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Idiot Proof Guide to playing custom songs in GH 2 (w/pics)
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thewhyan  





Joined: 23 Dec 2006
Posts: 323
Location: NYC, NY

PostPosted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:59 am    Post subject: Idiot Proof Guide to playing custom songs in GH 2 (w/pics) Reply with quote

[Welcome to all our visitors arriving from the blogosphere. It's mentioned below, but it really should be step 0, so let me save a bunch of you some time and frustration: This process requires a modded PS2 capable of playing burned game discs. This is NOT something we will assist you with here. If that's you, then feel free to continue reading. If not, thanks for stopping by, and if you enjoy Guitar Hero, do take a look around the rest of our site. --The Management]

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE PM ME OR LEAVE A MESSAGE IN THIS TOPIC.

DO NOT IM ME ON AIM! Thanks!


I'll update this ASAP, please bear with me!


-thewhyan

---------
This guide is now available in a Spanish translation, with many thanks to tarod83!

En el siguiente link podréis encontrar una traducción de la guía, para hispanohablantes. ¡Importante! Cualquier duda que os surja sobre el proceso, colgadlo en su respectivo hilo (aquí solo preguntas en inglés, allí en español). Espero que os sea útil.

Link: http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10668
---------


Changes have been made to the guide in order to reflect the recent changes in katamakel's GHEx. Please update to the latest version, 0.4.x

Before I start this guide, I would ask you all to PLEASE read Riz's announcement. http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5716

If you do have any suggestions or additions to this guide, feel free to post in the topic.

ANYTHING BOLDED MEANS THAT IT HAS BEEN UPDATED! PLEASE READ!

I made this guide to help those who have trouble reading the tutorial made by Sottle - http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3592. Without further a do, I present you, the "Idiot Proof Guide to playing custom made songs in Guitar Hero II (w/pics)".

You will need these following tools in order to play custom-made songs:

Guitar Hero Explorer: http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2549
GHero Utils: http://scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2132
Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
MFAudio: http://www.zophar.net/utilities/ps2util.html
Anvil Studio: http://www.anvilstudio.com/
CD-DVD Generator: http://utilities.psxforum.com/cddvdgen.zip
Apache 2: http://www.ps3news.com/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=9
Apache 3: http://rapidshare.com/files/33869720/apache3.rar
DVD Decrypter/Nero/Alcohol/Any other ISO burning software. - Preferably, I would choose Alcohol 120%.
..and finally a good quality media to burn to. This is REALLY REALLY REALLY important. If your eventual burn does not work, this is the number one reason why. I recommend Taiyo Yuden, Sony and Verbatim or Check: http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm for a full list.
You need some way to boot non-official PS2 media., please don't ask how to get this. YOU WILL BE BANNED!
A DVD Burner

Now, the guide.

My example throughout the tutorial will be System of a Down - Hypnotize. The .mid can be found in Sephiroth87 topic. Thanks.

Step 1: This step isn't necessary, but it does help with organization. Make a new folder on your desktop entitled, "Guitar Hero Custom", or whatever you want. Any programs or .mid/.chart (s) you download should go into the folder instead of a random folder that is hard to find.



Step 2: Download the .mid or .chart file of the song you want to play. If you need help, go to this topic to choose your song. Follow the instruction, if given, and download the .mid or .chart file.

Step 3: Now, you're going to have to get an .mp3 of the song you want to play. If the maker of the song, the .mid maker, provides you a .vgs file, use that. But, if they don't, you're going to have to find a way to get that song. Maybe rip the song from the album, or buy it off iTunes.

Step 4: Next, insert the Guitar Hero II disc into your DVD drive, and copy all the contents from the disc into the Guitar Hero Custom folder I told you to make. If you want, you can make a seperate folder just for the Guitar Hero II contents. You can also use the option directly in GHEx 0.4+ to copy the files. Go to File->Archive->Copy From DVD
Quote:
After copying the files off the DVD, make sure that the .HDR/.ARK files are not read-only. - katamakel.


If successful, it should look like this.



