Adding songs

Block Band comes with a few songs of its own. Add as many more as you like.

Only add music you’re allowed to play, especially on stream: your own music, public domain, or music licensed for it. See Streaming safely.

Where songs go

On the song list, press Your songs folder. It opens <your game folder>/tgband/songs/, which also has a README inside. Put songs in it, then press Reload (or restart the game). Your songs show Yours on the song list.

Songs that can’t be loaded are listed under the song list. Hover over the line to see why (see When a song won’t load).

What you can add

Format	What it is	Plays as
A Clone Hero / Moonscraper song folder	notes.chart or notes.mid, song.ini and OGG audio	Recorded audio, hand-made charts
MIDI (.mid, .midi)	Music as notes	Note blocks, charts made automatically
Karaoke (.kar)	MIDI with lyrics	Note blocks, with vocals
Note Block Studio (.nbs)	A note block song	Note blocks, charts made automatically
Block Band song.json	The format the built-in songs use	Note blocks, or audio if you add OGG files

Clone Hero and Moonscraper song folders

This is the best format: real audio and hand-made charts for every instrument and difficulty. Put each song in its own folder:

tgband/songs/
└── My Song/
    ├── notes.chart        (or notes.mid)
    ├── song.ini
    ├── song.ogg           the full mix (or backing track)
    ├── guitar.ogg         optional: one file per instrument
    ├── bass.ogg           (or rhythm.ogg)
    ├── drums.ogg          (or drums_1.ogg to drums_4.ogg)
    ├── keys.ogg
    └── vocals.ogg

• Charts. Every instrument and difficulty in the chart is used exactly as charted, with hammer-ons, long notes and star power (which becomes overdrive). Difficulties the chart doesn’t have are made from the hardest one it does have. Open notes are played on the green lane.
• Vocals. A notes.mid with a PART VOCALS track gives a singable part with its lyrics and phrases. (.chart files don’t have pitched vocals.)
• Audio. Only OGG Vorbis files work (see below). If an instrument has its own audio file, it drops out when that player misses. Parts without their own file are part of song.ogg and keep playing.
• song.ini. Block Band reads name, artist, charter (or frets), delay (in milliseconds), song_length, hopo_frequency and stream_safe from the [song] section, plus two of its own: credit and license (see Giving credit). Everything else is ignored.
• Album art, videos and other files in the folder are ignored, and a server never sends them.

Converting audio to OGG

Many songs come with .opus or .mp3 audio, which Block Band can’t play. Convert each file to OGG, keeping its name (so guitar.opus becomes guitar.ogg).

With Audacity (free):

1. Open the file in Audacity.
2. Choose File › Export Audio.
3. Set the format to Ogg Vorbis Files, keep the same name, and export.

With ffmpeg (free, command line):

ffmpeg -i song.opus -c:a libvorbis -q:a 5 song.ogg

Making your own charts

Moonscraper Chart Editor is free. Load your audio, place notes along the timeline for each instrument and difficulty, and save the chart. Put it in a folder with the audio, as shown above.

MIDI, karaoke and Note Block Studio files

Drop the file straight into the songs folder (no subfolder needed).

• MIDI files play on note blocks. The drum channel becomes drums, the busiest bass becomes bass, the busiest guitar (or tune) becomes guitar, and the busiest piano or organ becomes keys. Everything else plays along as backing.
• Karaoke files (.kar, or MIDI files with lyrics) also get vocals: the tune the lyrics are sung to.
• Note Block Studio songs play exactly as they were made, with each note block instrument as a part: bass drum, snare and click are drums, the double bass is bass, the guitar (or the busiest tune) is guitar, and the piano is keys.

The notes to hit are made automatically for every difficulty.

A MIDI file that’s really a chart (it has tracks named PART GUITAR, PART DRUMS and so on) needs its audio: put it in a folder as notes.mid, as in the Clone Hero format.

Block Band song.json

The built-in songs are written in Block Band’s own format: a JSON file with the tune of each part written as notes (for example C4 E4 G4:2). Put a song.json alone in the songs folder, or in a folder with one OGG per part (guitar.ogg, bass.ogg…) to play it as recorded audio. Add "streamSafe": true if you have the rights to stream it. The format is meant for people comfortable editing text files, and the built-in songs inside the mod’s jar are good examples.

When a song won’t load

Message	What to do
its audio isn’t OGG Vorbis	Convert the .opus, .mp3 or .wav files to .ogg (above).
no .ogg audio files	A chart needs its audio in the same folder.
unzip it into its own folder first	Songs often download as .zip files: extract them into a folder.
this MIDI file is a chart	Put it in a folder as notes.mid with its OGG audio.
no song found	The folder needs notes.chart, notes.mid, song.json, or a .mid, .kar or .nbs file.
the lyrics have N syllables but the vocals part has M notes	In a song.json, the lyrics need one syllable (or + or _) per note.

Server songs

Put songs in the server’s config/tgband/songs/ folder (the same formats) and every player with Block Band can play them. They show Server on the song list.

• A player’s game downloads a song once, the first time they pick it, and keeps it for next time.
• When a band leader picks a server song, everyone in the band downloads it automatically before they can press Ready.
• Run /bandsongs to list the server’s songs, and /bandsongs reload (operators) after adding or changing songs.
• Only the files a song uses are sent. Songs bigger than maxSongSizeMB are skipped, and the sending speed per player is limited by songUploadKBps (see Running a server).

Mark the server’s songs as stream-safe by listing their folder or file names in a stream-safe.txt file in the server’s songs folder. See Streaming safely.