A custom build of the feedBack desktop app (real-guitar rhythm game, Rocksmith-style) that adds Rock Band / Guitar Hero band play: drums, 5-fret guitar and bass on game controllers, vocals, and real guitar, all on one stage.
Download: Releases (Windows, Mac, Linux). One app, nothing else to install. Installed copies update themselves from Settings → Updates (on the Mac, download the new zip: the app is not signed).
This branch (custom) bundles the core and plugins from the mattromano forks listed
below. How to ship a release: RELEASING-ROCKBAND.md.
Building on Windows: WINDOWS_BUILD_REQUIREMENTS.md and
scripts/BUILD_SCRIPTS.md.
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| Home: Play RockHeroSmith for a band, Play solo to play alone | Drums: star power doubles your multiplier (x8) |
RockHeroSmith is the band mode: real guitar, a drum kit, a singer and Guitar Hero / Rock Band controllers on one stage. You can play it solo (a band of one) or as a band.
- On Home, click Play solo (or RockHeroSmith → Play solo).
- Pick your instrument: Drums (kit) for an electronic kit over MIDI, Drum controller, 5-fret controller (a game pad or plastic guitar; Lead, Rhythm or Bass), or Guitar (real guitar or bass).
- Pick the difficulty and, for drums, the drum sound (see Drum sound below).
- Click a song in the list (it only shows songs with that part). It starts right away.
The screen remembers everything, and Esc or Next song on the results brings you back to the list.
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| 1. Band setup: turn parts on, pick inputs | 3. Confirm: part, difficulty and sound per player |
- On Home, click Play RockHeroSmith. On Band setup, switch on the parts you have and pick their inputs: Guitar (your audio interface), Drums (your kit; Find my kit listens for a pad), Vocals (a mic). Game controllers join by pressing Start; an Xbox pad picks 5-Fret (X) or Drums (B).
- Choose a song. The Song Library opens in pick mode with Playable by band on, so it only lists songs every player can play; filter by drum chart, 5-fret part, vocal pitch and so on.
- On Confirm, set each player's part, difficulty and drum sound, then GO (or press Start on a controller, or hit any pad).
In the song: Start on a controller pauses; holding Back for a second asks to leave. P opens each player's settings (difficulty, offsets, drum sound) without stopping the song, and M opens the sidebar. After the song, the results show each player's sections; click one to practise it on a loop.
- Drum sound: Rock Band plays the song's drum track and drops it when you miss (your pads stay silent: you hear the record). Song + pads keeps the drum track and adds your pad sounds. Kit only mutes the drum track so you only hear your kit. Auto kick and auto cymbals always play their sound.
- Timing: run Calibrate (main menu, under Settings) once with each instrument you play. It measures picture vs sound and how late each guitar, kit and controller registers, sets every offset for you and locks them, so you can just play. Fine-tune a kick offset there (or from the drums end-of-song card) if your kick lands earlier or later than your hands.
- Just want to play along? Plugins → Drums → Play style: Freestyle (no score). No score, no MISS, no results; the highway glows while you're in time with the song. Turn off Freestyle timing feedback for nothing but the notes.
- Hi-hat pedal: Plugins → Drums → Hi-hat pedal hits chooses whether it's ignored (Rock Band), plays the chart's pedal notes, or works as a second kick.
- Full screen stage and Miss sound are switches on Band setup; Failing makes a band that drops too low fail the song.
- Feeling laggy? Turn off plugins you don't use on the Plugins page (it's a simple on/off list).
- RockHeroSmith (new plugin): play a song together, real guitar alongside Guitar Hero-style controllers, a drum kit and a singer. Band HUD with score, stars and a crowd meter, overdrive per part, a Rock Band-style miss "clunk" and part audio that drops out when a player misses, and a results screen. First in the sidebar, with its own half of the Home screen and Press Start on a free controller.
- 5-Fret (new plugin): Clone Hero-style guitar, rhythm and bass on a game controller or plastic guitar, on a YARG engine port: HOPOs, taps, sustains, star power with whammy, 3D highway.
- Play as menu on every song (and in the songs table): pick Play, a real-instrument arrangement, Drums, Vocals, a 5-fret part or RockHeroSmith, with a difficulty step where it applies.
