Ok, instead of PMing you, i'll just put the info up here, its really basic
1: Get yourself a
Swap Magic for your PS2, you can get one for the O.G. one (the big one like I have with the drawer), or the Slimline (with the lid). This allows you to play imports or those crucial backups.
To keep it short, basically you get a program to load your song of choice in, and you map out the notes of where they should be, this makes the map chart. You get a few audio programs and make a midi to go with the song (if you didn't know, the game is basically made up of VGS and MIDI files)
Then you basically rip the files from the original GHII disc, open the files in another program, and change the songs already on the game to your custom ones and save it. Then burn to a DVD-R, load it with the swap magic and play away!
This is the lenghty process (this is taken from
ScoreHero (This is also a good place to upload your scores to see how well you compare with the others))
Table of Contents:Chapter 1. Summary
Chapter 2. Beginning
Chapter 3. Find the Tempo
Chapter 4. Creating/Saving a Chart with TabIt
Chapter 5. Creating/Saving a Chart with Guitar Pro 4.x
(A link to a tutorial on GP5 is at the bottom of the tutorial)Chapter 6. Creating/Saving a Chart with PowerTab
Chapter 7. Editing with Anvil Studio
Chapter 8. Checking Synchronization with Guita Hero Explorer
Chapter 9. Creating Tempo/Time Signature Changes with MIDI Maestro
Chapter 10. Inserting Star Power
Chapter 11. Inserting Player 1/2 Positions
Chapter 12. Bass/Rhythm Guitar/Co-Op
Chapter 13. The Final Step
Chapter 14. More Tutorials You Should Read
Chapter 15. Conclusion
Chapter 1: Summary:This tutorial is going to explain and demonstrate how to create a note chart using the following programs and materials.
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Guitar Pro, or
PowerTab (These are all programs used to create music through MIDI. They are designed for the user to write/learn how to play songs through tablature. You won’t have to use all 3. I recommend TabIt but you’re free to use which ever you are more familiar with.)
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Anvil Studio (I know I mentioned that you my method is an alternative to using this program, which it is, but you will eventually need it to create the final MIDI that you will be using.)
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MIDI Maestro-
Guitar Hero Explorer-
Guitar Hero Template for TabIt-
Guitar Hero Template for Guitar Pro (If you’re going to use TabIt, then this one is not needed. If you are going to use GP, you’ll need version 4.0.7 or greater.)
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Guitar Hero Template for PowerTab (If you’re going to use TabIt or Guitar Pro, then this one is not needed)
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Guitar Hero 1 Template for Anvil Studio [right-click-save] (If you’re sure you won’t be putting custom songs on a copy of Guitar Hero 1, then you don’t need this.)
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Guitar Hero 2 Template for Anvil Studio [right-click-save] (If you’re sure you won’t be putting custom songs on a copy of Guitar Hero 2, then you don’t need this. Though, the tutorial will be using this as an example.)
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Now, unfortunately, the only freeware programs are PowerTab and Anvil Studio. You can pretty much do with out the other 3 programs, but TabIt has a very user friendly interface that is easy to operate, and MIDI Maestro will be the program you need in order to insert tempo changes/time signature changes. If you decide that you want the full/registered versions of these programs, how you get your hands on them is entirely up to you. Moving on…
NOTE: IF YOU CHOOSE TO USE A DIFFERENT PROGRAM OTHER THAN TABIT, YOU SHOULD STILL READ THE TABIT SECTION AS IT COVERS ALL THE BASIS OF CREATING A NOTE CHART IN A TABLATURE PROGRAM IN THAT PORTIONChapter 2: Beginning:First you’re going to need to decide which song you want to do. You might want to tackle a simple song that has a straight tempo, but that’s all based on your understanding of rhythms/tabbing and such.
For this tutorial I will be using Only for the Weak by In Flames. Not the entire just, just the first four measures, rhythm and lead guitar. Now, you don’t need to get song or copy the steps I will be instructing. I’m only using a song as an example so you can compare a note chart in Guitar Hero to one in a tablature program to the actual guitar line. If you think you need to mimic the steps, then you’re free to do so. For the first program:
Click
here for a clip of the song we'll be working with.
Chapter 3: Find the Tempo:We’re going to need to find the tempo for this song before we get to work. At this point one of your tablature programs should be open. There are different alternatives to finding the tempo.
