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    ModsBlock Band

    Practice mode

    Loop any section of a song until you've got it, slowed down to half speed if you like, with the music still in tune. Plus searching the song list, favourites and previews.

    Starting a practice

    1. Open the song list, then pick a song, an instrument and a difficulty.
    2. Press Practice….
    3. Click the section you want to work on. To practise several sections in a row, Shift+click the last one.
    4. Set the speed with - and + (50% to 125%), or press 100% to go back to normal speed.
    5. Press Start practice!

    For a song with recorded audio, Block Band takes a moment to get the section ready before the first run. That’s when it slows the music down.

    How a run works

    • Each run starts one bar before the section, with a click on every beat and the music playing underneath.
    • When the section ends, the run starts again right away, so you can keep going round.
    • The top of the screen shows which run you’re on and the share of notes you hit in your last and best runs.
    • You can’t fail in practice, and practice scores aren’t saved to your best scores.
    • Press Esc to pause. From there you can start the section again, change the section or speed, or quit.

    Speed

    Slowed-down music stays in tune: Block Band stretches the recording instead of playing it slower and deeper. Every instrument is stretched the same way, so the band stays together.

    Notes still come down the highway at their usual pace, so at slower speeds they’re further apart and easier to read. The highway also uses your calibration, so timing feels the same at every speed.

    Songs played on note blocks just play their notes at the new speed.

    Sections

    Clone Hero and Rock Band style songs usually come with named sections (Intro, Verse 1, Guitar Solo…), and Block Band uses those. Songs without them, including the built-in ones, are split every 8 bars (“Bars 1-8”, “Bars 9-16”…).

    You can practise up to two minutes at a time.

    If you chart songs yourself: in a .chart file, sections are E "section Name" lines under [Events]. In a notes.mid, they’re [section name] text events on the EVENTS track.

    Finding songs

    The song list has a few things that help with a big library:

    • Search: just start typing. Block Band matches every word you type against the title and the artist.
    • Favourites: click the star on a song. The star button next to the search box shows only your favourites.
    • Previews: the song you pick plays a short preview after a moment. A Clone Hero song starts its preview where its song.ini says (preview_start_time). You can turn previews off in Settings.
    • Use Up and Down to move through the list and Enter to play.