Step 5: Open Guitar Hero Explorer, and go to File. Click add archive and locate the MAIN.HDR file. The file should be located in the GEN folder that you uploaded copied from you Guitar Hero II disc.



Step 6: In Guitar Hero Explorer (GHex), expand the main "Songs", and then expand the song you want to replace. As of now, the song you want to replace doesn't matter. Now, right click the .mid/.chart file of the song you want to replace, and click "Import". Now, choose the .mid you downloaded from Score Hero, and replace it with the .mid of the original Guitar Hero II song. Don't worry, if it says replacing data : 1 of 1396, that's fine.



Step 7:
Quote:
Right click the .vgs file of the same song, and click "Import". - katamakel
You will now see a box. Right-click the white area on the top and click Add. Now choose the .mp3 of the song that you want to play in you custom Guitar Hero II. Or if the author of the .mid provided a .vgs file, import it with that.



Step 8: In the bottom of that same option, you will see a couple choices. Map your main audio file to 0/1 only. If you were provided extra tracks then the chart author should have released a .vgs instead.

Step 9: Now once everything uploaded, click the main folder of the song you replaced. Now preview it to see if EVERYTHING is synced. Even the slightest mistake can change the whole song. IF the song is not sync, you can make change the starting time of the .mp3 or .vgs you uploaded. To do that, go back to Step 9, upload the same song. And once it finished uploading, right click the song and click properties. You will now see an offset option. Make the number positive if the song starts too early, make the number negative if the song starts too late. Remember, it's in milliseconds so 1000 milliseconds = 1 second.



You can repeat Step 6 - 9 if you want to add more songs.

[Note: See the end of the steps for an additional alternative method for building and burning your custom.]
Step 10: Now that you're finished with all the customs stuff, it's time to rebuild the game. Before starting CDVDGEN, make sure to close ghex, as I've seen people having problems with the image not being completed. Open CD/DVD Generator, select Start New Project, and then choose New DVD Master Disc. THIS IS IMPORTANT! Make sure that's it DVD or else it will not work. Now, drag and drop the folders and files from the Guitar Hero II disc into the main window. MAKE SURE IT'S IN THE FOLLOWING ORDER!

GEN
IOP
VIDEOS
SLUS_214.47 (If you are not using the US version of the game this file will be different)
System



Now click the "Volume" tab, and enter SLUS 21447 into the "DISC NAME" field. (If your disc is not from US, it will be different. So make sure you make the changes.) Put PLAYSTATION in the "Producer Name" field, and change the liscense area to the appropriate region. Forget the rest. It's not important. Now, click File, and click Export iml file. Rename it to whatever you want, and save.



Step 11: This is probably the most crucial stage in this process. Open Apache, in my case it's Apache2. Now click File, and click Import iml file. Choose the file you saved from CD/DVD Generator, and you should see the files on the right hand side.



Now, once everything is fine on the right hand side, click File, and click Build ISO. Now... WAIT! There is a not terribly visible progress indicator in the status bar. You MUST wait until this process is complete... it will take some time, as it has to build a several gigabyte file. DO NOT CLOSE THIS APPLICATION UNTIL IT IS DONE!



Step 12: FINALLY! The end is near. This is the final step of the process. Open your DVD burning program. For me it's Alcohol 120%, but if your program is different, follow the steps to Burn Image on DVD. Now, choose the ISO that you made from Apache and burn it on your GOOD MEDIA at 4x. Please use 4x. It is the best way to burn it.

[The following alternative method for burning your custom build without the use of Apache was supplied by ImaCarrot1... thanks Carrot!]

Apache-less Method to Burn Your Guitar Hero Custom Disc.

Tools Required:

CDDVD Generator by JRLS
DVD Decrypter

*Note*
DVD Decrypter is no longer a freeware program, and as such, a link to where to obtain it will not be (intentionally) given. I use it to burn my disc, it has always worked perfectly for me and even plays a nice little jingle when it’s done burning the disc. You can use Alcohol 120% or any other burning software listed in the above tutorial, but DVD Decrypter is the best and easiest to use in my opinion.

