UltraStar Deluxe Editor

Take a look at controls for documentation of editors hotkeys and controls.

At the top of every UltraStar Deluxe Song text file there will be the header. In the header there are the main information about the song. For example the song title and artist name which are displayed in UltraStar Deluxe.

The required information are the following tags: #TITLE, #ARTIST, #MP3, #BPM, #GAP. Beyond that there a few more optional tags: #VIDEO, #VIDEOGAP, #COVER, #BACKGROUND, #START, #RELATIVE, #EDITION, #GENRE and #LANGUAGE.

• #TITLE: After the colon you can add the song title of the song which will be shown in UltraStar Deluxe.
• #ARTIST: UltraStar Deluxe will read in the Artist name that you can type after the colon sign.
• #MP3: Here you must fill in the complete (with ending .mp3) and correct file name of the mp3 file.
• #BPM: These are the emphasized beats per minute. Changing this value will affect the speed of the song. The more beats the faster the song will go on.
• #GAP: This is the pause in milliseconds from the start of the song to the first note of the lyrics.
• #START: This is the new start of the song in seconds. Amount of time will be skipped from the mp3 and the lyrics.
• #RELATIVE: This shows how the txt-file is written. If this tag is set to “yes”, the start of the notes is counted from zero in every line. If this tag is not available or set to “no”, the start of the notes is counted continuous from the beginning to the end of the txt-file.
• #EDITION: Here you can enter the edition the song belongs to (e.g. Singstar Rocks!). You can use this tag to sort your songs.
• #GENRE: Enter the genre of your song (e.g.: Pop, Rock)
• #LANGUAGE: Set the language of the song (e.g.: German, English).
• #VIDEO, #VIDEOGAP, #COVER, #BACKGROUND: (See 6.2 Adding / Removing Backgrounds, Covers & Videos)

Under the header there are the important information about the song and the notes.
Here is a part from a txt-file:

1. Position: Star-, Colon- or F-Sign (“* / : / F”): The colon, star or F in front of the other information shows which kind of note this is. Valid values are the colon sign, the *-sign and the letter “F”. The colon sign stands for a normal note. The *-sign represents a golden note and the letter “F” means a Freestyle note. Minus – Sign: This shows that there is a line break and the screen rolls over. Letter “E”: The letter “E” must be at the bottom of the txt-file. It marks the end of the song.

2. Position: If Star- or Colon Sign at Position 1: It means the beginning of the note (0 is the first note directly at the gap). If Minus-Sign at Position 1: It means the time where the line break occurs.

3. Position: If Star- or Colon-Sign at Position 1: The number of beats a tone lasts (tone length). If Minus-Sign at Position 1: It’s a special case of a line break. There will be two numbers, one at Position 2 and the other one at Position 3. The first number (Position 2) then means the time when the current song line disappears from the screen. The second number (Position 3) stands for the time when the next song line fades in.

4. Position: There can only be a star, a colon sign or the letter “F” at Position 1 because this is the tone pitch. 0 means C1.

5. Position: These are the syllables of the lyrics that will later be displayed in UltraStar Deluxe. If the syllables belong together, there must not be a space (e.g. above: example). If the syllables do not belong together, there must be a space in front of them (e.g. above: is, an).

You need a midi with lyric / words track or a kar (the lyric track is already included) for proceeding. The Midi file must be in the MIDI-0 or MIDI-1 format and include a track where the notes, which will be sung, are in. If you have a midi file without lyrics you can make a kar-file with a separate editor (e.g. the free software Karakan). After you exported the kar-file from the separate editor you can make a txt-file of it using the built-in editor of UltraStar Deluxe. If your midi already contains the lyric track or you have a kar- file you can directly export the txt-file from the editor of UltraStar Deluxe.

Start UltraStar Deluxe and head to the menu item “Editor”. Then choose “Convert Midi to Txt”. Now you see the standard interface of the built-in Editor. You can open a midi file with lyric track or a kar file (midi with lyrics included). Once a midi or kar-file is open the editor shows every track in that midi or kar file. You must choose the Lyrics/Words track (mostly shown as vertical lines) by selecting the track with your arrow keys and then pressing space bar twice (On the left side there must appear a “L”). This marks the Lyrics/Words Track. To choose the matching Note track (can be identified by playing the selected track or comparing lyrics with notes) you must select it with your array keys and then press the space bar once (On the left side there must appear a “N”). This marks the Note Track. If you marked a note and a lyrics / words you can export the txt file with the Button “Save” (Just press it once and quit UltraStar Deluxe). After you pressed “Save” once, UltraStar Deluxe will create a txt-file in the same directory as the midi or kar file is in.

