Dream Theater’s Systematic Chaos [Updated 11/23]
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Hello C3!
I’ve been doing a bunch of Dream Theater (and other) drums charts for some time now, but haven’t quite had the motivation to build them into full band customs. Recently though, I had the time to start doing some harmony vocals charts, and together with the superbly talented Grinnz, I’ve just completed the entirety of Systematic Chaos on expert Pro Drums (2x and 1x) and harmony vocals. The drums are all done according to Portnoy’s sysDRUMatic Chaos DVD, so they should be 100% accurate. Guitar and vocals are done to the official guitar tab book. Bass and keyboards are done with the aid of the surround sound version of the album, so those should be fairly accurate.
This album is crammed full of insanely fun parts on all instruments, plus some really cool harmonies, and it would be so awesome to finish them up and have yet another complete DT album in Rock Band. Furthermore, separated drums audio is available for the entire album via Portnoy’s DVD! That means muted drums during activation fills and (the one) BRE.
So, I’m opening this thread to post my current progress, and ask for collaborators! Please post with suggestions, offers to help, corrections to charts done so far, or anything else of the sort!
Things of note:
- 1x bass pedal versions were done by an automated script; if any reduction is egregiously wrong (like, the offbeat kicks are kept instead of the onbeat ones) please let me know.
- PART VOCALS is in some songs currently just a copy of HARM1, and will eventually get phrases from HARM2/HARM3 added.
- Not all of these have the separated drums audio yet; the “final” release (whatever that point is) will have all of them.
- You can playback my charts in your browser (Chrome recommended, though others should work) with the “View chart in browser” links.
My informal priorities list:
- Basic guitar
- Overdrive/unison
- Basic bass
- Pro keys
- Basic keys
- Reductions
- Animations
- Venue
- Pro guitar/bass
See Sideshow’s thread for a more complete chart for the moment.
Features:
- Expert and hard for all instruments
- Extended no-fade-out ending from Portnoy’s DVD
- Separate drums audio, plus separated piano solo
Drums and tempo map done by Grinnz.
See Sideshow’s thread for a more complete chart for the moment.
This is very cool but I’m gonna stop you right there. If you don’t compile with Magma, we’re not gonna offer these through our platform. We have worked very hard to make sure any file people download from here, outside of the old repository, is proper and works without issues. There is no reason to compile with untested tools and you run the risk of introducing errors that makes no sense debugging. On top of that the new customs DB relies on proper compiled files to work. I’m leaving this open for 24 hours, if you don’t address this I’m closing it down and we’ll reopen it once files have been properly compiled.
Thank you for contribution, don’t think it’s undervalued, but please understand the value in standardizing all releases and producing them with professionally used and tested tools so that any issue that arises is sure to be caught on compiling and can only be traced back to authors’ behaviour and not on hard to pinpoint software malfunctions.
- The CON files and songs.dta were put together by my own program, and they work fine in game although the C3 visualizer appears to stumble a bit on parsing. Eventually I’ll start using C3 Magma once more parts get filled in.
Why?
Magma was created by Harmonix, the creator of the game. It was used to compile every single Rock Band Network song. Magma: C3 uses the source code from Magma and adds another 1000+ hours of research and development to tailor it for customs use. Magma: C3 is better in every way than the original Magma, and virtually every custom since it was released has been compiled with it.
Magma validates the MIDI to conform to rules established by Harmonix for their game. Yes, the game is robust and so it takes a lot of non-conforming files and will do its best to render it. But you’re missing the point if you bypass the validation provided by the tools. Magma is also the only known way to generate a compliant mogg header that allows you to pause/unpause the game, so if your song files can be paused and then resumed without the game losing sync, we’d love to hear how you accomplished that.
And finally, C3 CON Tools is designed to work with official songs and customs created using Magma. It’s been tested against some 6,000 files without a problem. The DTA Parser is getting confused by your DTA format because it does not follow the format observed on every single song ever analyzed until this point. Nothing looks “wrong” with it per se, but the order doesn’t follow that used by HMX or by Magma and so it keeps on waiting for something that never comes.
Some things I observed: pretty sure the singer on Dream Theater is not “female”, pretty sure no Dream Theater song ever was tiered on the lowest difficulty, you’re using the oldest and crappiest quality album art format, and at least The Ministry of Lost Souls has an unnecessary silent channel after the backing audio.
I’m sure you got your reasons for wanting to do things on your own, but something something re-invent the wheel.
Maybe he made the program so he won’t get lot’s of errors like you do in magma
” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_biggrin.gif” />I remember using another program to make the con file and the overlapping notes did not look good
” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_biggrin.gif” />In the Presence of Enemies part 1 and 2 was already authored full band by Meander and released in my thread minus harmonies and pro keys. Thanks for the other songs on this album.
I meant no disrespect! I’ve been using my own tools to build customs for almost 2 years now, and they’ve been an integral part of my (mostly command-line based) workflow. It does not sidestep Magma’s error checking at all – under the hood it does indeed run the MIDI through MagmaCompiler.exe’s (nowadays your MagmaCompilerC3.exe’s) -export_midi option, which does the full MIDI check and adds the automatic animations/venue/etc.
The big feature of my tool is that it can compose the audio files together automatically (mixing, fading, adding countin, etc.), so with one command you can go straight from the CD audio (or whatever raw source) to the CON file. FYI the extra silent channel you saw was (I think) the workaround for oggenc assuming that 6 channels of audio == 5.1 surround == your 6th channel (backing-right) gets encoded as a muddy subwooferish thing.
And nope, I certainly haven’t figured out yet how to generate proper MOGG headers myself. It does that through Magma as well (using a version of qwertymodo’s oggenc redirect).
I’ll put up C3-compiled versions shortly. I was just a bit excited after finishing vocals and wanted to start asking for collaborations!
” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_smile.gif” />Post has been edited with new CONs and banners. Sorry for any confusion!
EDIT: And they’ve got that 6-channel-audio bug I mentioned above… Well, it’ll be fixed when more instruments are added.
That Web preview is pretty cool, if one of these days you’d like to expand on that DO drop us a PM.
” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_wink.gif”>Thanks! I definitely plan to expand on it soon; I’ll contact you guys if I get it working for other instruments.
One question — the forum rules say “Do not discuss or post links to multitracks or song stems.” I am assuming this means that when I put together the versions with split drums audio, I should enable audio encryption?
In the Presence of Enemies part 1 and 2 was already authored full band by Meander and released in my thread minus harmonies and pro keys. Thanks for the other songs on this album.
Oh cool, sorry I didn’t see that before posting. Interested in putting together a version with my harmonies, mazegeek’s pro keys, and the separated drums audio? And I’d be happy to do reductions when I get to them.
Thanks! I definitely plan to expand on it soon; I’ll contact you guys if I get it working for other instruments.
One question — the forum rules say “Do not discuss or post links to multitracks or song stems.” I am assuming this means that when I put together the versions with split drums audio, I should enable audio encryption?
Absolutely so. You want people to play your songs, you don’t want to give away material that may only be accessible through special channels.
The post has been updated with
- Expert guitar for all songs minus ITPOE
- Guitar/drums overdrive/unison and drum fills for all minus ITPOE
- Forsaken expert Pro Keys
Post has been updated with a nearly complete The Dark Eternal Night, just in time for Halloween!
Complete:
- All instruments, including basic/pro keys, on expert and hard!
- Separated drums audio, plus the (already isolated) piano solo in the keys stem
- Basic animations: all character moods, vocalist lipsync, drums animations partially done (rest is autogen’d)
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