Help

From LittleBigStar

Contents 1 The Very Basics 2 How to setup a Guitar 3 Menus 3.1 Main Menu 3.2 Players Menu 3.3 Setup Menu 3.4 Sound Menu 3.5 Tune Menu 3.6 Game Menu 3.7 Song Menu 3.8 Track Menu 4 Songs 4.1 Where are the songs? 4.2 How do I create new songs?

The Very Basics

• Use the arrow keys to navigate menus.

• Use 'Esc' to toggle between menu and game.

• Use F1,F2,F3,F4 to switch player focus.

How to setup a Guitar

• Setup player 1 with ASIO or DirectX drivers. Hit Done.
  • If you get the 'Cannot setup Player 1' error, make sure that input and output refer to the same physical device. Also, verify that your device is recognized (in the windows mixer) and working (you can record with other music software).
  • If your DirectX device is not working try installing the asio4all drivers.
• In the setup menu, pick Tuner and hit the strings.
  • Verify that the tuner actually recognize the pitch of your guitar.
  • If it's not reacting, you probably have the wrong input/channel connected or a muted input device in the windows mixer.
• Tune your guitar accordingly.
• Go to the Sound menu. Pick a VST and try to play some virtual instrument on your guitar.
  • You should have a working guitar-synth by now!
  • If you dont have any VSTs, you can go ahead and start playing instead, but VSTs are nice to have, read on:
  • There are two kinds of VSTs: VST instruments and VST effects.
  • Most VSTs install into a VstPlugins folder and you need to point LBS to use that folder in 'options in the main menu.
  • The best way to calibrate your guitar optimally to LBS's note recognition is by using a VST instrument.
  • Go to the sound menu and open a VST instrument.
  • Play the guitar, and if its playing the VST instrument, like a decent guitar synth, you are ok, and the recognition in game should be fine.
  • If it doesn't work so well, experiment with noise floor and sensitivity settings in the tuner menu.
  • If it still doesn't work you need to improve your guitar interfacing with a preamp or dedicated guitar interface or better audio drivers.
  • If you have latency problems, the asio4all drivers may be your answer.
  • If the ASIO4All driver does not solve latency/playback problems you need a better audio interface.
• Hit Done in the setup menu.
• Pick a game to play with your guitar.
• Pick a song, and a track.
• Have fun!

Menus

Main Menu

Should be self explanatory.

Players Menu

Here you have the four players and you can setup their instruments and devices. Instruments will be disabled if there are no supporting devices available. For example if you dont have a MIDI instrument plugged, MIDI instruments are disabled.

• Guitar, Vocals
  • Needs output and input audio devices
  • For best results use an ASIO driver (you may want to try ASIO4All)
  • DX (DirectX) drivers have often very high latency.
  • You must use the same drivers and the same device for input and output respectively.
  • You can choose which channel to use on the input device.
  • On vista, input devices may not be visible unless they are plugged.

• MIDI Piano/MIDI Drums/MIDI Guitar
  • Needs MIDI input and audio output devices.
  • These options will be grayed if you dont have a MIDI device connected.

• GuitarHero and RockBand controllers:
  • Needs a connected game controller and an audio output.
  • You may need XBox Drivers from Microsoft.
  • These options will be grayed if you dont have a game controller device connected.

• Hit Done when you are all set.
  • The devices will open
  • If devices fail opening you will get an error message.

Setup Menu

• Visualization (only visualizations supporting the current instrument are shown)
• The Sound menu lets you test out and setup VST effects and instruments.
• The Tuner menu lets you tune and calibrate your instrument. This is important for note recognition to work!
• Volume sets the volume of the synth or the playing through.
• Song volume sets the volume of the background music, whether audio or midi. This option is only available for player 1 as the background music always use the output of player 1.
• Hit Done when everyhing works.

Sound Menu

• This menu is a list of all VST effects and instruments discovered.
• You can set the VST folder in the options menu.
• Alternatively you can use Be silent if your interface has a direct output.
• Or Play thourgh if you are playing an audio device the computer can play the sound though.

Tune Menu

• Noise Floor - find a threshold that silence out all ambient noise/fret noise/pickup hum.
• Sensitivity - higher sensitivity will yield more notes.
• Tune your instrument - the pitch is displayed and the number should be close to zero for a perfect tuning.

Game Menu

• Real Time play to play the song in real time. You can slow down the song in game (pgUp/pgDown) to make it easier to follow.
• Discrete play will wait at every note for you to play it.
• SmartSync for syncronizing songs.
• Availiable MusicWare is listed here as well.

Song Menu

• This menu lets you pick any song that has been found in the song folder.
• Any song is just a GuitarPro file and optionally an audio file with same file name.
• You can set the song folder in the options menu.
• Copy GuitarPro or ang OGG files into that song folder to play any song.
• GuitarPro tablatures will generally need to be synchronized if playing along audio. See SmartSync.

Track Menu

• This menu is a list of all tracks within a song and its shows for all players.
• Picking a track makes it immediately visible in the visualization running in the background.

Songs

A LitteBigStar song consist of music score and audio.

Where are the songs?

• Only a few exercises are shipped with LBS.
• There are a few songs in the songs forum.
• To use a song within the game simply copy it to the songs directory (or a subdirectory hereof).
• Default location for songs is in 'My Documents/LittleBigStar/Songs'
• The following formats are supported:
  • GuitarPro tablature (.GP3/.GP4/.GP5)
  • Ogg Vorbis Audio files (.OGG). (if you use mp3 or another format it's easy to convetert)

How do I create new songs?

• Simply copy GuitarPro and optionally Ogg files to the song directory (or a subdirectory hereof) and it will be available within the game. (Restart LBS if its running.)
• You'll need a GuitarPro file to play a song.
• If you want to hear the music while playing you can add the Ogg audio file to the same directory.
• The file audio file must have the same name as the score file, (you'll want a pair of files like 'MyFavoriteSong.GP3' and 'MyFavoriteSong.OGG')
• Note, that GuitarPro tablature is not likely to be perfectly accurate and thus playing along audio, it will be out of sync. If your GP file is og good quality, it should be relatively easy to sync songs with SmartSync.