cPlayer: How To Use

cPlayer is designed to seamlessly play songs files from rhythm games like Rock Band, Clone Hero, YARG and others much like Winamp plays MP3s and VLC plays videos, only limited by the inherent limitations of the respective formats.


SUPPORTED FORMATS

Xbox 360 (CON | LIVE) - cPlayer will play all Rock Band songs in Xbox 360 CON or LIVE format, either in individual files or in packs. Because extracting the audio from packs can take exponentially longer than from a loose song file, it is recommended you dePACK your pack files with Nautilus' Quick Pack Editor, but it is not necessary.

PlayStation 3 (.pkg | songs.dta) - cPlayer will play all Rock Band custom songs in PS3 format that are stored as nested folder structures - 'packs' of songs referenced from a single songs.dta file are also supported. If you use Nautilus' PS3 Converter, then your files are already in the right structure in the Merged Songs folder or in the All Songs folder. cPlayer is limited to interpreting the midi.edat files that were encrypted using C3 CON Tools' PS3 Converter with the default KLIC license. cPlayer will most likely fail at decrypting any other midi.edat files. In that case, cPlayer won't be able to display MIDI chart visuals or read the song lyrics for those songs - but it should still function as a media player just fine. cPlayer also has limited support for .pkg PS3 files - most work, some don't. It's a work in progress.

Wii (songs.dta) - cPlayer will play all Rock Band songs in Wii format that are stored as nested folder structures - 'packs' of songs referenced from a single songs.dta file are also supported. If you use Nautilus' Wii Converter, then your files are already in the right structure after converting to the Wii format. cPlayer will only play Wii songs that use the mogg format for audio - at this point, BINK audio is not supported.

PC: YARG / Clone Hero (songs.dta | .yargsong | song.ini | .sng ) - cPlayer will play all Clone Hero songs that use the MIDI format and are stored as nested folder structures or as .sng single files - there is limited support for Clone Hero songs that use the .chart format...try your luck. Clone Hero files songs with background videos will allow you to enable video playback and you can even have karaoke lyrics over the video where supported. cPlayer also supports all known YARG formats, including the .yargsong format and loose folder songs.dta structure. cPlayer may or may not work well with Phase Shift, FoF or FoFix songs - no explicit support is offered for these outdated games.

PC: Fortnite Festival (.fnf | .m4a) - cPlayer will play all Fortnite Festival songs that use the .fnf metadata file and .m4a audio file. Do not discuss where to get these files. But they're supported.

PC: Rocksmith 2014 (.psarc) - cPlayer offers basic support for audio playback of Rocksmith 2014 files in .psarc format.

PC: GHWT:DE (.fsb.xen) - cPayer offers basic support for audio playback of Guitar Hero World Tour: Definitive Edition files in .fsb.xen format

PC: Power Gig (.xml) - cPlayer offers basic support for audio playback of Power Gig files that use the .xml metadata files

Xbox 360: BandFuse (LIVE) - cPlayer offers basic support for audio playback of BandFuse files in LIVE format


CHOOSING A CONSOLE

You can only have one console / game format selected at any given time. Go to Playlist -> Game console and select your console / game format. This will affect how cPlayer behaves when loading a Playlist or adding songs to an existing Playlist.


CREATING A NEW PLAYLIST

By default, you're always running a 'new' Playlist. If you've already loaded a Playlist and want to start a new one, click on File -> New.


SAVING A PLAYLIST

Once you've added songs (see below), you can save your Playlist by clicking File -> Save or File -> Save As - if this is a new (unnamed) Playlist, you have to enter a name for it and it'll be saved in the /playlists folder of cPlayer. If this is an existing Playlist and you click File -> Save, any sorting modifications or song removals will be saved to the Playlist, but no filtering is applied when saving. This ensures you can have thousands of songs loaded, search for one artist, and then save the Playlist without losing all your other songs. If you want to only save whatever your Playlist is displaying (i.e. the searched for artist, genre, etc), click on File -> Save As and you will be prompted for a new name. Now only what is displayed in the Playlist is saved, rather than the entire Playlist in memory. This makes saving sub-playlists easy and non-destructive.


