[raynebc]

In short, you can use the Rocksmith customs toolkit to unpack a custom song and them import the decrypted audio and instrument arrangements (XML files) into EOF.

[raynebc]

There are tools that you can use to dissect a Rocksmith custom and get it into Rock Band 3 MIDI format, it’s not terribly difficult.

[raynebc]

For the people who need it spelled out more specifically, rhythm gaming custom chart forums like this one generally don’t help with pirating official DLC.

[raynebc]

RB3 would take extreme amounts of hacking to let you play a pro keys part with one of the official pro guitar controllers. You could try to connect one of the pro guitar controllers to the MIDI pro adapter via MIDI cable, with the MPA set to keys mode, and maybe you can get something close to what you want. I’m not sure if the game would tolerate that though, since the controllers send a repeated Sysex message identifying themselves as pro guitar controllers. You may have to run the guitar’s MIDI feed through a PC and filter out those events with something like MIDIOX, but this is going to get complicated very fast.

 

Phase Shift does support pro guitar controllers (as Xbox 360 controllers a least, I don’t remember whether you could connect them to the MPA by MIDI), but even then only supports the expected RB3 pro guitar tracks (ie. PART REAL_GUITAR) and I don’t know if it would be any easier to play a pro keys track on a pro guitar in this game versus RB3 itself.

[raynebc]

Did you transcribe the guitar part for actual pro keys or is it another part real guitar track? If the latter, you are going to have to replace the existing 17 or 22 fret guitar part because there can only be one of each. Otherwise can you further describe what you’re trying to do?

[raynebc]

The OP asked how to convert charts for RB3, not how to use (often error-ridden) old conversions made for a different game.

[raynebc]

If I remember correctly, you can use customs in TU5, with the severe limitation that the custom MUST use the tempo track of a legit Rock Band chart. It was possible to take an official tempo map and time your custom chart to it. It’s not ideal, but I added functionality to EOF to make use of this and it supposedly worked in TU5.

[raynebc]

Did you connect the Squier to a computer with a MIDI port/adapter to rule out a problem with the MIDI pro adapter? Did you try replacing the batteries in the guitar? Even if the Squier itself is malfunctioning, there won’t be any warranty left by now and I don’t know where you could get it repaired.

[raynebc]

If you don’t care about scoring, just connect the MPA to the game, play the track with no-fail and play along with your real guitar connected to an amp. Or if you want feedback from a game, Rocksmith will be a better option. If you can get it, Bandfuse was pretty cool too. Phase Shift can also play RB3 style pro guitar charts so you can play along with it using an out-of-game guitar as well.

[raynebc]

Harmonix never had the resources to support every MIDI guitar on the market, they had to resort to supporting a couple models of their own design. The YouRockGuitar is the only third party controller I can immediately think of that more or less had built-in support for RB3. Most people agree Harmonix discontinued pro keys/guitar because it was too much work for the number of players that liked it. Even back in the RB3 days, pro guitar was only made available for a small portion of the songs whereas pro keys was added to every song that had keys. Presumably this is because the keyboard controller was cheaper and more players actually had it.

Regarding my mention of a MIDI module in a previous post, my understanding is that many/most MIDI pickups have to go through such an appliance to result in actual usable MIDI events because the pickups don’t have enough capability themselves.

A solution that can’t tell what string you’re playing is probably not feasible, since RB3 requires you play the expected fret of the expected string. It’s not like Rocksmith or Bandfuse where it’s actually judging what you’re playing by analyzing the guitar’s audio output. As Alternity suggests, you’re not going to find a DIY solution easier or cheaper than just getting a RB3 Mustang or Squier pro guitar controller.

[raynebc]

At the very least you’d have to have a small PC (ie. a Raspberry pi with custom programming) in your signal chain to send the MIDI signalling in the way the game expects. MIDI conversion of the signal sent out the guitar’s quarter inch jack is not likely to ever be good (since the sounds from all of the combined strings interfere with signal detection) compared to per-string hardware level pitch detection the way MIDI pickups work. The link to my thread on the FoF forum gives some example MIDI signaling sent by RB3’s pro guitar controllers, ie. events sent when a fret is simply pressed or released so the game can give you visual feedback of your fingering. That in particular is something that MIDI pickups can’t do and can only simulate, so instead of feeding the raw MIDI events generated by the MIDI pickup (or whatever MIDI module it feeds into that generates the MIDI events), it has to generate a set of events for RB3 like:

1. Fret # pressed on string #

2. String # picked

 

Instead of just sending an event along the lines of “MIDI note # played”.

[raynebc]

The lack of Sysex message means the game will assume it’s a 22 fret Squier guitar controller. Normal guitars don’t work because they don’t send appropriate MIDI signaling. Even MIDI guitar pickups won’t immediately work with RB3. The link I sent was where somebody wrote software to serve as a bridge between the guitar and the game by sending MIDI commands that the game is expecting to see.

[raynebc]

My understanding was that the game assumes 22 fret guitar if it does not see the 17 fret Mustang controller’s Sysex message. There has been a long-standing bug in the YouRockGuitar’s firmware where it sends the wrong Sysex message and it ends up getting detected as a Mustang controller. So the game displays 17 fret version charts even though the YRG has 22 frets. The product’s engineers never bothered to fix this even though we clearly described the problem to them and they’d only have to change a couple bytes of data at most (the actual Sysex message hard-coded in the programming). There was a workaround discovered where if you connect the MPA in guitar mode (with the YRG NOT running) and start a chart, the game will force itself to assume a 22 fret guitar is connected (because it gets no Sysex message) and it will stay this way for the rest of the Rock Band session, so you can then connect the YRG and its incorrect Sysex message is ignored by the game and you get to play the complete 22 fret charts.

[raynebc]

I’d have been willing to change Rock Band platforms if they at least kept pro keys/guitar, but I don’t even remember seeing a very affordable way to port my Xbox 360 Ion drum kit to PS4. They just took too much of the game away that they had established with RB3.

[raynebc]

You’ll likely have to put in plenty of work to get them to meet Rock Band’s authoring requirements.

[Author]

Posts