First calculate the beats-per-minute (BPM). You can use the freeware BPM Analyzer from the company MixMeister or something similar to calculate the BPM from the mp3-file. Then open the created txt-file and fill out the header completely. In the txt-file you can see the line breaks are set to “- 0”. You must change every line break. You can calculate them with “Position 2 + Position 3” from the note before the line break. If the 2nd Position of the note after the line break is the same as your calculated you can write your sum. If the 2nd Position of the note is higher than the sum of the calculation you can choose a higher value than you calculated. The line break must be the same or higher than the sum of “Position 2 + Position 3” from the note before and the same or lower than the 2nd Position of the following note. Choose a value in the middle to have a good line break, so that the notes will not be cut.

To edit a txt file furthermore, open the txt file with the built-in editor by selecting the song you want to edit and pressing “E”.

Hot Keys:

Basics:

      “P”: Plays current page with metronome in the background.
      “Space”: Plays current note.
      “S”: Save changes made to the txt-file.
      “ESC”: Go back to the song selection.

Arrow Keys:

      Use your left and right arrow key to navigate between the notes in the current sentence.
      Use your Up and Down key to browse through the pages (sentences) of the song.

Setting GAP:

      You can decrease the GAP by 10 with the “(“-Key and increase the gap by 10 with the “)”-Key.
      Use “Shift + (“ to decrease the GAP by 1000 and “Shift + )” to increase it by 1000.

Setting BPM:

      You can use “-“ to decrease or “+” to increase the beats-per-minute (BPM) by 0.05.
      Use “Shift + “-““ to decrease BPM by 1 or “Shift + “+”” to increase it by 1.
      “M”: Multiplies BPM by 2 (note timings will also be multiplied by 2).
      “D”: Divides BPM by 2 (note timings will also be divided by 2).

Setting pitch:

      You must use the num pad in this case:
      “-”: Decreases the pitch of every note by 1.
      “+”: Increase the pitch of every note by 1.
      “Shift + “-“”: Decreases the pitch of every note by 12.
      “Shift + “+””: Increases the pitch of every note by 12.
      “Shift + Down Arrow Key”: Decreases the pitch of the selected note by 1.
      “Shift + Up Arrow Key”: Increases the pitch of the selected note by 1.

Setting sentence:

      “/”: Divide current sentence. The note you selected will be the beginning of the created sentence.
      “Shift + /”: Current sentence and next sentence will be combined.

Setting Note(s):

      “Shift + Left Arrow Key”: Moves selected note to the left.
      “Shift + Right Arrow Key”: Moves selected note to the right.
      “Ctrl + Left Arrow Key”: Decreases the beginning of the note (note begins earlier).
      “Ctrl + Right Arrow Key”: Increases the beginning of the note (note begins later).
      “Alt + Left Arrow Key”: Decreases the end of the note (note ends earlier).
      “Alt + Right Arrow Key”: Increases the end of the note (note ends later).
      “Shift + Ctrl + Alt + Left Arrow Key”: Moves all notes, starting after the selected note, to the left.
      “Shift + Ctrl + Alt + Right Arrow Key”: Moves all notes, starting after the selected note, to the right.
      “Ctrl + /”: Divides current note. The new note will become the lyric: “-“.
      “Ctrl + Del”: Deletes selected note.
      “>”: Moves the lyrics of the sentence to the right. The current (selected) note will become the
      lyrics: “-“.

Setting lyrics:

        “C”: Every first word in all sentences will begin with a capital letter.
        “T”: Corrects timings between sentences.
        “Shift + C”: Clears duplicate notes and corrects all spaces.
        “F4”: Set the syllable of the selected note.

You followed the steps before 6.4 correctly but you experience troubles with you txt-file ? This article wants to help. There are a few typical problems with txt-files.

1. Lyric is asynchronous to the mp3-file There can be a few reasons: - If you downloaded your txt-file it is possible that the txt-file was created with the base of another mp3- file. You could have taken the wrong mp3-file which differs from the one the txt-file was created with. - When your lyrics begin too early or too late the gap-tag might be wrong (See 6.3). - When your lyrics are too fast or too slow you can edit the bpm tag (See 6.3). - A fourth reason can be that the creation of the txt-file was half-hearted so that some syllables do not fit with the mp3. This can be edited in the integrated editor (See 6.3). - A last known typical reason is that the mp3-file is corrupt or incompatible to UltraStar Deluxe. UltraStar Deluxe might not work with mp3s with variable bitrates.

2. The song will not start / UltraStar Deluxe crashes - You have to check the header of the txt-file. Are all tags correct? Especially the name of the mp3-file with ending should be correct. The header must be filled out completely. - The structure of the txt-file should also be correct (See 6.3). Please check if there is an “E” at the end and if line breaks are set between the notes.

3. The next lyric line begins too early / too late - You should calculate the line breaks in your txt-file again (See 6.3).