Demo Note Charts

**katamakel** · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 1467 Location: Stockholm, Sweden

So I'm working on this little viewer for Guitar Hero files, and made a first pass at rendering note charts for the demo songs.

I'd appreciate feedback on the looks and correctness of them.

Expert:
Shout at the Devil - Bass
Shout at the Devil - Guitar
Shout at the Devil - Guitar+Bass (new)
Strutter - Guitar
Strutter - Guitar CO-OP
Strutter - Rhythm
Strutter - Guitar CO-OP+Rhythm (new)
You Really Got Me - Bass
You Really Got Me - Guitar
You Really Got Me - Guitar+Bass (new)
YYZ - Bass
YYZ - Guitar
YYZ - Guitar+Bass (new)

Hard:
Shout at the Devil - Bass
Shout at the Devil - Guitar
Shout at the Devil - Guitar+Bass (new)
Strutter - Guitar
Strutter - Guitar CO-OP
Strutter - Rhythm
Strutter - Guitar CO-OP+Rhythm (new)
You Really Got Me - Bass
You Really Got Me - Guitar
You Really Got Me - Guitar+Bass (new)
YYZ - Bass
YYZ - Guitar
YYZ - Guitar+Bass (new)

I could render the rest on request.
My goal is of course to release the program.

EDIT: Added charts for hard difficulty
UPDATE: Fixed missing sustained note and re-rendered all charts
EDIT2: Added charts for CO-OP (lead and rhythm combined), also re-rendered all other charts as I added HO/PO "support".

**Ensiferous3** · Joined: 02 Jul 2006 Posts: 1629

They look nice but does the tempo really fluctuate that much? It seems every 1-2 measures there is a slight tempo change which doesn't make much sense.

Good job otherwise though!
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**katamakel** · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 1467 Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Yeah, it looks weird, but there are loads of tempo change events in the files.
But maybe I should interpret that in some other way?

I do know that it's hard to play 100% in tempo when recording music, even with a click track, so I assume they compensate for some drift when they map out the notes.

**SThorpe** · Joined: 09 Aug 2006 Posts: 2500

that's cool man, those solos are awesome, cant wait to practise those, no hidden things stored in the demo then?

**katamakel** · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 1467 Location: Stockholm, Sweden

No hidden stuff, no.

**Anthrice** · Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 128

If you could post the ones for hard, specifically YYZ hard, I would be your biggest fan.

Only one I can't 5 star.

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**katamakel** · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 1467 Location: Stockholm, Sweden

There you go.

**Riff** · Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 104 Location: Champaign, IL

I think the layout is great. The fixed size measures make the charts look more like sheet music which is a good thing imho. Here are my suggestions:

Use a config file that allows the colors to be customized for all items. Particularly the note colors, the "staff" lines and the background. Allow switching between at least two sets of color configurations, one for viewing and one for printing.
Allow configuration of the positioning of measure numbers so that they can be displayed underneath the measures or on top of each measure
Allow disabling of the line above the staff that is displayed above star power groups
Come up with some heuristics for determining if a measure should be rendered using double or quadruple width. This will be necessary to ensure that measures with a large number of notes do not end up unreadable.
What might be really cool is to to provide a second rendering mode where the note heads are replaced by standard musical notation symbols.
Most importantly, allow the program to take as input any midi file so that I can create charts for my custom songs without having to burn a DVD.

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**katamakel** · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 1467 Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Thanks Riff,

All your configuration suggestions are on my todo-list.

Regarding rendering standard notation symbols, if it's note durations you're after, I have some ideas for that.

Dynamic measure widths will be implemented because, as you pointed out, some songs (like Texas Flood) has some bars with lots of notes.

Right now the program only supports archived files (.ark/.hdr can be located anywhere, disc or hdd,) but of course I can add normal file open for .mid files. Hadn't thought of that need.

**Riff** · Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 104 Location: Champaign, IL

I don't really care too much about standard notation. I just thought it might be interesting. I am mostly concerned about being able to change the colors so that they look good when printed on a laser printer. I prefer a dark background and white staff lines when viewing the charts on a monitor but that sucks for printing, especially when I want to annotate the charts with a pencil or pen.

You should also take care to use the PPQN value stored in the midi files when rendering the data. There is no guarantee that the PPQN will remain at 480 in future versions of the game.

As far as tempo goes, here is my idea for reducing clutter. Allow configuration of a tempo delta value that will control when tempo changes are rendered. The starting tempo is always printed and stored in a variable called "tempo." Traverse through the file, comparing tempo changes to the tempo stored in the tempo variable. If the new tempo is more than "delta" away from the value stored in "tempo" then render the new tempo value and update the "tempo" variable with the new tempo value. Setting the delta threshold to 1 would cause this algorithm to render all tempo changes. Setting the threshhold to a higher value would eliminate successively larger swings around a centered tempo value. In practice the delta value would probably never be set higher than 20.
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**katamakel** · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 1467 Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Yeah, I already use the PPQN value for everything.

I'll add that tempo delta setting also, good idea.

**ES942** · Joined: 02 Mar 2006 Posts: 3445 Location: Snalbans

You Really Got Me - Expert Guitar

you are missing a green starred hold in measure 10
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**katamakel** · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 1467 Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Cheers ES, I found the bug and re-rendered all the note charts.
Please let me know if you find any other errors in them!

**SThorpe** · Joined: 09 Aug 2006 Posts: 2500

how about showing hammer-on/pull-off notes, it's not neccessary but it's a cool little thing.

**Genga** · Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 2474 Location: Glasgow, Scotland

lookin good mate
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