, then it should import fine. Then listen through and modify it like 3a.

3c. If the song doesn't have a Guitar Pro file available (or it's pure garbage for guitar), sit down and listen to the isolated guitar part and chart the entire song in EoF. As you're hearing only the guitar part, you can sit down and figure out the part by ear. For more confusing parts, you'll have to isolate and export the section in Audacity, then pop it open in Melodyne editor, which will tell you the note progression or the notes in the chord.

4a-c. Load the rhythm.ogg (which is actually almost always a bass part, naming conventions!) and repeat 3a-c, whichever is necessary. Special notes: (4a) Pro Bass parts are usually noticeable less accurate than the guitar counterparts, they're not bad but they definitely require more clean-up than Pro Guitar parts. You'll usually have to tab it out by hand (4c) more than guitar because a lot of Guitar Pro files that have passable guitar parts are atrocious for bass, but on the flipside bass is WAY easier to chart out by ear.

5. All of these files should have lyrics built in for their respective engines, the only thing you need to do is remove the +'s and stretch the note they were modifying out.

6. Import all the stems into Audacity and mix them down to a .wav (and usually an .ogg to import in EoF to make sure it sounds good/create the preview from). Then mute guitar.ogg and mix that down to a .wav of '(Name) No Guitar.' Mute rhythm.ogg in addition to the previous one and mix that down to a .wav of '(Name) Backing Only.' Unmute guitar.ogg and mix it down to '(Name) No Bass.'

7. Wwise all the .wav's you created. Create copies of the preview and rename them after the other versions.

8. Toolkit the .wem made from the first .wav with all the stems audible to test it and make sure the volumes and tones are appropriate and everything looks good in the game. Place the parts from the EoF project into DDC with log generation and make sure there are no warnings. Repeat as necessary.

9. When happy with 8, amend 'BackingOnly' to the DLCName. Add '(Backing Audio Only)' to the Song Name. Edit the Guitar and Bass parts and increment the last digit in the Arrangement Identification by a single hexadecimal digit. Delete and re-add the vocals part to generate a new Arrangement Identification number for it. Switch the .wem to the BackingOnly one. Save this package as 'Name_BackingOnly.' Generate the .psarc as 'Name_BackingOnly.'

10-11. Repeat Step 9 for No Bass and No Guitar versions.

12. Create a DD version of the standard .psarc. Test that DD works properly, and all the alternate versions are playable and have the correct parts muted. Repeat as necessary.

13. Upload and release.

 

By and large my goal is to use this process to create Rocksmith files for songs that have no accurate Guitar Pro tabs available. Overall after I got the hang of it I have to say I prefer charting in EoF over GP itself, though I do wish I knew of a way to export the tabs I create to a GP file to make these easily available online.

More recently this is how I've gone about the process...

 

• Fire up GP6 with a blank slate
• Create charts from PDF or tabs (Used to use GP files from UG and Songsterr but they are usually bad / inaccurate / incomplete)
• If I have it I export FLAC from audacity to OGG, otherwise just load mp3 direct into EoF
• Get beat map via Sonic Visualiser, (often trying various channel / onset detection settings until it's right)
• Launch EoF and load OGG and SVL
• Import GP5 file that I exported from GP6, (if a GPX file has double dot notation I import to tuxguitar and save as GP5 as it substitutes double dot better than GP6 export due to GP5 not supporting double dots)
• listen through on slow playback for all charts, make minor adjustments to measures to fine tune the sync, edit sections and phrases / arrangement type, frethand positions and chord fingerings.
• insert beats to generate silence at start and reset offset to zero without inserting measures while ensuring measure begining and end points remain in correct place, if they move I undo and repeat the beat insert with a different number until the measure start and end don't move
• search USDB for lyrics, if found adjust delay to sync with track, if not google and compare lyrics to song playthrough, fix lyrics if necessary and then use ultrastar creator to tap it out)
• import lyric file
• save EoF project
• If FLAC source I will note the delay I've added then add same delay to audacity and export to WAV
• load WAV into WWise , max out quality and convert
• rename files
• Generate DD using time signature of GP file for phrase length
• load it all into RST with some base tones and generate a file
• fire up Rocksmith and test bass chart and send link to friend to test guitar charts
• adjust volumes / tones based on feedback and preferences
• Publish to database
• like all the feedback and thanks
• check for any reported issues
• wonder why only 8 people out of 300 have said anything and wonder if I should bother with this any more
• return to 1st step and repeat

I really need to learn to tab songs. Most of the songs i want to chart doesn't have a good GP tab, or they don't have it

One that i'm really looking for is Age of Shadows by Ayreon. I really love that band and i want to chart it but there are no good GP tabs :c

I really need to learn to tab songs. Most of the songs i want to chart doesn't have a good GP tab, or they don't have it

One that i'm really looking for is Age of Shadows by Ayreon. I really love that band and i want to chart it but there are no good GP tabs :c

--snip--

 

That's a pretty cool sounding song dude...

 

I just did a search and pulled this GP5 file down it sounds like it could be ok but I'm not familiar with the band so can't be sure.. also not sure if it's one you've seen before and ruled out or not.

 

I really need to learn to tab songs. Most of the songs i want to chart doesn't have a good GP tab, or they don't have it

One that i'm really looking for is Age of Shadows by Ayreon. I really love that band and i want to chart it but there are no good GP tabs :c

--snip--

 

That's a pretty cool sounding song dude...

 

I just did a search and pulled this GP5 file down it sounds like it could be ok but I'm not familiar with the band so can't be sure.. also not sure if it's one you've seen before and ruled out or not.

 

I downloaded and it only have the intro and the verse but the rest is missing

That's why i really want to chart this somehow 

1 get pro tab

2 audacity

3 load song

4 import pro

5 FUCKING COPY PASTA NOTES EVERYWHERE

6 tone it

7 wwise

8

9 Profit

EOF is a gathering Tool for different programs, (GP6, TG, GPA, SV) not to forget Feedback/GH chart or midi import of songs already synced for FretofFire or Phase shift. It would be hard to achieve this with another program.

 

To check the sync, I find no better way than load the song in RS Riffrepeator, set the speed to 1(!), and watch the notes pass by.

In very fast songs, I always find notes that don't match the timing (sometimes it's not the sync but the sustain) and I find this particularly useful  for bends, when they start and end.  But there is no stop, forward and backward in the RR, so it's good to have many sectors to identify the position of the notes.

 

I came to the conclusion that the major part that's missing in EOF ( now that RS is growing and the GH regressing), is

a real RS 3D Preview.

It would be more useful to program such a plugin than doing elsewhere what EOF can do.