Hacking RawkSD tool for Frets on Fire customs

[Herg]

FoF RawkSD Converter is a Linux tool to make converting custom songs much less work. It will merge the audio, read data from the song.ini file, set up audio balance/volume, and output files ready to be placed in the RawkSD customs folder.

Windows users: Don't immediately dismiss this!!!
Running Linux from a live CD will allow you to run the script without having to install Linux (or anything) to your hard drive. At least look at the documentation to get an idea of the difficulty. It's probably easier than you think.

FoF RawkSD Converter v0.2a

There's a README inside the tarball.

Changes for v0.2a
---
Fixed deprecated 'w' option in sox
Allow running script by double-clicking in GUI
Describe running the script from a Live session (see README)
Fixed problem with extremely low volume on certain songs (Hotel California - Puppetz Hero 3)
Fixed problem with mixing of songs with different samplerates
Fixed problem where the year was not parsed from the song.ini
Improve song.ini parsing to prevent incorrectly recognizing fields
Attempt to crop song numbers from the front of track names ("1.6 Song" is now "Song")

Known problems
---
I've seen certain songs that are not encoding properly and end up very noisy.ÂÂThe song sounds fine before oggenc, but is bad after, and it happens with oggenc v1.0.2 (my Gutsy machine) and oggenc v1.2.0 (Jaunty).

 

[parannoyed]

Thanks again. Works great, and very easy to use.

 

[sm32]

just converted some files -- it looks promising so far though it gave me invalid commands while running sox (unknown option w).

 

[Herg]

just converted some files -- it looks promising so far though it gave me invalid commands while running sox (unknown option w).
As parannoyed mentioned in the other thread, 'w' is a depricated option in newer versions of sox.

QUOTE(parannoyed @ Jul 22 2009, 03:34 PM) BTW, line 108 of make_rawksd required a small parameter change for my version of sox. I believe sox "-w" is depreciated and has been replaced with "-2", however you might want to use "-b 16" instead. I think that should work for older and newer versions of sox.

I'm working on an update that fixes this, as well as some other problems, but it will be a day or two. In the meantime, you can edit the script as parannoyed describes.

 

[sm32]

thanks a bunch -- i'll do that

. also -- not sure if this is related, but when I open the tracks in RawkSD the vocal boxes aren't ticked for any channels? also, am i right in assuming that channels 1&2 - drums, 3&4 = guitar, 5&6 = bass, 7&8 = vocals? sorry haven't looked at the script yet -- i'm booted to my windows partition and thanks for your work on this!

 

[Herg]

Having vocals not checked is intentional. I haven't seen any FoF songs with a vocals.ogg, and if I were to map the song.ogg audio to vocals, the main song would be lower volume whenever someone was singing.

 

[sm32]

ah gotcha, thanks!

 

[AerialX]

You even made it output valid DTB data files? I'm impressed.

I don't have a working Linux VM right now, or installed... Nor do I have much interest in FoF songs. But congrats, many people will find it useful

 

[Herg]

AerialX, Thanks. The compliments mean a lot coming from you.

You really should give FoF customs a look, especially the Puppetz Hero series.

BTW, I hate to make requests, but an additional menu option to "Fix Chart" would be a very welcome addition to RawkSD. No dialog would be necessary, as it could just run the chart fixing routines against the previously imported chart. It would eliminate the need to browse to the chart file from Replace Files, and it should be an easy change on the RawkSD side.

 

[jceggbert5]

FoF RawkSD Converter is a Linux tool to make converting custom songs much less work. It will merge the audio, read data from the song.ini file, set up audio balance/volume, and output files ready to be placed in the RawkSD customs folder.

FoF RawkSD Converter v0.1a

Again, it's a Linux command line application, so you should be familiar if you want to use it. There's a README inside the tarball.

Is there any possibility for a Windows version... I can't seem to get Linux installed on any of my computers (17+ distros so far have failed during install) Or is this APP source code based and could it be compiled in Windows??? (and what language was it programmed in?)


Thanks 4 your work and time, Herg

(BTW, RawkSD is SWEET!!!)

 

[Herg]

Is there any possibility for a Windows version... I can't seem to get Linux installed on any of my computers (17+ distros so far have failed during install) Or is this APP source code based and could it be compiled in Windows??? (and what language was it programmed in?)

If you've tried 17+ distros, I'm assuming Ubuntu has been one of them. I've done some testing with running the script from a Live session (not installed) of Ubuntu v9.04, and it actually works quite well. There will be instructions in the next release. If your computer has something against Linux, however, this won't help you.

I suggest getting a different computer.

There are two parts to my converter. The bash script uses standard Linux apps (sox, oggenc, etc) to handle the audio as well as most of the arranging of files. If you're able to read bash scripts, you'll easily be able to see what's going on.

The other part is a compiled program written in C that creates the "data" file for each song. It is called by the bash script once for each song and it parses the song.ini files and uses a few command line switches to modify the content of the file. I'd be glad to release the source once I clean it up some.

The hard part in Windows would be integrating the audio tools. I don't plan to do it myself.

 

[jceggbert5]

Is there any possibility for a Windows version... I can't seem to get Linux installed on any of my computers (17+ distros so far have failed during install) Or is this APP source code based and could it be compiled in Windows??? (and what language was it programmed in?)

If you've tried 17+ distros, I'm assuming Ubuntu has been one of them. I've done some testing with running the script from a Live session (not installed) of Ubuntu v9.04, and it actually works quite well. There will be instructions in the next release. If your computer has something against Linux, however, this won't help you.

