So using custom music is really involved?

[404_Not_Found]

Was kinda hoping for something similar to audiosurf where you just load up a song and go from there but I'm seeing on the forums that people actually have to do some modding for this?

Exactly how involved is it to use your own music and is it even a supported feature or just something people figured out how to do by modding?

[Deon]

It's a supported feature. In the ideal case you simply go into the custom music menu, specify which level to replace and which audio file to use, then the game calculates the "beatmap" automatically and you're good to go. If you have a song with a strong-ish beat and constant tempo this should be all you have to do.

For songs with a beat that the automated software can't find (or varying tempos) there's an option built in the game to "tap out" your own beats for the song. This should theoretically handle every case where the game cannot automatically detect a beat.

The automated beat-detector isn't quite as robust as your Audiosurf example (for that game especially custom music is really the *whole point* of the game) but you should be able to get your music into Necrodancer without any modding. The only cases I know of where people have had to make modifications are when they were trying to replace boss music, which is not available to replace by default (likely due to the fact that it loops infinitely in the game rather than terminating at the end of the song).

[[COxMA] Altripp]

There is in-game support for this. You just select the song (in-game), give the game a few seconds to process it, then you can play it...

...BUT, as in audiosurf, computer-processed audio detection can be a little awkward sometimes... really depends on the particular song we are talking about. If you wanna load some classic rock with a very steady beat and strong percurssion, with no tempo variance, it'll probably work fine. No 100% guarantee, but most of the time, for songs like this, it will work fine.

But if you wanna play a progressive song, with lots of tempo changes and some sections without any percurssion at all, and some other sections with weird drum solos, the audio-detection will probably freak the heck out and will detect a "beat" that is very off compared to the true beat of the song (unplayable). In this case, you choose a song which the program is not able to accurately detect the beat. So, if you really want that song to work in-game, that's when you need to get your hands on that 'modding'*. Note that the song i described here would be a worst-case scenario, other songs that are not THAT exotic can also be hard for the program to detect the beat.

And that's why you see people saying they are working to make a song work in the game, because the beat auto-detect didn't work fine. But depending on what music style you want, the beat detection can work fine or it can be way off. So they are trying to adjust the parts where the beat detection didn't work and fix these parts.

*Just to explain what that 'modding' is, it is basically you prepare a text file with the time of each beat in seconds. You don't need any in-depth knowledge of anything, like programming or so. Anyone can do it without much difficulty... but it can take a somewhat long time and patience.

I hope this post clears the confusion you had (:

[[COxMA] Altripp]

You beat me to it, batman :P

Also, can you tap the tempo of the song out?? I totally didn't know that... that'll make my life so much easier! I thought i'd be forced to go through the text file with the time of each beat and try to work that hell out hahaha

Where can i find that option? Am i just dumb, or am i just blind? :P

[Deon]

Originally posted by Altripp:

Where can i find that option? Am i just dumb, or am i just blind? :P

It's been a long time since I've utilized this myself, but I believe there's a checkbox at the bottom of the screen when you're selecting the song file. If you check that and then confirm your song choice the next step will be tapping out the beat.

Someone else may correct me on this.

[404_Not_Found]

Thanks for the answers, they were helpful.

Kinda curious to know the tapping-out thing myself. I think most of my music will be fine but would like to know just in case some of it doesn't work.

One of the threads I saw was talking about boss music so I guess that explains it. I guess I can understand that. I would probably just use the default settings as often as not but I thought being able to use my own stuff would add some replay value.