If there are methods to use within Guitar Pro and Power Tab to find tempos, please post them as I am unfamiliar with these programs. They will be added after viewing.The tempo for the example song is 210 BPM.
Chapter 4: Creating/Saving a Chart with TabIt:Open the template that you downloaded in TabIt.
Do not be alarmed if your TabIt looks different from mine. TabIt's appear is customizable and yours will be plain black and white. This is just what I prefer.
This is a template I’m using to create my custom note charts. As you can see they are noted on top of each track which difficulty it belongs to. We're only going to mess with the track that says Expert, track 4. In the picture you can see in the comments what each string represents. The first 5 are your buttons, the 6th is the star power, and the 7th is to activate player 1's section in the face off mode.
Lucky for us there is a tab of our example on the TabIt website. Though, it’s not necessary for you to download, and you won’t be able to see it completely unless you have the registered version.
It’d be easier to have the guitar line you will be making a note chart for in the same tab as guitarhero.tbt. If you wanted to do this, you’d go to the tab on the site, copy the guitar line you’ll be re-creating by highlight the entire thing (or a porting) with your mouse, pressing CTRL+C, and then pasting it in the guitarhero.tbt by pressing CTRL+V. You could make a new track for this, but since we’re not going to be working on the Hard difficulty tab, just paste it there. Proper tuning is not needed for this, only for the Expert track.
NOTE: I’m going to be moving tracks around to show certain details, don’t pay attention if one track is moved up or down in different pictures. Try not to get confused.NOTE: The song you’re doing might not be in 4/4. If you’re using TabIt you can change the Time Signature in there by going to Song/Recreate Bar Lines… and input the proper number. The number it’s asking for is the top number of the fraction. So, if the song you are doing is in 3/4, then you’d just simple type 3. IMPORTANT: This will only benefit in TabIt. The Time Signature will not transfer over to Guitar Hero unless you do as instructed below.We're going to start with the rhythm line. This is what the beginning looks like on both guitars. The rhythm is the top track.
We're going to re-create it using the note chart track. If you notice the lines on the top, they represent note values. It's not really necessary to understand what they mean, but use those as your guide. The 4 chords in each measure fall in on the 4 largest lines in each bar. So, if we re-created it, it'll look something like this:
*
Remember the top string is the GREEN button and the 5th string is ORANGE one. It's very simple. The 6th string will be used when you input star power, and the last one can be ignored for now.*
Now, if we left the rhythm how it was, the chords would sustain until the next one is played. We want them to just be single bullets. To do this, you’d put a * immediately after the 0, like so:
* are like rests. They are what stop the note and create single or sustaining notes in Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero doesn't register rests and sustaining notes the same as these tablature programs. You'll have to cut the time that the not will be stopped in half for sustaining notes to have it feel more accurate
Now to re-create the lead track. The Expert track we're editing on is the same kind that the lead would go on, so we'd have to make a new track. But, just worry about the rhythm. I'm merely showing you this is a second example. Again, we'll just place the notes were they are in the actual tab. Also, again take note of the *’s placement. Here is the lead.
Together they look like this.
So, we have our tested note chart ready. Let's make it into a MIDI. We're just going to use the rhythm track.
Go to File/Export MIDI
Check mark the track that your note chart is on and then click OK and save it somewhere.
You’re going to need this later so go to File/Save As… and keep it as a back up if you need to make adjustments.
Chapter 5: Creating/Saving a Chart with Guitar Pro 4.xYou’re basically going to follow the same instructions as given above in the TabIt portion. But this is how it will look like on Guitar Pro.
When you’re done with your chart on here, you Export the MIDI as instructed with TabIt. Be sure to save the file so you can edit it later, if needed, but don’t overwrite the Template you got from me, so go to Save As..
Chapter 6: Creating/Saving a Chart with Power TabI couldn’t figure out how to really create the notes with separate tracks but I did create them there for you. To see them click the guitar button on the tool bar.
1. Expert
2. Hard
3. Medium
4. Easy
I retuned the Bass as it is in TabIt, but I’m not entirely sure if they are playing the same pitch. If you run into problems, it’s because they’re in the wrong octave.
To save the MIDI, you’d do the exact same thing you’d do for the last two programs.