I suggest getting a different computer.

There are two parts to my converter. The bash script uses standard Linux apps (sox, oggenc, etc) to handle the audio as well as most of the arranging of files. If you're able to read bash scripts, you'll easily be able to see what's going on.

The other part is a compiled program written in C that creates the "data" file for each song. It is called by the bash script once for each song and it parses the song.ini files and uses a few command line switches to modify the content of the file. I'd be glad to release the source once I clean it up some.

The hard part in Windows would be integrating the audio tools. I don't plan to do it myself.

I can run Ubuntu from my Flash Drive no problem ( PenDriveLinux.com INSTRUCTIONS for UBUNTU 9.0.4 persistent Install ) I have 500MB of 'HDD space', will it work with 9.0.4??

I also have a copy of 8.04 installed in a 'dual-boot' form, except it is installed INSIDE windows as a separate boot entry, the windows boot manager gives the UBUNTU listing, which when selected, boots GRUB which auto-boots UBUNTU from a virtual HDD, I then have access to 25GB of space...

I know that was sorta long-winded, but do you recommend the flash drive or the dual-boot?

(thanks for your timely response earlier)

BTW, I haven't rebooted my computer for 1 1/2 months, so i forgot about the 25GB ubuntu virtual-disk and forgot about my flash drives

I am rebooting into ubuntu now (I REALLY hope I can get my WIFI to work (I have a docked laptop

))

 

[sm32]

ideas on a RHCP song that's 8 minutes in length and 30 mb at ogg quality 1.0?

 

[Herg]

I've uploaded an updated version of the tool. See the first post of this thread.

I can run Ubuntu from my Flash Drive no problem ( PenDriveLinux.com INSTRUCTIONS for UBUNTU 9.0.4 persistent Install ) I have 500MB of 'HDD space', will it work with 9.0.4??
Yes, I have tested it with v9.04 (Jaunty) using a Live CD, and I had the songs and script on a USB flash drive. If you boot from your PenDriveLinux, and have a second USB drive with the songs and script, I would think it should work.


QUOTE(sm32 @ Jul 23 2009, 06:17 PM) ideas on a RHCP song that's 8 minutes in length and 30 mb at ogg quality 1.0?

Can you explain what you're asking? If you're thinking that 30 MB is too big for an 8 minute song, remember that it is an 8 channel OGG. If none of those channels are silence, the file will be much larger than a stereo OGG of the same length.

 

[sm32]

oh i was just asking on if you had any ideas on how to bring down the size. songs over 25mb (=200 blocks) freeze up for a few seconds at various parts. i know next to nothing when it comes to music, though.

 

[Herg]

oh i was just asking on if you had any ideas on how to bring down the size. songs over 25mb (=200 blocks) freeze up for a few seconds at various parts. i know next to nothing when it comes to music, though.

You could mix a channel down to another, replacing the first with silence. For example, mix drums.ogg into song.ogg, then delete drums.ogg. Doing that, however, you will lose the "audio cuts out when you miss notes".

I haven't yet noticed the problem you're talking about, but I will keep an eye out for it.

 

[ShadowChaos]

Having vocals not checked is intentional. I haven't seen any FoF songs with a vocals.ogg, and if I were to map the song.ogg audio to vocals, the main song would be lower volume whenever someone was singing.

the rock band rips have a part for vocals, it works with my expert+ painkiller chart

 

[Herg]

The Rock Band rips do have vocals in their notes-unedited charts, and you should be able to sing the vocals after running through the script and RawkSD. They (including Painkiller) do not have a separate vocals.ogg, however. The vocals audio is mixed into song.ogg along with other non-guitar/bass/drums audio. Thus, there will be no vocals audio channels in the final mixed track to check in the vocals tab of RawkSD.

 

[Maurice10]

So I tried it with a live CD.

I booted up ubuntu (sloooow), downloaded this, put it in the folder "lulz", threw all the weezer songs i had in there too, ran the program. It downloaded sox, whatever that is, and then gave me 4 errors and "Yay I'm done". Every song had an error. Fair sharing. So yeah I would have copied the error message but then my computer was fucked. The tabs on top didnt work, right click didnt, my keyboard stopped working, it opened up about 50 "you wanna make a screenshot yes?" because I tried to capture the error message right before my keyboard died, everything was shit.
So I rebooted, and rebooted again because my computer didn't boot, and went back into ubuntu, luckily the files were of course still there, I ran it, it didn't have sox (which I expected since live is temp) and then it said a lot of stuff and then "can't install sox".

And that's it. I'm done with linux for the rest of my life.
I'm sure the program is nice.

Edit: Did I mention that I tried it yesterday with a live CD environment, couldn't access C: though, then couldn't start the live CD, decided to install ubuntu, ubuntu didn't work because it didn't recognize my keyboard for whatever reason, then found out I can't deinstall ubuntu, then had to go to windows XP repair center on the install CD, but I couldn't start the CD in boot, found out that my boot priorities were modified for whatever reason (which was why I couldnt start the live CD), then finally got into repair console but it didnt accept my administrator password, then had to do a system restore which made me lose quite a lot, then had to search about 2 hours for a program which restores the mbr from inside of windows? I didn't? Oh yeah, well, fun times.

Of course I don't blame you. I blame myself for installing such pork.

 

[locustlx]

@Maurice10

you should have used Wubi (http://wubi-installer.org/) so that way you didnt have to have a system restore, I used it and it works great