Simple overlay "silent notes" vs. playable notes

**hairball** · Joined: 22 Jan 2007 Posts: 27

I haven't had a chance to play any custom songs yet, but from viewing youtube video of some of them, it appears that you could choose to not even play a note and you would still hear all of the guitar. Assuming I'm right on this (please correct me if I'm not), this is a pretty big difference from "the real thing".

Obviously, separating the tracks out and coordinating that would be another homebrew project, but I imagine it could be done:

-technology exists that can at least make a decent stab at isolating tracks, or at least parts of the sound spectrum

-a separate track of the guitar sound spectrum could be isolated, and sync'd up with the midi file, and then played at volume, with the other track (the song emphasising the non-guitar parts) would be played at a lower volume in the background.

If this were done, then you would essentially hear the guitar note end if you take your finger off too early, and the boos from the audience would make more sense, and the game would really be more playable. Also, the whammy bar would have a function which, I'm guessing, it doesn't with the current custom songs.

Thoughts?

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

It's called a "filter". Commonly used in signal processing.
This has been discussed a couple of times before, but there's no definite way to do it.

I don't really see the point with your post, as the fact that this would have to be done in order to mimic the original GH songs is well known.

I do know there are some people on other forums (Freetar or FoF, don't remember) that are recording their own guitar tracks to freely available backing tracks.
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**hairball** · Joined: 22 Jan 2007 Posts: 27

The point of the post is that this was not addressed in the F.A.Q., if I remember correctly, and it's something that would be nice to change. It doesn't seem that hard to me, but I am neither a techie nor a musician. However, I really don't think it requires the ability to actually play and record our own guitar tracks.

So, if you don't think my post is relevant, fine. I'd like to hear from those who do.

Also, let me make it clear that although I'm new to this, I am very much in awe of the work that has been done, and can't wait to play the custom songs, so please don't think of me as a noob jerk just trying to cause trouble.

**Riz** · Joined: 06 Jun 2006 Posts: 2011

Isolating a guitar sound that can potentially span over 5 octaves, and commonly will span over at least 2-3, using signal processing is a far from trivial endeavor. Can it be done? With a *lot* of effort, maybe. Is it practical to do with the audio processing tools that most custom song creators have to work with... no, not really.

This is why people re-record their own guitar tracks, and why master tracks with which a custom mix of guitar alone, bass/rhythm alone, and rest-of-band can be made, are so desirable. To get anything approaching a proper sound out of it, that's really what's required.

Riz.
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**hairball** · Joined: 22 Jan 2007 Posts: 27

A simple cheater way of achieving a remotely similar effect that *could* increase playability, would be to just have two tracks of the full song at different volume levels, with one tracked on to the midi file. When you miss a note, it goes low volume on you.

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

**hairball** · Joined: 22 Jan 2007 Posts: 27

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

Well.. There is that, but it also cancels out the band audio a bit, and introduces a lot of phasing, and it doesn't correct itself over time.
So, if you put the same audio in the lead/bass/rhythm channels as in the band channels... Don't whammy!
Which is why most people stopped doing it and only put something in the band channels..
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**hairball** · Joined: 22 Jan 2007 Posts: 27

Thanks for explaining that. One other thought- what if you mapped the song file to the midi, and made it so it just goes silent when you miss something- I can see how that might be weird, but at least it would motivate you to not screw up. Has anyone tried that?

**ChrisVance** · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:31 pm Post subject:

All you have to do is put the song to the 2/3 channels (guitar) and not map it to the band channels 0/1. It's been done, infact I did it on my Journey - Anyway you want it video on youtube.

**ruippeixotog** · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 220

I usually fill all channels, and avoid whammying; so, when I fail, the song volume decrease by half... better than the other options here, with the inconvenient that you can't whammy.

**hairball** · Joined: 22 Jan 2007 Posts: 27

Alternatively, couldn't you take the tablature midi file provided at a site like tabit.net and use a program like garageband to give it a decent guitar sound (might even tweak it here and there to sound more real), then map that to the guitar hero midi file?

And, extra special bonus question, if you did that, with the full song in the background, would you still suffer from the problems katamakei mentioned, were you to have the audacity to whammy?

THANKS SO MUCH for humoring the new guy's curiosity.

**hairball** · Joined: 22 Jan 2007 Posts: 27

**gazzer** · Joined: 05 Jan 2007 Posts: 64