[yaniv297]

Honestly it really depends on the song.

Some songs are more repetitive so it’s a lot of copy+paste (plus listening back to make sure you didn’t miss any variations – that’s important!). Some songs are extremely varied, a lot of classic rock songs have guitarists and drum players playing different arpeggios/fills every time, so that takes a while to get right.

 

Vocals can be a breeze when the song is melodic and the singing style is “straightforward”, it can take forever when the singer is virtuoso or the song is “talky”. 200+ customs in and I still avoid charting Bob Dylan stuff because I fear his vocals. Judging by the lack of Dylan in our DB, I’m probably not alone.

 

Harmonies can be extremely quick when they’re clear in the mix, and can be a nightmare when they’re not. I spent some serious times trying to dig out buried harmonies, messing around with the audio, searching live versions to see if they’re clearly heard, and so on.

 

Pro keys can be anything from hours of transcribing piano to just minimal organ chords which takes 2 minutes to chart, or no keys at all.

A midi file, if available, can make stuff a lot easier. Especially pro keys.

So basically it really depends on the song. 8-12 hours seem reasonable. Some songs took more.

The easiest song I’ve ever done is probably “Teenage Kicks” by The Undertones. It’s two minutes, guitar is 90% power chords, bass and drums are basic, vocal is clear repeated melody with minimal (and clearly heard) harmony, no keys. Still a true classic though. I think this one took me 3-4 hours, maybe even less.

[Abacus]

My first one only took me about 4 hours, but I didn’t chart lower difficulties, animations or venue. Just the nesessities for it to work on the game

[rubydanger]

Again – It all depends on the song, and how much of it you want to chart, as well as how accurate do you want it.

 

I have songs that were done in 10-12 hours and are complete and accurate – I have a song that jerry and I started in December that still isn’t complete due to complexity. Granted we have taken breaks from it due to frustration but our total hours combined on it will be insane if we tried to calculate them.

 

I find myself now working on them here and there – an hour here, an hour there. Started too many projects and let it overwhlem so took a step back and am just letting them happen now.

[Joshwantsmaccas]

Yeah, ill agree with the other posts here, an easy and short song can take as little as 5-6 hours for all instruments, especially if you are very familiar with the song, and tools/programs you use. I wouldn’t count myself as experienced as I have only been doing customs (started with drums only) for around 4ish months and don’t really bother personally with pro instruments minus the drums of course, only because its such a small amount of people who do that (and sadly im not one of them, tho i do own a pro guitar, so that may change one day haha). The fastest I’ve done a song, recorded, and edited was maybe around the 6ish hour mark as i said before, but on average id say even with my own bands songs, it can easily take over 20 hours total. the longest has probs been around 30 hours total work time not including recording and editing a video and uploading. Granted in my case this amount of time still has mistakes that i eventually fix or change once either I or someone else notices.

All in all I’d say its quite rewarding, tho expect 100 songs to take more than a year or two while you learn over the first few months how to chart better, faster, use shortcuts, work out things you didn’t know as time goes by in said programs etc.

Now i hope nothing i or the others have said will discourage you, just be aware it is time consuming, and there is a fair bit to learn, especially if you don’t have any musical background knowledge. My suggestion is watch a shit ton of YouTube videos teaching you how to use the programs, the right and wrong was to chart (all though this can be subjective, though if you decide to do some things less conventional expect criticism) etc.

Hope to see some stuff in the near future from you!

[faux90skid]

It takes a pretty long while. Especially if you don’t have proper music ears to hear the notes. Which in that case, I’d recommend finding some random royalty free stuff with stems lol

[Author]

Posts