I spent the day playing around with this tool and dumping and importing my discs. And I can say that everything works as it should. I was able to import GH3, GHA, RB1 and all of its track packs, and made a few customs myself from some FOF charts. Hell, even GH1, GH2, and GH80s songs work with the right files, even though you're only going to be able to play 1-2 instruments.
Also, using Audacity I was able to merge .ogg files and combine FOF instrument tracks, so that each works as it should. When you miss a note, that instrument stops playing. This way, I've also avoided any crashing issues. Additionally, I've never had to add an empty drum track. Mine have worked without it, and many of the FOF songs I've used with the custom creator even came with the appropriate animations, no need so far for the quickplay check box (unless of course I'm using GH charts).
All in all, an awesome tool. And no complaints at all on my end. I was skeptical at first, but this has well exceeded any of my expectations.
The only minor detail I've yet to completely work out or understand is the volume and balance settings for the individual instrument tracks. Typically, the customs I've imported have 8 channels - 2 for each instrument, a left and right, for stereo sound I suppose. By default, the volume is -2, the balance 0, and the core -1. I know the team said we can ignore the last, but has anyone found any standard settings for the other values?
For example, a value for each instrument that makes it sound balanced. Say, guitar parts at -3, bass at -4, vocals at -1, etc.? With the default -2 values for every channel and instrument, it doesn't always sound balanced, and it's a lot of trial and error to judge that by ear, going back and forth from the Wii to the computer.
Also, for those importing, you may want to find a listing online to verify the album, artist, genre, and recording date information. I found a handful of mistakes when I went back through to verify the automated process. Just a few adjustments needed there, but I like for things to be as accurate as possible. If it helps, there's a searchable database on the RB website that gives all that information, including difficulty ratings.
And speaking of tier/difficulty ratings, how is everyone factoring those consistently? Are you just guessing?
*EDIT* For those using FOF charts (particularly those with unedited-notes.mid), how are you handling the various channels? A normal RB track is divided as such:
Rock Band Channel Structure:
Channel 1: Drums
Channel 2: Drums
Channel 3: Drums
Channel 4: Drums
Channel 5: Bass guitar
Channel 6: Guitar
Channel 7: Guitar (together, these forms a kind of stereo)
Channel 8: Vocals
Channel 9: Everything else
Obviously, with this program it isn't necessary to use all 9 channels, but does it make a difference in quality? Does it matter, for example, that my drums are only on two channels rather than four? And do the real DLC files actually even use all four? If so, why?
Also, why does the bass only use one channel? If you import an .ogg into Audacity, there's two channels there, so why not keep both instead of merging them into one?
And finally, is there something I can do in Audacity to normalize the volume across the individual channels so that I wouldn't have to mess with those settings in RawkSD? If so, I could bypass that problem altogether...
@
Psionic Roshambo:
@
NinStar:
