ExpertDrums, holds notes for each pad and the kick, and modifiers that change how those notes are hit:
Drum types
One drums chart is written for one of three kinds of kit:- 4-lane: a kick and four pads, with no difference between toms and cymbals.
- Pro: the same lanes as 4-lane, with cymbals on yellow, blue and green.
- 5-lane: a kick and five pads, in the layout of a kit with three toms and two cymbals.
song.ini and from the notes of every drums section, in this order:
five_lane_drums = Trueinsong.ini: 5-lane.pro_drums = True, or a cymbal marker in any drums section: pro.- An
N 5in any drums section: 5-lane. - Otherwise: 4-lane.
song.ini when the notes already give the type, and set one only when they don’t. False means the same as leaving the key out.
Playing one type on another kit
A game plays any type of chart on any kit:- Pro on a 4-lane kit: cymbals are played as plain pads.
- 5-lane on a 4-lane or pro kit: the five pads become red, a yellow cymbal, a blue tom, a green cymbal from
N 4, and a green tom fromN 5. - 4-lane or pro on a 5-lane kit: red stays red, a yellow cymbal is yellow, a yellow or blue tom is blue, a blue or green cymbal is orange, and a green tom is green. A yellow tom beside a blue tom becomes red, and a blue cymbal beside a green cymbal becomes yellow. A 4-lane chart’s pads are toms.
N 4 and N 5 at one tick. In a 5-lane chart played on a pro kit, Clone Hero and scan-chart give a green cymbal and a blue tom, and YARG a blue cymbal and a green tom. In a pro chart, Clone Hero and scan-chart move the N 5 to a blue tom, and YARG plays both in the green lane: as two green notes, or with N 68 as a green cymbal and a green tom. Recommended: N 4 and N 5 on different ticks in a pro chart.
Notes
A drum note’s length doesn’t change how it’s played: drums have no sustains. An exporter should write 0. A length still counts wherever a note’s end does: in the end of the song, the song’s duration and the TrackHash. Of
N 0 and N 32 at one tick, a scanner keeps the longer: see Invalid forms.
Double kicks
N 32 is a kick that a scanner plays only when the player has the double kick modifier enabled, because these kicks realistically need a double kick pedal to play properly. Charters alternate N 0 and N 32 in fast kick passages.
Recommended: N 32 only in ExpertDrums. Required: N 0 and N 32 not at one tick.
Edge case: Clone Hero plays N 32 in EasyDrums, MediumDrums and HardDrums as a double kick, when the double kick modifier is on. YARG never plays it there, and scan-chart reports it as difficultyForbiddenNote.
Edge case: a section whose only notes are double kicks. An ExpertDrums section whose only notes are N 32 is a track. Clone Hero offers Expert, which plays nothing unless the double kick modifier is on. YARG offers only Expert+, where those notes play.
Modifiers
A modifier is anN event that changes how the pad notes at its tick are hit, instead of adding a note. It applies only to notes at its own tick. Required: the note a modifier applies to, at the modifier’s tick.
Cymbals
In a pro chart, a pad note is a tom unless a cymbal marker at its tick makes it a cymbal:
Red is always the snare, and
N 5 is always a tom.
Accents and ghosts
An accent is a note hit harder than the ones around it, and a ghost is one hit softer:
Kicks have no accents or ghosts.
Edge case: a note with both an accent and a ghost marker is an accent.
Flams
N 109 makes every drum note at its tick a flam: two hits of the pad in quick succession. It’s the .chart form of MIDI note 109.
Disco flip
Amix event sets up the drum audio for one difficulty, and its d flag turns on disco flip: a stretch, such as a disco beat, charted with red and yellow swapped. It’s an E event in the drums section of the difficulty it names:
- A flip lasts from its tick, notes on it included, until the event that turns it off, or the end of the track.
- Required: a
dflip turned off before adnoflipevent of its difficulty. - Required: one
mixevent of a difficulty at most at a tick. - On pro drums, a scanner swaps red and yellow back: red becomes a yellow cymbal, and yellow becomes red. On 4-lane drums the notes don’t change. The snare and the other drum audio swap instead, so yellow plays the snare.
- Required: single spaces between the parts, and a configuration from
0to5. - Required: a flag from the table, or
easyoreasynokick. - Recommended: disco flip events only in 4-lane and pro charts.
_ between the parts, and square brackets around the text.
Edge case: dnoflip in Clone Hero. Clone Hero swaps no audio for dnoflip, in a .chart or .mid file: red still plays the snare, as with no flip. YARG swaps the audio.
Edge case: disco flip in a 5-lane chart. Clone Hero and scan-chart mark the red and yellow notes as flipped, and Clone Hero swaps them when the chart is played on a pro kit. YARG ignores mix events in a 5-lane chart.
Ignored
- A
mixevent that names another difficulty than its section’s. - The
mixflagseasyandeasynokick, which have no effect on the notes. N 33andN 39, which some charts write for kick accents and ghosts. No scanner gives them a meaning.
Invalid forms
Both five_lane_drums and pro_drums set to True
Both five_lane_drums and pro_drums set to True
A scanner reads the chart as 5-lane.
N 0 and N 32 at one tick
N 0 and N 32 at one tick
A scanner keeps the longer, or the double kick when they’re the same length, as Clone Hero and scan-chart do. YARG keeps both: one kick on Expert, and two on Expert+.
A mix event spelled another way
A mix event spelled another way
A scanner reads other spellings as Clone Hero does, as the
.mid Drums page describes. So mix 3 drums0d, with two spaces, and mix 3 drumsxd, with x as the configuration, are flips. Saving with scan-chart keeps the text as written. YARG reads more than one space or _ too, but only a digit from 0 to 5 as the configuration, so it doesn’t read mix 3 drumsxd as a mix event.A mix event with another flag, such as drums0x
A mix event with another flag, such as drums0x
A scanner ignores it, as Clone Hero and YARG do, and scan-chart writes it back as it is.
Two mix events of one difficulty at one tick
Two mix events of one difficulty at one tick
A scanner uses an event that turns the flip off, then
d, then dnoflip, as Clone Hero and scan-chart do. YARG uses the one written last.A dnoflip while a d flip is on
A dnoflip while a d flip is on
Clone Hero, YARG and scan-chart start no-flip at the
dnoflip. scan-chart reports the pair as discoNoflipDuringFlip. Saving writes an event that turns the flip off on the tick before the dnoflip, unless a red or yellow note, or the d event, is on that tick.A modifier on a tick without its note
A modifier on a tick without its note
Clone Hero, YARG and scan-chart ignore it, except that a cymbal marker still makes the chart pro, as Drum types says. scan-chart reports it as
chartModifierWithoutNote only with the styleNotes option. Saving removes it either way, unless it’s a cymbal marker whose removal would change the drum type.