It is a very, very, easy program to find thanks to the reasons surrounding its decline from freeware status, just Google it.
*Note*

- Follow the above tutorial up until step 10, do everything there until you get to the part about exporting the .iml file.

- Instead of exporting the .iml file, you want to click on the big Record button in the upper right-hand corner.

[Additional note: If you get the following error:

Quote:
when i click in REC... i windows shows... "cddvdrom recording unit controller. ASPI manager loading failed."

dowload this file and put it in the cd/dvd gen installation folder. restart and pressing "record" will work

Kudos to vincatzero for this fix.]

- The program will ask you where you want to save your .iml file, the choice is yours, just remember where it’s at.

Two error dialogs will pop up! This is normal!



- Hit OK



- Hit OK

- Choose File > Export Image from the next window.



- Tell it where to save the .lst file, I usually name it the same as the .iml file from the previous step.

- Wait for the export to finish, it will take some time, about twenty minutes or so. Click OK when it’s finished.

- Now you can close CD_DVD-ROM Generator and open up CDDVD Generator by JRLS



- Click on the Files button at the top-right.

-Highlight all of the files that have the name you saved your .lst file as, the ones that look to have three digit numbers as their file extension and nothing else (.001, .002, .003, etc…). A Guitar Hero custom disc usually has three to four of these files; it all depends on how big the ISO is going to be. It could also be less if you used Ghex’s Archive Shrink tool.

- Click Open.

- Back in the main window, you should see all of the files you just added in the window.

- Click on the Destination button at the bottom-right.

- Enter in your save information, this will be the name of your ISO.

- Click on the Build button below the Destination button.

- This program has no progress bar whatsoever! Just wait until it’s done, it will tell you that it successfully created the ISO, click ok when it’s done.

*Note*
You now have an ISO that can be burned with your program of choice, continue reading if you want to use DVD Decrypter.
*Note*

- Pop your blank DVD in and open up DVD Decrypter.

- Make sure that the Mode is set to ISO > Write.



- Point the Source File to your newly created ISO, make sure the write speed is set to something your DVD drive and media can handle, then click on the big button at the bottom the shows a hard disk pointing to a DVD.

- Wait for your disc to finish burning, do a little dance to the nifty jingle that DVD Decrypter plays you when it’s done burning, play your new custom Guitar Hero disc.

-------------------------------------------------------------

That's it folks. After the burning process finishes, it's time to try the DVD. Pop it in into your PS2, and try if it works. Now, if it displays the error screen, keep restarting your PS2. But if it still fails, it may have been an error in your CD/DVD Generator, or the burning process. If there is an error with skipping or pausing with the songs, it may have been your DVD you are using.

Quote:
If the game fails to load at all, that's still probably a media problem. Only if you get a "not a valid ps2 disc" from Swap Magic or whatever the equivalent from HDLoader is do you want to point fingers at CD/DVD Gen. - Sottle


But, if you reached success with this guide, congrats. If you still have problems, don't hesitate to read Riz's announcement, this guide, and the other guide made by Sottle.

I would like to thanke Sottle for creating the first guide, Riz for the announcements, and everyone else for contributing to this lengthy, but payable process.

ENJOY![/b]


Last edited by thewhyan on Wed Oct 03, 2007 1:39 am; edited 23 times in total
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katamakel  





Joined: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 1467
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

PostPosted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice work, if people can't follow this one, they're completely screwed.

I'd just like you to add two things:
1. After copying the files off the DVD, make sure that the .HDR/.ARK files are not read-only.
2. Before starting CDVDGEN, make sure to close ghex, as I've seen people having problems with the image not being completed.
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Sottle  





Joined: 14 May 2006
Posts: 3050

PostPosted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
That's it folks. After the burning process finishes, it's time to try the DVD. Pop it in into your PS2, and try if it works. Now, if it displays the error screen, keep restarting your PS2. But if it still fails, it may have been an error in your CD/DVD Generator, or the burning process. If there is an error with skipping or pausing with the songs, it may have been your DVD you are using.