Chapter 7: Editing with Anvil StudioNow, we're going to take this to Anvil Studio. Open up Anvil and go to File/Open Song... and go to the MIDI we just created.
Now, open one of the two templates at the top that you downloaded for this program
There is a difference in the MIDI for both games. In this tutorial, we're going to assume you're using GH2.
In Anvil, go to File/Merge Song... and select the gh2template.mid. Now go to the "Compose" view.
Select the track that says "TabIt MIDI - Track". You should see a staff with notes. Hit CTRL+A to highlight everything, and then CTRL+C to copy all the notes. Select the "PART GUITAR RHYTHM" track and press SHIFT+Insert to paste the notes. Normally, these copied notes would go in the track "PART GUITAR" which is the main guitar part that's playing in Single Player and such, but since this is a rhythm line, we'll paste it there for demonstrative purposes.
Now, our TabIt MIDI Track is useless, so we'll delete it. Press (in sequence, not together) ALT, T, D. Then click Yes or press the SPACEBAR to delete the track.
Lastly, we'll input the tempo we gathered ealier (which was 210 BPM) on the top toolbar and then save the song by going to File/Save Song As....
Chapter 8: Checking Synchronization with Guita Hero Explorer:Follow steps 6 - 9 in this
tutorial to import the MIDI and song into GHEx. It'll take a while depending on your hard drive. For me, each import is 6 minutes. But, after it re-writes it for the first time, it goes a lot faster when you replace them because the re-writing is left out.
As it is said in that tutorial, adjust the offset if the first note is not in sync. Another alternative is to adjust the MIDI itself. In which case you would go back to editing the note chart in TabIt and either add a space before the first note or delete one so the song and note chart meet on time. Then you'd follow the same steps to Anvil, then to GHEx to see if it is in sync.
Chapter 9: Creating Tempo/Time Signature Changes with MIDI Maestro So, you’re making your own chart and you find that the beginning is in sync but it starts to come off. Now, you know the it isn’t the tempo of the MIDI’s fault because it’ll stay in sync for several bars until it comes to a certain part or new riff. This is when you’ll have to make a tempo change. You’ll do this in MIDI Maestro.
Open up MIDI Maestro. It’ll ask you if you want it to be your default player for .mid files, but just keep clicking “No” everytime you open it.
Open the finalized MIDI you made in Anvil and imported into GHEx by going to File/Open…
You’ll see the tracks as they were in Anvil, and a yellow bar, which are the notes. The second little bar in the events is to be ignored for now.
Go to View/Staff. If you don’t see notes on the staff, then click the number 7 on the track list.
Go to Insert/Tempo to make a tempo change. Now say we wanted to make the 2nd measure faster and have the 3rd measure go back to the regular tempo. You set it like this.
But, if you wanted the tempo to change from a certain measure all the way to the end, then you’d change the measure numbers to be the same, in this case they’d both be 2.
To change the Time Signature you’d go to Insert/Meter. Again, if you want it to go from the measure you’re editing to the end, you wouldn’t change a thing, but the meter. But if you want the Time Signature change for that measure only, you put both numbers as the measure number, in this case it would be 2.
NOTE: Guitar Hero will only except x/4 Time Signatures. All others (e.g. 7/8) will be converted by the game and your notes will not be aligned with the measures properly. Although, it does nothing to the sync of the chart/music. Time Signatures aren’t that important to ones playability but it’s a nice touch to add to your songs.NOTE: MIDI Maestro is going to add two unwanted tracks and events to your MIDI, so when you use this program, you’re going to have to import the MIDI into Anvil to delete the two tracks yourself.
To delete the events, scroll down to Chapter 14 to read how to get to the Event List in Anvil Studio. You’ll see in the picture I provided, a window with a button that says “Delete Event” Double click on the un-wanted event and and press this button to delete it.
Chapter 10: Inserting Star PowerOkay. You’ve perfected your note chart, tempos, and time signatures. Let’s add star power.
On all the editing programs, the star power was 6th string. What you want to do, is figure out where you want it to start in the tablature program, like so:
Then export the MIDI and transfer it to Anvil like you did before. Follow all the same steps, copying to PART GUITAR, or PART GUITAR RHYTHM, and deleting the TabIt track.
