Files for each song: audio(/video), MIDI and... what?

**craventrio** · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 1227 Location: uk

So the the popular little thread How to get Custom Songs Into Rock Band-PS2 suggests that DLC songs transferred to custom PS2 discs "work 100%" even though the instructions (as far as I can see, my PS2 is broken so I've only been playing with custom discs to see if they load at all in an emulator!) are only for how to make the vgs and pss files, the PS2's audio/video files, and put them on the disc along with the mid file.

But what about all those other files? On both the PS2 and 360 disc I see usr, vnn, voc, xvocab and gen/_weights.bin, and the PS2 disc also has pan. The naming conventions suggest they were all created manually except the one in the gen folder which was generated automatically from existing data. If any of those are related to stuff like animation there's a good chance they aren't needed on the PS2 disc but are included accidentally(?) like so many other files.. but I'm guessing by the names that at least some of them have to do with things like vocals judging. The pan file is exclusive to PS2, its name sounds like it is to do with playback, and seems weird that it wasn't mentioned in the big PS2 custom thread. Maybe none of them are used at all on the PS2 version though?

What I was originally just wondering was "why are some [360] talkies so incredibly broken". Are they just judged from the MIDI lyric (with it's different little symbols at the end) and/or pitch/velocity/timing info, or compared to the actual vocals audio track somehow, or has it got something to do with that mysterious pile of other files? Whatever the case, I'm curious what all those other files are for and how come customs "work 100%" without changing them.

**TNTX** · Joined: 26 Oct 2006 Posts: 1069 Location: Grand Island, NE

If you want 100% working customs, go find a Master Track.

Anyways, you shouldn't have any problems with just the audio and track being inserted. The video won't line up right, but that's about it. I believe XVocab is just telling the game how to judge the talkies, and is the same file for every song. Voc likely has something to do with Vocals, and likely next-gen useful only, as with everything else. Pan shouldn't be a huge deal, from what I've seen in custom videos it has no real large effect on the game.
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**craventrio** · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 1227 Location: uk

I was more interested in how it works than trying to create customs or copy DLC... fair enough if you mean that DLC on PS2 only works 100% when you copy all those other files too.

Has anyone looked into the format of xvocab if it's known it's for judging talkies? It's a different file for the few songs I've compared, and doesn't have any obvious ASCII syllables from the lyrics that I can see, but that's about as much as I've worked out. Talky judging (for example, why does the Pixies album have all trivially easy talkies... except for one damn song with 90% impossible talkies!) is what I was particularly interested in.

As I said I wouldn't be surprised if most of them were not used on PS2 even though they're present... maybe voc is something like lip syncing animation info for vocals if xvocab is judging info? I've not looked at them very much at all, but I didn't want to duplicate work if someone else has!

**laconic** · Joined: 24 Jan 2008 Posts: 243 Location: Saint Peters, MO

from my post in the midi file format thread:

**craventrio** · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 1227 Location: uk