- Library filters for Rock Band / Guitar Hero parts, a Parts facet, a Karaoke-ready filter, and part pills (5-fret G / R / B, drums D, vocals V) in the songs table.
- Drums, 5-fret and vocal plays count for stats, XP, progression, Career and Achievements (Flawless, On Fire, Expert, Pro Kit feats), with per-part bests and run history.
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| Hit feedback: PERFECT, sparks, score pops | "STAR POWER READY", the streak burning orange at x4 |
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| Freestyle: no score, the track glows while you're locked in | Freestyle: playing late says DRAGGING, never MISS |
- Rock Band-style scoring from a YARG drums engine port: multiplier, streak, stars, star power, drum fills that activate it, drum solos, accent / ghost bonuses.
- Rock Band-style 3D drum track (and a 2D lane view), keyboard drumming, drum controllers with a setup recorder and rebinding (Controllers card).
- Star power on old drum packs: packs made by the old drum joiner get their star power, fills and hand-charted Easy / Medium / Hard back without rewriting the packs.
- Hit feedback: hit notes pop and vanish, misses grey out with a red lane flash, overhits get a red ✕, sparks coloured by timing (green on time, blue early, orange late), PERFECT / GREAT / GOOD with EARLY / LATE and MISS over the strike line, a shake when a 10+ streak breaks.
- Bigger HUD with callouts: "x3 MULTIPLIER", "100 NOTE STREAK!", "STAR POWER READY", "STREAK LOST"; the streak burns orange then gold on a hot run. HUD size setting.
- Freestyle play style (no score): nothing is judged (no score, MISS, star power or results), the notes just scroll to play along. Hits are rated only on timing with the song, whatever pad: the track glows and pulses on the beat, with LOCKED IN / IN THE POCKET / RUSHING / DRAGGING. A switch turns the timing feedback off too. RockHeroSmith's Solo screen and bands still score.
- Freestyle fills option (Rock Band): with star power ready a fill becomes a free zone ending on the glowing activation note.
- Difficulties Easy to Expert+, with missing lower levels generated from Expert; pro cymbals or 4-lane; auto kick / auto cymbals per difficulty, which always play their drum sound.
- Hi-hat pedal hits: Ignore (Rock Band), Play pedal notes, or Second kick (left-foot double bass).
- Timing: hit-window presets, overhit rule (Penalize / Lenient / Ignore), input and kick offsets with an early/late meter that suggests them, MIDI arrival-time stamping, direct Windows MIDI (WinMM).
- Sounds: bundled multi-sampled kits (incl. the DRS and Crocell kits) and General MIDI kits, stereo room, velocity curves, hi-hat pedal (CC4) articulation, a MIDI monitor.
- Split view drums with per-panel difficulty, and public APIs / bus events for band mode.
- Rock Band-style vocal scoring: phrases rated by pitch (octave-agnostic), score, multiplier, stars, difficulty levels.
- Vocal overdrive: earned on Strong+ phrases, deployed by a mic hit between phrases, doubles phrase points.
- Mic handling: only the mic you picked, an in-player mic picker, a warning about built-in mics or speakers, and hearing yourself through the game's output.
- Steadier pitch tracking, a batch tool that generates karaoke pitch for a library, Play as Vocals, and Rock Band / Clone Hero PART VOCALS import.
- Scorecard (new plugin): Rock Band-style score, streak, timing gauge, solo ratings and run history for real guitar.
- Auto-Tuner (new plugin): shifts the song live to your guitar's tuning; note detection and the highway follow.
- Live Retune (desktop): live pitch shift of the guitar you're playing, in semitones and cents.
- Note detection fixes: capo charts, fast chord runs no longer scored as early misses, scoring against the effective tuning, bend / slide flags, per-section stats; richer hit / miss events.
- NAM tone: a live preset picker in the player; presets keep their model and IR when edited.
- Guitar Volume (a master guitar fader) and Tone Pack (auto presets for Tone Automation).
- The app never opens a mic you didn't set up as the guitar input.