With your PART GUITAR RHYTHM track highlighted, in the compose view, there is a drop down menu under the track names which you shall change to “Piano Roll”
If you see only a few piano keys, then click the “add sounds” button under the keys and put C5 as the Lowest Note and then change the Number of Notes to Show to 50.
Now, you can see the notes as you made them in TabIt, but notice they are upside due to the tuning. Your star power is going to be the blue bar at the top, small and alone.
To make a group of notes with star power, you just grab the bar on the right side and extend it until you want it to end. Extend it a little passed the last note of the Star Power group.
Once you save your MIDI, your Star Power is ready to go.
NOTE: If you insert star power before you add difficulties, player inserts or other additions, when you put the updated MIDIs in Anvil Studio, the Star Power will no longer be stretched and you’ll have to edit that again.
However, if you use Guitar Pro, you more than likely won’t have to because you can Import MIDI into GP, so all that event data will stay saved as you’re editing the notes or other things. This I am not sure on.Chapter 11: Inserting Player 1/2 PositionsMy apologies. This part of the tutorial will be updated eventually, but I haven’t been able to test this out yet, nor am I completely sure how it works. Once I have, I’ll update this chapter, but obviously this isn’t on a need to know basis.
Chapter 12: Bass/Rhythm Guitar/Co-OpIf you want to write a Bass (etc) chart, you would simply go to the template I provided for each program and create one as if you were creating the main guitar part.
Then, once you’ve completed said part, you will follow the same steps on importing it into Anvil Studio, but instead of copying it to the one I did before, you’d copy it to PART BASS or PART RHYTHM, which ever one you made. It’s that simple.
Chapter 13: Inserting Different DifficultiesYou are going to create each individual difficulty in the template I provided.
Follow the same steps on importing it into Anvil Studio except this time you’re importing more than one track with your tablature program.
You will see two TabIt tracks, this time, in Anvil.
Highlight one of the TabIt tracks, then go to Track/Merge… and select the other TabIt track. Then copy the notes into the PART this chart belongs to like you’ve done before.
Now, delete the two TabIt tracks and save the MIDI, ready to be imported into GHEx.
Chapter 14: The Final StepNow, you have every detail has been added. You are finished with your chart and you’re ready to finalize it.
Open it up in Anvil one last time. Go to the “Event List” view and look at the track EVENTS.
NOTE: Make sure your “EVENTS” track looks like this in the “Even List” view. I’ve been having some problems and complaints in this area. I think this might be the solution, but it hasn’t been confirmed yet. Trust this in the mean time as it is the way most finished and successful note charts look.Double click the line “Comments: [end]” (in the GH1 template it’ll say “Comments: end”) and a window pops up.
You need to change the number in the second box of this window so the time stamp on the left side of “Comments” reads at least 1 second past the length of the song. The number is going to be huge. Just keep looking at the stamp and estimate how much to add or subtract.
My example is only 00:04:10 (That’s 4 seconds and 10 frames), and it only reads 00:00:11 so I’m going to have to jump up number until the stamp reads past 00:04:10.
If you have it below it, your song will end early in the game, and if you have it too much over, then you’ll be waiting for the “You Rock” message forever. One second after the song ends is fine.
Once you’ve found the right amount of time, save the MIDI, import into GHEx, create the ISO, burn the game, Enjoy.
Chapter 14: More Tutorials You Should Read Idiot Proof Guide to playing custom made songs in GH2. (This will direct you on how to put your desired custom songs on a new Guitar Hero 1 or 2 DVD.)
Custom Song FAQ (A collection of the most frequently asked questions about Custom Songs. Pretty self explanatory, huh?)
Guitar Hero MIDI and VGS File Details (Everything you need to know about the Guitar Hero related MIDI and VGS files.)
Beginner's Guide to Creating Custom Mids (A guide for using Anvil Studio to create your custom charts.)
Guitar Pro 5 template - now with Tutorial! (A tutorial on making charts with Guitar Pro 5 by Ryu Blitz. It'll probably help with 4.x versions as well.)
Chapter 15: ConclusionThat’s everything. Thanks to all the members who gave me all this knowledge to be able to pass it on to future coming members.
If there are any misunderstandings, questions, or important details I might have left out, please let me know. Any questions I think others might ask as well will be reposted in this first post with the answer.
Good luck.
