How to: Recreate Rock Band tracks in Reaper

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InevitablEnd
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How to: Recreate Rock Band tracks in Reaper

Postby InevitablEnd » Mon Aug 06, 2018 5:14 pm


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Optional:Other Helpful Tips/Links:

Recreating Rock Band tracks using Reaper
  1. Get song audio file(s)
  2. Convert video of Rock Band chart to video file
    • Recommended Youtube: Spectro's Rock Hero (He does many full band songs with Pro Drums)
    • Recommended format: AVI using XVID codec (http://www.saveclipbro.com)
      • Newer codecs are less stable in Reaper, causing them to not play correctly until Reaper is relaunched.
  3. Open Reaper and C3 Rock Band template
  4. Disable Snap and place audio file to start at 3.1.00
  5. Find song tempo/BPM
    • Recommended Site: SongBPM.com
    • A lot of modern and electronic songs have fixed tempo
    • (optional) Set start tempo to match start BPM
    • (optional) Set count-in to match BPM
  6. Place video file in separate track and view with View -> Video Window
    • Sync video instrument chart with audio
    • Keep in mind that if audio has variable tempo, the video may get out of sync due to having a fixed framerate
      • Recommended to write down changes to the position of video file at the points of desync so you can resync the video easily if you're working on it later
    • After, I recommend muting the video track's audio by setting Volume to -infinity
  7. Enable Snap and Chart instruments
    • Extend all tracks to end of the song so you don't have to do it later
    • Open RBN Preview FX to see a preview of what your chart would look like
    • Can either chart manually or use Virtual MIDI keyboard
      • Manually is recommended so you can recognize patterns easier and copy-paste notes to save time.
      • MIDI keyboard notes played by hand won't be fully synced to the Reaper chart and would need to be adjusted/cleaned up manually anyway.
    • Recommended to start with Drums as it's a good way to see if the tempo has been mapped properly
      • Remember to chart Overdrive, Unison Overdrive, and Drum Fills
        • Keep in mind Rock Band will convert the last drum hit into the green crash cymbal automatically, so some green crash cymbals in the video may actually be a different drum hit.
      • After finished, place more Drum Fills throughout song
        • Try to evenly space them between Overdrive sections
  8. (optional) Chart Vocals
    • Fastest way is to use Virtual MIDI Keyboard
      • After finished, re-align notes to adjust for human reaction speed delay
    • Recommended lyrics site: Genius.com
    • Hyphenating Lyrics site: http://juiciobrennan.com/hyphenator/
      • Remember to Replace the Dash "-" with a Dash-Space "- " to separate properly in Reaper.
      • Some words don't hyphenate properly (usually names and contractions), so go through and separate/add new lyrics, then re-align the lyrics to notes
    • When adding/editing lyrics in Reaper, make sure your new event is set to "Lyrics"
    • If missing lyrics (usually grunts, exclamations, and other sounds), add and re-align to push lyrics down to the next notes.
    • If missing notes, add or split charted ones and re-align
    • Put lyrics into lyric phrases
      • Usually Overdrive phrases occur every 5th phrase.
    • If not properly syncing lyrics, recommended to convert to non-pitched using CATTools
      • If working on pitched vocals, remember to convert non-pitched to pitched (if applicable)
  9. Adjust EVENTS track
    • In order for the Lighting Autogeneration to work properly, at least one each of the following sections must be included:
    • EVENTS must also have [music_start], [music_end], and [end] Text Events
      • [end] must be the very last thing in the midi
  10. (optional) Do Venue lighting and animations
  11. Fill out BEAT track
  12. Do reductions on instruments for lower difficulties
    • Can do it manually by copying previous difficulty and removing as needed
    • Can use CAT Tools to do them automatically
  13. Use CAT Tools to add animations for drums and instrument idling
  14. Render audio files
    • Mute all tracks and unmute only audio you want
      • This is to prevent the Vocals preview beeps and other audio from being recorded
    • Select File -> Render, then choose to render as Stems or Master Track depending on what audio file(s) you have
    • (Optional) Merge click track with audio
  15. Export MIDI
    • Remember to Embed Tempo Map in midi
  16. Open Magma and place .mid file into it
  17. Fill in song data and difficulties from Wikipedia and Video/Rock Band DB
  18. Place audio file(s) into designated places
    • If 3 Drums track, select Kit, Kick, and Snare on drop down. Most drum tracks are drums3=Kit, drums2=Snare, drums1=Kick
    • If 2 Drums tracks, Select Kit and Kick with drums2=Kit and drums1=Kick
    • If there is only 1 audio track, place in Backing
    • To generate lip-syncing, place audio into Vocals, then right-click Dry Vocals and "Convert vocals stem to dryvox"
      • If there are Harmonies, right-click and select "Copy lead dry vocals here"
      • Change Vocals track back to silence if there is no separate Vocals stem
  19. Adjust preview timer so recognizable part of song is played when hovering
  20. Press Build Song to convert to rb3con (X360)
  21. (optional) Use C3CONTools to convert to other consoles (Wii/PS3).

COMMON ERRORS:
  1. Overlapping/Misaligned notes
    • Happens especially with variable tempo songs, copy-pasting notes will be very slightly misaligned
  2. Cat Tools unable to reduce
    • Occurs if project had not been saved yet or if name of path/project has incompatible characters.
    • Easiest way to fix is to make a new project with the template, copy-paste the instrument you want to reduce, save the project using a simple name in a simple directory, reduce, and copy the result back into your project.
  3. Video not playing/frozen in Reaper
    • Make sure you have video codecs installed
    • If video was playing, but is now frozen, exit out of Reaper, end the Reaper process in Task Manager (under Processes or Details), and relaunch.
      • Recommend using older codecs like AVI/Xvid for better compatibility with Reaper
  4. Silent audio gives file not found error.
    • Sometimes occurs when you don't have a full multitrack and use silent audio
    • Right click audio track and select appropriate silent audio
Last edited by InevitablEnd on Mon Aug 27, 2018 8:10 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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InevitablEnd
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Re: How to: Recreate Rock Band tracks in Reaper

Postby InevitablEnd » Mon Aug 06, 2018 5:15 pm

Changelog:
  • 2018-08-27 - Added more links and minor updates.
  • 2018-08-22 - Added Video and updated guide.
  • 2018-08-06 - Initial text guide.
Last edited by InevitablEnd on Mon Aug 27, 2018 8:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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InevitablEnd
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Re: How to: Recreate Rock Band tracks in Reaper

Postby InevitablEnd » Wed Aug 22, 2018 8:53 pm

Video guide for RB4 to RB3/Phase Shift is done! Hopefully this helps those who want to try to do it themselves or are getting impatient with me :tongue:
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newkillerstar
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Re: How to: Recreate Rock Band tracks in Reaper

Postby newkillerstar » Thu Sep 20, 2018 4:19 am

is it possible for mac users?
WEEsNaaW
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InevitablEnd
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Re: How to: Recreate Rock Band tracks in Reaper

Postby InevitablEnd » Tue Oct 09, 2018 12:03 am

newkillerstar wrote:is it possible for mac users?

Reaper and Editor on Fire are available for OSX, but for MagmaC3 and C3CONTools to work, you'd need a Windows system. You could probably run that through Bootcamp or a virtual machine though, if you really wanted to.

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