Hi everyone,

I’m trying to author vocals for a Rock Band 3 song, and I’ve run into a problem with the newer EOF builds. I’m currently using EOF 1.8 RC14 (2026 build), and I’ve discovered that this version no longer supports real‑time vocal note placement. When I try to place lyric notes during playback, EOF only lets me place one note per playback run. After that, Enter stops responding until I pause and restart playback.

From what I’ve learned, this isn’t a bug — RC14 removed the old real‑time input system entirely. The A‑key tap‑to‑place, the Input Mode → Real‑time menu, and the older workflow are all gone.

I’ve been told that the last version of EOF that still has full real‑time note placement working correctly is EOF 1.8 RC12 (2022 build). I want to be able to tap notes in time with the music rather than placing everything manually.

The problem is: I can’t find a download for RC12 anywhere. The official sites only have changelogs, and the Google Code archive is too old (1.71, etc.). I do have the 2025 hotfix builds for RC14, but those don’t restore real‑time input.

If anyone has a link, a mirror, or an archived copy of RC12, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!

There was never a "real-time" input mode. Several of the input modes have allowed notes to be placed during playback, but this was always explained to be a bad practice and that you would have to fix the timing for notes placed this way. Reverting to RC12 just for this would be a terrible idea.

I tested just now and the "Guitar tap" and "Guitar strum" input modes still work to place several vocal notes during a single playback of the chart. Classic and Hold do not currently work for this, but I can add a small adjustment in the program so this will work. It does seem like if you hold the Enter key down when placing lyrics in these two input modes, the new lyric will just be placed with its initial length and it won't lengthen automatically like with the guitar strum input mode.

The next hotfix will allow Classic and Hold input modes to place multiple lyrics during playback, but just know the end result will be bad because this is not the proper way to author lyrics.

Thanks for the fast response. So full disclosure: This is my first attempt at authoring anything. I don't know any music theory so I don't have the background knowledge to chart any instruments. But I thought I might be able to handle vocals. There are songs on the Rhythm Verse site that have all instruments but are missing vocals so I figured I'd try to just add vocals to them. I asked AI for help in the process and it said there is a way using EOF to play the song, and hit a key on the keyboard for each syllable to place a note at that position. Then you can import lyrics (that have been pre-hyphenated using a site that breaks words up into syllables) into those positions where the empty note was placed. This didn't sound too hard but I can't figure out how to do it. I tried "Guitar tap" and "Guitar strum" input modes but when I hit enter during playback it doesn't drop a note at all.

I know you said this isn't the proper way to author lyrics but it just seems very tedious to have to continuously pause and restart the song to find where each syllable should be and drop the notes one at a time and manually typing in each lyric one at a time. Is that really how it's done?

Note: I don't care about pitch. I'm just aiming to get unpitched lyrics timed somewhat accurately for the song. They don't need to be exact.

The process you mentioned about placing lyric-less vocal notes first and then importing text isn't commonly used with EOF. You might find it easier to use another lyric editing program to create the lyrics (or just find the lyrics in a format that EOF can import, like UltraStar) and just importing the timed lyrics all at once in EOF with File>Import>Lyric. Otherwise you can skim through EOF's vocal tutorial in its Help menu for details about authoring/manipulating the lyrics in EOF.

"(or just find the lyrics in a format that EOF can import, like UltraStar) and just importing the timed lyrics all at once in EOF with File>Import>Lyric." - That sounds great! I have the lyrics for the song. How do I get them timed and in a format that EOF can import? I see you referenced UltraStar but doesn't that just let me create and time the lyrics, then export to a file that EOF can open? You made it sound like there is a way to automatically get the lyrics to be timed properly. How do I do that?

There's no automatic way. I was suggesting you can download lyrics that were already made by somebody else in a format that EOF can import, such as when somebody has already made a chart for the song to use in a singing/rhythm game.

Oh, I see. But if someone had already made the chart, then I wouldn't need to be making the chart in the first place. I guess this is beyond my abilities. Thanks for the info, this has been very helpful. I guess my next question is: Are there reliable and established/known people on here who I can commission to make custom songs?

If somebody made lyrics for this song in a karaoke game or a Rock Band style game, you'd be able to import them into EOF pretty easily. There are also lyric editors whose entire purpose is vocals so they can streamline the process. UltraStar is a popular karaoke game and thousands of songs have had vocals authored for it:

https://usdb.animux.de/

https://usdb.eu/

And thousands of custom songs for Rock Band style games have lyrics:

https://rhythmverse.co/songfiles/game

Or hundreds/thousands/? of unpitched lyrics in simple formats like LRC:
https://lrclib.net/

I usually just manually create line-synced lyrics for charts that I make, which takes a little time, but not usually more than half an hour or so since EOF will even let you copy/paste lyrics in from the clipboard (in Windows anyway).