RENAMING A PLAYLIST

Click on Playlist -> Rename playlist. This will change the name of the Playlist only. You can also click on File -> Save As and a Playlist is saved with the new name and applying any filters you may have (see above).


LOADING A PLAYLIST

Click on File -> Open to select your Playlist or drag and drop the .playlist file to cPlayer.


ADDING SONGS TO A PLAYLIST

You have two choices: manually adding songs or letting cPlayer do an automatic folder scan for songs.

Manually: click on Playlist -> Select and add songs manually. cPlayer will allow you to select your song file to add to the Playlist. You can also drag and drop the song file(s) to cPlayer. cPlayer will parse the file(s) and add any songs that are not already part of your Playlist.

Automatically: click on Playlist -> Scan for songs automatically. cPlayer will prompt you to select a folder and will then search that folder and any subfolders for any valid files based on the console/game format you chose. cPlayer will then parse those files and add any songs that are not already part of your Playlist. 
This process might take a very long time if it has to analyze several hundred or thousands of files, but it runs in the background. If like me you have all your (1000+) songs in one folder I recommend the first time you do it, you set it to run and minimize cPlayer and leave it running in the background overnight.

Once cPlayer finishes adding songs, don't forget to save the Playlist!


PLAYING SONGS

cPlayer behaves like a typical media player, so all you really have to do is select a song in your Playlist and either double-click on it or right-click on it and then select 'Play now'.
You can play/pause/stop, as well as skip to the next song. You can drag the time slider if you want to skip to a specific part of the song, or click on the estimated place in the timeline that you want to play. As you drag the slider, or if you hover over the timeline, you will be shown where you're jumping to and what section of the song it is if cPlayer was able to read the MIDI file for that song.
You can click on Loop if you want to play the same song over and over ('Let it go, let it go...'). Click again to disable.
The default behavior is to continue to the next song in the Playlist. Click on Shuffle to enable track shuffling and the next song will be picked at random. Click again to disable (and go back to Playlist order).
If you want to play a specific song at any point, you can double click on it, or right-click and choose 'Play Now'.
If you want to pick the song that plays next, right-click on the song and choose 'Play Next' - note that this will disable track shuffling since you're specifying playback order.
At any time while playing you can press the Space Bar to pause/resume playback. Press Ctrl+Enter to start playing the selected song on the Playlist Panel.

LIMITATION! - unlike Winamp and other media players that play simple files, you should be aware that these files require preparing before they can be played. cPlayer has to process that song at the moment of playback, so you may have to wait a few seconds before it can play it.


PLAYBACK CONTROL and METADATA

At the top left corner is the Playback Panel. Here you can find the song's metadata, limited to what the song author put in and the game's limitations (not every game has as much metadata as Rock Band).
You can see the name of the band, the name of the song and the name of the album. If any of these are too long they will be truncated to fit the space. You can place your mouse cursor over the field so you can read the full name. Here you can also find the song genre, track number and year of release if present in the song's metadata.
The album art image is displayed, resized, if one is present in the song file - click on it to see the full sized image. If the song doesn't have album art attached to it, cPlayer will use the album art field to display audio spectrum visualizations - click on it to cycle through the 10+ styles available.
If the song metadata includes the name of the author/charter, it will also be displayed here.
Lastly, you can click on the speaker icon to adjust the volume level for playback of your songs. This adjusts the attenuation applied to the song volume (0 being -50dB and 100 being -0dB = full volume). You still retain volume control of your speaker/sound system.


