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How To Make Your Own Metronomicon Battle Traxx

Initial Configuration:

This first set of instructions needs done only one time, the first time you start working on a notetrack project.

  1. Take your pick of any .WAV or .OGG you’ve got on your machine. Put it anywhere on your computer.
    1. The file must be stereo, 44.100 16-Bit (CD Quality).
  2. Open the Metronomicon Editor using a separate launch target on Steam.
    1. NOTE: You cannot access the editor through the main game app. Please be sure to launch the dedicated editor.
  3. On the Main Menu, select the difficulty you’d like to start with. You can choreograph multiple difficulties for one song. This is just the one you want to start with.
    1. Do this by navigating right/left on the Difficulty button.
  4. Press the Open Project button, then navigate to your song file.
  5. You will be asked for the BPM of the song. You can change this later, but it’s needed before you can do anything else meaningful.
    1. If in doubt, http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm is a really handy website, to find out the BPM for you.
    2. So is the tool: MixMeister BPM Analyzer.
  6. Next, you’ll want to set the timecode of the first beat of the song at which you plan to put a note.
    1. This is the timecode that the enemies will start moving at, and also syncs the gameplay to the music track. You really want your first playable/steppable beat to be at this first moment, so the player can start combat.
    2. This also determines the sync of all the other notes in the song, so be as accurate as you can!
    3. Press Control-Left + T to set the current timecode as your start time for the combat, and to sync all notes.
      1. You’ll want to do this right as you hear a note strike, timing-wise.
      2. It might be handy to use “half speed play”, to make sure you get this as accurate as you can. (See below).
      3. Watching the background animations is a good way to check yourself. Are they synced up with the music? Re-try all you need.
      4. Once set, you can nudge your start sync timecode by pressing Control-Left + R or Control-Left + Y to shift the note sync backward or forward.
  7. Nav around the track and choose a start and end time for the demo clip that will play on the menus.
    1. Use “[” to set the start time, and “]” to set the end. You’ll get a popup if all worked well.
  8. The editor will create a folder of required files for you. Most of them, you’ll never need to open.
    1. If the song file wasn’t already in a properly set up location, a subfolder may have been created for you, containing all the required files. This is a good thing.

Editing Note Tracks:

An exhaustive list of button shortcuts can be found later. Many of them are SUPER handy. Here, you can find a quicker reference on use.

  1. You should be looking at a battle screen much like any other, but without any notes to hit.
  2. The shift buttons allow you to change tracks, to edit neighboring lanes.
  3. The arrow/note buttons are used to add notes to the current track.
    1. Any time an arrow is pressed, a note will be added only to the current track.
    2. Notes will be added, automatically quantized to the current timing quantization setting.
    3. What this means is… you can set the accuracy of your notes. To quarter notes, eights, twelves, whatever. To make sure you’re perfect.
    4. This eliminates human error to a large degree, and allows you to dial in your play in real time, pretty darn quickly.
  4. The Left Alt and Right Alt keys decrease and increase your note quantization, as visible on screen.
    1. If you want to place notes more quickly/tighter/faster/denser, you want to quantize upward. Else, downward.
    2. Sticking to the largest necessary quantization will help your accuracy auto-correct the most. (If you don’t need 16ths, stay on 8ths, etc.)
  5. You can also quantize by thirds (toggle thirds on and off) with the Right Control button.
  6. Press and hold Spacebar to delete notes as they come past, to permanently remove them from the current track.
  7. Press the P Button to save your work across all tracks.

NOTE: As long as you don’t stop and start the app, your work persists. BUT! If you stop the app without saving your tracks (P), you WILL lose your work. There is no auto-save.

More Quick-Reference Buttons for Note Editing:

Editing in Manual Scroll Mode:

For very fast tracks (or for editing existing tracks), it may be useful to edit in a self-paced mode, rather than at real-time or half-time of the song.

  1. To toggle Manual Scroll, press the M button.
    1. This will make the song stop auto-playing, and freeze in place.
  2. Press Page Up to scroll the song forward by one-step (step as quantized in your current quantization).
  3. Press Page Down to scroll backward by one-step (as defined by your current quantization).
  4. Pressing an arrow/note button adds the given note to your current track, at the frozen time.
  5. Pressing Spacebar will delete all notes at the currently highlit timecode.
  6. Pressing M again will release Manual Mode.

Manual Mode Buttons:

Finishing Touches:

Just a few steps left to pretty things up, and you’re done!
YOU DO NOT WANT THE EDITOR OPEN WHILE YOU DO THE BELOW THINGS.

  1. Ideally, you want content in all four tracks of a difficulty before you call it done.
    1. You want each track’s first and last note to fall at darn-nearly the same time (same beat is good).
    2. This isn’t Technically necessary – but, if you don’t… you’ll have some heroes who cannot act!
    3. Ideally, you want the SNG file to refer to a complete set of 4 fully-choreographed track files, for any difficulty you consider done.
      1. For any difficulties you haven’t finished… or just don’t want to do, ideally the SNG should list no track files.
        1. The game’ll know what to do. 🙂
  2. Open the .SNG file found in your Metronomicon Project Folder. You just want to type in a few values.
    1. Set the Title of the song. This is what the game will know it by.
    2. Set the Artist of the song. Be cool, give credit.
    3. Set the Difficulty Rating of the song you’ve created, for whichever difficulties you’ve created.
      1. We recommend anything between 1 and 10. Halves are allowed (7.5, etc).
      2. If you’re sassy, you can do greater than ten. You madman.

You’re Done!

 

 

If you’re Looking to Learn More about StepMania File Support:
Click Here!

 

 

 

Note About MP3 Support:

The Metronomicon does not support MP3 files. Because of licensing fees. (Look it up.)
But! If you need to convert your existing MP3s into OGG format (basically the same – just… free).
We have a free tool you can download here.
Special thanks to both Lame and Vorbis for letting us really just cobble their tools into a UI.

 

Friends: J-Punch Christopher Hoag Kasedo Games