- Import Rock Band / Clone Hero / YARG drum charts, 5-fret guitar / rhythm / bass parts and vocals; play a Clone Hero songs folder straight from the library (converted on first play).
scripts/drums_library.py(core): finds drum and 5-fret charts on Chorus Encore, aligns them to a song's audio and joins them into your packs; a 5-fret auto-charter (Onyx port) fills parts with no real chart.- Drum difficulty (Rock Band 0–6 tiers) and generated-levels badges, a sortable Drums column.
- Songs table view, play queue from songs / albums / artists, native play counts with a Most played sort and full-combo badges, Rocksmith 2014 play counts (Rocksmith Play Counts plugin).
- ⟳ Refresh on the Songs page picks up songs you've added to your DLC folder right away.
- Guitar Pro import fixes (hammer-ons, slides, ghost notes, fret-hand anchors) and guitar solo detection.
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| Pick one instrument, or two for split view | Listen: eyes closed, play on the clicks; hits are counted live |
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| Results: now, suggested, change and how reliable, with Apply | Every timing setting in one place, with the A/V lock |
- Calibrate in the main menu: one guided ~1 minute test song for real guitar, real bass, the drum kit, drum controllers and 5-Fret controllers (one player, or two in split view). Play by ear with the screen black, then by eye with no clicks, then normally.
- A coach shows the step, the beat, a hit counter and your last hits as early / late dots for each instrument, and warns when one isn't sending anything.
- Results in plain words ("Picture and sound were 53 ms apart. Rock Band Drums hits register 95 ms late."), then each setting with its suggested value and a confidence rating; Apply one, the ones you tick, or all.
- Locks your timing: once applied, nothing changes the A/V offset automatically (Note Detection's after-song auto-calibrate stays off), except an optional shift when you switch headphones or speakers.
- Every timing setting on one page with − / + buttons: A/V offset, guitar latency, drum kit and kick offsets, and each drum and 5-Fret controller's own offset.
- Render clock phase-locked to the audio (no backward frames), count-in that follows the rewind and only plays when needed, A/V offset slider fixes.
- Highway Tweaks (stems clock, Rock Band-style hit / miss verdicts on the 3D highway), Song Cents (how far each recording sits off its chart tuning).
- Stems: no more under-run stutter; plugin mutes stack, fade and never get saved with the song.
- Join links and LAN access for players on other devices, guests kept in sync with clock stamps and output latency, the real arrangements and Drums in the part picker.
- Plugins page as a plain list with search and on/off switches (the pedalboard is one click away); turned-off plugins don't load and their sidebar entries hide. Keep 3D Drum Highway on: Auto picks the drum view through it.
- Miss sound setting (Settings → Gameplay): Off, Clunk, or Clunk + dropout of your part.
- Visualization pickers list only the main highways; the input setup wizard keeps your instrument.
- Builds and updates come only from the
mattromanoforks; Mac builds run onmacos-15and a failed platform no longer blocks the release.
| Part | Repo | Branch |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop app (this repo) | mattromano/feedBack-desktop | custom |
| Core, plus Guitar Volume, Highway Tweaks, Rocksmith Play Counts, Song Cents, Sync Lab (Calibrate), Tone Pack | mattromano/feedBack | custom |
| Drum Highway | mattromano/feedBack-plugin-drums | custom |
| Note Detection | mattromano/feedBack-plugin-notedetect | custom |
| Stems | mattromano/feedBack-plugin-stems | custom |
| Split Screen | mattromano/feedBack-plugin-splitscreen | custom |
| Multiplayer | mattromano/feedBack-plugin-multiplayer | custom |
| NAM Tone | mattromano/feedBack-plugin-nam-tone | custom |
| Lyrics Karaoke | mattromano/feedBack-plugin-lyrics-karaoke | main |
| RockHeroSmith, 5-Fret, Scorecard, Auto-Tuner (not in upstream) | mattromano/feedBack-plugin-rockherosmith, -five-fret, -scorecard, -autotune |
main |
| Every other plugin | its mattromano fork, unchanged from upstream |
default |
The full list is scripts/build-common.sh (clone_slopsmith). Upstream: got-feedBack.
feedBack and its plugins are by the got-feedBack contributors. The drums and 5-fret engines are ports of YARG.Core (LGPL-3.0); the 5-fret auto-charter ports parts of Onyx (GPL-3.0). See THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md and each plugin's NOTICE.