THE PLAYLIST

Under the Playback Panel you have the Playlist Panel. This displays the song files as they are stored in your Playlist.
You can theoretically have up to 9999 songs here - I have only tested with ~2300 songs, let me know if you have more and it works well.
Songs are listed as Playlist Index | Artist - Song Name | Song Length in hh:mm:ss.
You have many options on how you can modify this Playlist by right-clicking on one or multiple (hold down Control) songs...let's go over some of them:

Play now - will stop playback (if playing) and start playback of the selected song immediately (subject to the limitation mentioned above).
Play next - will make cPlayer play the selected song next after the current song finishes playing (and will also disable track shuffling).
Go to artist - will filter your Playlist by only displaying songs by or featuring the artist of the selected song, and sort the songs by song name.
Go to album - will filter your Playlist by only displaying songs that are part of the same album as the selected song, and sort the songs by track number.
Go to genre - will filter your Playlist by only displaying songs with the same genre as the selected song, and sort the songs by artist name.
Start Insta-Mix - will attempt to create a mix of songs that sound similar to the one selected - it starts by finding all songs in your Playlist with the same genre, then narrows that down to songs with similar BPM and song duration
Mark as played/unplayed - will mark the song opposite of its current tag - when shuffling, cPlayer ignores songs already played, this restores a song's ability to be picked during shuffling. You can select multiple songs for this option (hold down Control).
Move up/down - will move the song up or down on your Playlist - useful if you don't like shuffling and want to structure your Playlist in a specific order.
Open file location - will open Windows Explorer and select the file for you - useful if you want to modify and/or locate the file among a bunch of other files.
Remove from playlist - will completely remove the selected song(s) from your Playlist - you must save your Playlist for the changes to be final. You can select multiple songs for this option (hold down Control).
Sort by artist name - will sort the entire Playlist by artist name, alphabetically.
Sort by song title - will sort the entire Playlist by song title, alphabetically.
Sort by song duration - will sort the entire Playlist by song duration, from shortest to longest.
Sort by modified date - will sort the entire Playlist by last modified date, from most recent to oldest.
Randomize order - will rearrange songs within the Playlist in a random order and disable track shuffling
Return to playlist - restores the entire Playlist if you had filtered it using any of the above.

You can also search within your Playlist - either press Control + F or click on the search box, type your search term and press Enter or click Go To to scroll to the next instance of the search term. Click Filter to filter your Playlist to only songs that contain the search term in the name of the song or artist.
Click Clear to restore the full Playlist.
While the Playlist is selected, you can press any letter on your keyboard to skip to songs that start with that letter.
If you want to move a song up or down on the Playlist, hold down Alt and press the up or down keys and it will be moved.


OPTIONS

You have a few choices on how to customize your experience with cPlayer to best fit your style:

Auto-load last playlist - whenever you start cPlayer, it will automatically load your last used Playlist if it still exists.

Auto-play after loading - whenever a Playlist is loaded, cPlayer will start playing a song. If track shuffling is enabled, cPlayer will pick a song at random and play that, otherwise cPlayer will play the first song in the Playlist. If combined with the Auto-load option, every time you start cPlayer it starts playing a song.

Skip intro/outro silence - when enabled, cPlayer scans the intro and outro of the song and tries to skip the very low volume or silent intro and outro portions for a better back-to-back experience

Audio tracks to play - allows you to tell cPlayer which audio tracks to play - when the song is multitracked, this will mute/play the tracks as selected - obviously on a non-multitrack song, the whole audio is on the backing track and this setting makes no difference

Show practice sections - enables displaying of the current practice session name at the top of the window

MIDI display settings - allows you to tell cPlayer which MIDI charts to display if you have 'Display MIDI chart visuals' enabled, whether to label each MIDI track, whether to highlight the track during a solo, whether to show the name of the Pro-Keys notes, whether to show the name of the Vocals/Harmonies notes, etc.

