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A phrase marks a stretch of one track, such as a star power phrase or a solo. It goes in an instrument section, with the notes it covers, and applies to that section’s instrument and difficulty:
Here a star power phrase covers the notes from tick 768 up to tick 2304, and a solo covers the notes from tick 3072 through tick 6144. Most phrases are S events:
The length is in ticks, and the phrase ends at its end tick, tick + length: A solo is written as two text events instead, and covers both of its ticks.

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Rules for every phrase

  • Required: at least one note in each phrase.
  • Required: one phrase of each type at most at a tick, and no phrase that starts before another of its type ends, except lanes.
  • Recommended: a length of at least one tick for each phrase.
Edge case: a phrase of length 0. It covers the notes on its tick.

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Star power

A star power phrase marks notes the player can earn star power from: hitting every note in it fills a quarter of the star power meter.
Neither game adds star power to a chart that has none.

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Solos

A solo is marked by two text events, solo and soloend, written without quotation marks. It covers its notes from the solo tick through the soloend tick, both included:
Required: each solo has its soloend before the next solo, and each soloend has a solo before it. Required: solo and soloend without brackets.

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Drum fills

A drum fill marks a stretch where the drummer can play freely and activate star power by hitting the fill’s last note. It includes its end tick. An exporter should put a note on the fill’s end tick. Edge case: a drum fill without a note on its end tick. The games choose different notes to activate star power. Clone Hero uses the note closest to the end tick, from the fill’s start up to resolution ÷ 32 + 1 ticks after its end, and the fill activates nothing without a note there. YARG uses the first note at or after the end tick, however far after the fill it is, or the track’s last note. Edge case: a drums track without drum fills. The games add their own. Clone Hero adds a star power activation every four measures. YARG adds drum fills when the track has star power. A drum fill whose tick is at or after the coda is a Big Rock Ending instead: a closing freestyle section with no star power activation. On 5-fret guitar, bass and keys, an S 64 at or after the coda is a Big Rock Ending, and has no meaning before it. Edge case: where a Big Rock Ending ends. A drum fill covers its end tick, but Clone Hero’s Big Rock Ending doesn’t: a note on its end tick comes after it. Recommended: a note after each Big Rock Ending, which closes it, and the Big Rock Ending ending before that note. From its code, YARG gives a Big Rock Ending’s bonus only when the player hits the note that closes it. Edge case: Big Rock Endings on 5-fret. Clone Hero and YARG play a .chart Big Rock Ending only on drums, so no game plays one on 5-fret guitar, bass or keys from a .chart file.

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Lanes

A lane marks a passage too fast to play note for note. Inside it, the player keeps up the motion at their own speed, and each note counts as hit. A lane includes its end tick, and lanes may overlap.
  • On drums, S 65 is a roll on one pad, and S 66 a roll that alternates between two pads. The lane takes its pads from the notes it covers, and never includes the kick. Recommended: a roll on one pad starts with a note on one pad, apart from a kick. When it starts on a chord, Clone Hero takes the chord’s lowest pad, and YARG the pad of its first note.
  • On 5-fret guitar, bass and keys, S 65 is a tremolo lane: one fret or chord repeated, at least two notes, strummed freely. S 66 is a trill lane: two single frets alternating, at least three notes, played freely between them. These are what .mid notes 126 and 127 mean.
A lane should cover at least two notes, and only notes that fit its pattern: YARG cancels a lane whose notes don’t. Edge case: lanes Clone Hero skips. Clone Hero doesn’t play a drum lane that covers only one pad note, or whose first pad note comes more than a sixteenth of a beat after its start: 12 ticks at a resolution of 192. Edge case: lanes on 5-fret. YARG plays tremolo and trill lanes only from a .mid file, and Clone Hero plays lanes only on drums, so no game plays them from a .chart file. On 6-fret, S 64 to S 66 have no meaning.

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Ignored

  • A phrase of any other type, and a phrase on an instrument the table doesn’t list for it. YARG reads S 67 as a kick lane on drums.
  • Versus phrases, S 0 and S 1, which mark the parts each player plays in a face-off in older games. An exporter should keep them when rewriting a file.

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Invalid forms

Of two star power phrases, solos or lanes of one type at one tick, a scanner uses the longer, as Clone Hero and scan-chart do, and YARG the one written later. Both drum fills go into the TrackHash as written: see Drum fills. scan-chart keeps both when saving.
A scanner cuts the earlier star power phrase or solo where the later starts, and extends the later one to whichever ends last, as Clone Hero and scan-chart do. Drum fills go into the TrackHash as written. YARG gives each note to the latest phrase that started at or before it, so the rest of a longer earlier phrase is lost. scan-chart keeps the phrases as written when saving.
At each soloend, every scanner ends the most recent solo that hasn’t ended. The two solos then overlap, and each scanner reads them as overlapping phrases of one type. scan-chart keeps them as written when saving.
A scanner ignores it. A drum fill without a note still goes into the TrackHash: see What the TrackHash holds that games ignore. scan-chart reports an empty star power phrase, solo or lane, and fixIssues removes it.
A scanner ignores it.
A scanner doesn’t read E [solo] and E [soloend] as a solo, as Clone Hero and scan-chart don’t. YARG does. scan-chart keeps them as text, and writes them back.