If the game fails to load at all, that's still probably a media problem. Only if you get a "not a valid ps2 disc" from Swap Magic or whatever the equivalent from HDLoader is do you want to point fingers at CD/DVD Gen.

Good work, although it would have been nice to be asked before you c/p'd stuff out of my guide. I don't mind, but it would have been nice
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Phr34k  





Joined: 20 Mar 2006
Posts: 1082
Location: London, Ontario, Canada

PostPosted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 1:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sticky swap. This is a more complete version, and should be the one getting the views now.
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daUbern00b  





Joined: 15 Jan 2007
Posts: 255

PostPosted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Nice work, if people can't follow this one, they're completely screwed.


Just one small thing, and its just from things I've noticed from the "n00b" topics.
For step 9, you might want to change it so that it says something like:
if you have a VGS then select Replace (blah blah blah)
if you have the MP3 then select Import (blah blah blah)

Just saying, since i believe there was someone saying they were trying to Import a VGS a while back....
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thewhyan  





Joined: 23 Dec 2006
Posts: 323
Location: NYC, NY

PostPosted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 7:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sottle wrote:
If the game fails to load at all, that's still probably a media problem. Only if you get a "not a valid ps2 disc" from Swap Magic or whatever the equivalent from HDLoader is do you want to point fingers at CD/DVD Gen.

Good work, although it would have been nice to be asked before you c/p'd stuff out of my guide. I don't mind, but it would have been nice


Ugh. I had a feeling you were going to ask about this. It's my fault. I should've asked you first. So, I will ask you now, is it ok if I leave the guide up? I could delete it if you want. lol
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Raldios  





Joined: 01 Jan 2007
Posts: 344
Location: Sterling Heights

PostPosted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 9:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

daUbern00b wrote:
Quote:
Nice work, if people can't follow this one, they're completely screwed.


Just one small thing, and its just from things I've noticed from the "n00b" topics.
For step 9, you might want to change it so that it says something like:
if you have a VGS then select Replace (blah blah blah)
if you have the MP3 then select Import (blah blah blah)

Just saying, since i believe there was someone saying they were trying to Import a VGS a while back....
Do you have .vgs's in your your playlist? I'm not sure if you do, but I'm pretty sure everyone doesn't use a PS2 format.
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Sottle  





Joined: 14 May 2006
Posts: 3050

PostPosted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yo, like i said, not a problem/
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zeppgamer  





Joined: 21 Jan 2007
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm having a problem burning the iso. For me, the problem is it writes ~2MB before quiting, has anyone else run into this problem? If it helps I am using Fugifilm dvd+r's and I've tried alcohol 120 and dvd decrypter. Thanks in advance.
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Ravensfan00313  





Joined: 02 Feb 2007
Posts: 23

PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 1:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

any chance these programs will be comming out for mac os x?
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Itaintrite  





Joined: 23 Jan 2007
Posts: 40

PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I managed to burn a disk that booted up on the pLaystation 2. Got to the song but then it crashes. So weird. I can still press the buttons but song just stops playing/scrolling. Any idea why?

I'm using RicohJPN media which is VERY good stuff, so I doubt it's the disk.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
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brandyn  





Joined: 27 Sep 2006
Posts: 48

PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I ended up answering my own question. Make sure you use a DVDR instead of a DVDRW

Last edited by brandyn on Sat Feb 03, 2007 5:38 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Sottle  





Joined: 14 May 2006
Posts: 3050

PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ricoh JPN is not VERY good media, it's second class.

Fretboard freezing without a true crash is down to the laser not being able to read the disc to find out what notes are supposed to be scrolling. Therefore, use better media.
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hockeydude1  





Joined: 26 Jan 2007
Posts: 85
Location: Florida

PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice work man. This is exactly what everyone needs to know and look at. Thanks for putting up the pictures!
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thewhyan  





Joined: 23 Dec 2006
Posts: 323
Location: NYC, NY

PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

hockeydude1 wrote:
Nice work man. This is exactly what everyone needs to know and look at. Thanks for putting up the pictures!


No problems..

Oh, BTW guys, I'll edit the thing over with the inputs you have put in.
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