Lyrics settings - allows you select from the various lyric display options - you can choose between static lyrics, karaoke lyrics, scrolling lyrics, or no lyrics - cPlayer also allows you to choose whether to only display PART VOCALS lyrics or lyrics from all Harmony parts present in the chart - when using static or karaoke lyrics, cPlayer allows you to choose to display whole words, or game syl- la- bles as displayed in game


BACKGROUND VIDEOS (YARG / Clone Hero only)

cPlayer allows you to display your song's background video instead of the other visualizations (see below) for songs that have them. To enable, right-click on the Visuals panel and enable 'Play Background Videos'

When this setting is enabled, cPlayer first reads your song.ini file for a video entry, and if there isn't one, searches the song's folder for a background video file. If a background video file is present, cPlayer overrides any other display setting and plays the video provided with the song. Only the video is played, audio from video (if any) is muted


VISUALIZATIONS

Let's start by saying this is just for fun. Do not expect this to be game-quality sync nor REAPER-accurate charts. But we have all this MIDI information, why not have some fun with it? 

Right click on the Visuals panel and under Display: MIDI Chart Visuals you have two options:

Game Style tries to simulate gameplay of the MIDI / .chart files to the best of my limited ability. Use this for a rough estimation of how your chart will look in Rock Band or YARG.

MIDI Style displays the raw MIDI / .chart file notes across the screen in a horizontal style not like anything in particular. Just one way to display the charts.


KARAOKE MODE

cPlayer includes multiple karaoke modes that can be used for karaoke fun. These are only enabled when the song has vocals or harmonies charted. cPlayer will scale well in karaoke mode, so you can put it on a big screen TV and maximize it for party fun.
To enable, right-click on the Visuals panel and select 'Display Karaoke Mode' - cPlayer will do a karaoke interpretation of the lead vocals track. 

Right click on the Visuals panel and under Display: Karaoke Mode you have three options:

Classic Karaoke is inspired by the old school CDG+MP3 karaoke style that you're used to seeing at bars and pubs - this can play up to three parts at once and is the most fun you can have at karaoke with Rock Band files - you can customize the colors for every thing so you can make it your own.

cPlayer Karaoke is of my own invention. It only uses the lead vocals part, no harmonies - but it's fun. Check it out.

Rock Band Karaoke is my take on "what would it look like if Rock Band was a karaoke (no instruments) game? This is dedicated to my long time buddy StackOverflow0x since he requested it.


AUDIO SPECTRUM VISUALIZATIONS

cPlayer uses BASS.NET to play the audio files, and it makes uses of BASS.NET's Visuals class to give you a real-time audio spectrum analysis in the form of a visualization with various ways of displaying it.

To enable, right-click on the Visuals Panels and select 'Display: Audio Spectrum' - click on the visualizations to cycle through the few styles available. 

If the song has no album art, this is displayed on the album art field by default. In that case, when you enable 'Display audio spectrum' it will stop displaying on the album art field. Similarly, if you tell cPlayer to use the Visuals Panel to display the album art (see below), then the audio spectrum visualizations are displayed on the album art field on the Playback Panel.


DISPLAYING ALBUM ART

By default, if the song has album art, it will be displayed, resized, on the top left corner in the Playback Panel. However, cPlayer allows you to highlight the album art by presenting you with a copy of the full album art image over a stylized enlarged version of it as a background. This can be a nice way to see the detail of a large album art file that would otherwise be reduced to the small album art preview box.

To enable, right-click on the Visuals Panel and select 'Display: Album Art' - doing this will display the audio spectrum visualizations on the album art field.


EQUIPMENT

Microphone - cPlayer lets you do microphone passthrough so you can sing along with your favorite song ... it is limited by Windows and WinForms so there may be a delay to the audio, depending on your system. To enable it click on the Equipment menu on top and then select Microphone. Choose your microphone from the list and adjust the gain. Then have fun!

Stage Kit - cPlayer works with the original Rock Band Stage Kit to give you a cool party atmosphere. You need to connect it to your PC or laptop and make sure you have the right drivers from Microsoft. Once it is enabled, select the right player slot under Equipment -> Stage Kit and play  your songs.


Enjoy.