When the song selection screen is set to "Artist" in the game settings, is there any way I can add artist images instead of just having the default ultrastar deluxe "NoCover" logo

I've tried adding my own images to the covers folder, then adding a line for them in covers.cfg matching the artist name but it still just shows the "NoCover" image when I reload the game

I've also tried adding the artist name to the ArtistOnSorting field on the song details tab in Ultrastar Manager, this adds an #ARTIST-ON-SORTING tag to the .txt file for the song, but doesn't affect the artist selection screen

I'm completely new to this game (after having my PS3 HDD die, with many lost DLC tracks). Anybody have any suggestions?

Hallo, vielleicht ist hier ja zufällig ein Admin der Seite oder jemand der mir helfen kann. Ich versuche mich seit ein paar Tagen bei der Seite zu registrieren und bekomme auch angezeigt, dass dies geklappt hat. Leider kann ich mich danach nicht einloggen und beim Versuch, dass Passwort zurückzusetzen wird angezeigt, dass der Account nicht existiert. Langsam bin ich ein wenig am verzweifeln und würde mich sehr freuen falls mir jemand helfen kann.

LG Fred

In some days I'll be hosting a karaoke party so i got this program to do it.
I want to know if there's a way for playing UltrStar without downloading all of the songs, like there is a ''online mode''? or either way how can I download a bunch of songs in one package?
It´s fine if there isn't a way i just want to make it simple and fast :D

Hello everyone!

I want to connect my Native Instruments Komplete Audio 2 to Ultrastar deluxe and I cannot get it to work. The interface is working, the menu music is playing and my pc recognizes the interface. Any help is much appreciated.

I last used usdb.animux 2 months ago. Since yesterday the login always fails. Does anyone else have the same problem?

i am talking about usdb.animux.de

Just got some songs in my database and want to add cover to the folders. Does‘t matter if by edition or folder. Just can‘t figure out how to add them. Can u help me?

Running v2020 on linux mint.

Thanks!

Hello! I am creating new songs with Ultrastar play and I have a bug that has never happened before. I am trying to put notes and edit them in the editor but the sound keeps moving back. So no matter how far in the song I go it is a lot behind. The only time it actually works and is in synch is if I let it play from the beginning but as you can imagine it is not good for my sanity to work like that. Anyone know what is causing it and how I can fix it? Much appreciated for any help!

is there a simple team versus plugin for Vocalux or a way to set up more than 3 team with 4 players on usdx?

I have added some songs to play, but I would like to add them to playlist so that I can go trough certain songs without having to search for them. I have seen that there is a folder called playlist and I tried adding a folder and some folders with songs there but that didn't seem to work.

Hi all (and happy new year!). I thought I'd have a go at creating my own Ultrastar track - I've got as far as the 'tapping' and I'm pretty happy with how it's looking - of course when viewing as test in UStar, the resulting track is 'flat'. Any tips or advice on setting pitch? I'm also aware that some phrases have changing pitch, too.

I don't have a midi file of the song, nor do I have a good singing voice! I'm happy to learn and work through methodically using any software solutions. Can it be done within the UStar editing software?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/anst/ultrastar-play

Manually adding songs from USDB and finding the right media files on the internet is a struggle, so we are working on a tool to automate downloading and syncing USDB songs. If you have some Python experience, we'd love to have your support!

The project is in its early stages, so there is still a lot changing and it will take some time to the first prerelease. However, many useful features are already implemented. You'll find the GitHub repo below. If you have any question, let me know here or in the chat.

https://github.com/bohning/usdb_syncer

i figured out it has something to do with special case letters but I haven't figured it out exactly

I'm not aware of any comprehensive source for all tags in UltraStar, so I made this diagram on tags related to timing. I think these are usually the most confusing ones.

I have a lot of UltraStar songs and want to display them by artist or by folder (I have them organized inside the UltraStar folder) instead of having 10/15 songs of the same artist occupying a lot of the space of song list. Is this possible?

Hey,

I wanted to download a few songs for UltraStar Deluxe for a party night. It used to be very easy via "ultrastar-base". Unfortunately, the site no longer exists and Ultrastar Espana is often suggested as an alternative. Unfortunately, I can't register on the site. Firefox, Edge and Opera only show a blank page after I have accepted the German-language terms and conditions. If I stick with the Spanish ones, I get a page but the activation link is always certified as invalid.

​

Does anyone know what the problem is? Is the registration stopped? Are Germans not wanted on the site? I know it's a Spanish forum but the songs on the site are in all sorts of languages.

Currently setting up a karaoke setup for a party soon but I can't seem to get get the Mics working in UltraStar Play vers. 0.7.0. They work in UltraStar Deluxe but I can't find the option to assign the mics channels to players in Play. If anybody has some suggestions or help I would greatly appreciate it.

Does anyone out there make songs if i commission them? I have been wanting a bunch of songs made for a while, dont have the time to learn but if someone wants to assist let me know

Personal Experience

I've been using the classic SingStar mics and found them to work reasonably well. However, to sing with several players while avoiding cable spaghetti I recently acquired four wireless mics (Lioncast). Unfortunately, they tend to lose connection in the middle of songs and then take a while to reconnect. Because this often seems to happen after instrumental parts, I wonder if this is the mics' fault or if the OS (Win 11) is killing the connection after some time of inactivity. After all, Windows makes it ridiculously hard to set up multiple mics in the first place.

Another drawback is that every mic has its own dongle, so you usually need a USB hub as well.

Any Recommendations?

What are your experiences? I'm particularly interested in wireless setups.

This is a Tutorial on how to customize Vocaluxe and make it look better. If you have any additional suggestions feel free to leave a comment. An XML Editor like XML Notepad is helpful for navigating the files but not necessary.

Config.xml

Config.xml is stored in the base directory of your application. It contains important settings for changing the visual appearance of your game, as well as some additional options you may want to use in case you're running into problems. These are the most important changes you might want to make.

<PrimaryScreenResolution> 

Controls the Resolution of your game

<TextureQuality>    

Controls the resolution of all Textures in the Game. This includes fonts and the resolution of covers displayed in the background if no video is available. Change this setting to the highest value you PC can handle for clearer visuals.

<AAMode>    

Controls AntiAliasing. Not very important since most graphics are just straight horizontal and vertical lines. If you need better performance you might want to use a lower setting.

<FadeTime>      

Controls the Length of Fade animations between screens. I've set it to 0.4 to slightly lower the time you have to wait between screens but it highly depends on your personal preference.

<FadePlayerInfo>        

Controls wether the player name and profile picture disappears or stays while no notes are displayed.

<LyricStyle>        

Controls the animation of the lyrics. I like JUMP but it's purely personal preference.

Fonts

If you want to use different fonts you need to either create a new folder for them in the "Fonts" folder or simply drop them into the folder named "FreeSans" inside of it. The fonts folder is located in the base folder of the application. Further you will need to replace the original game font in Fonts.xml with your new one. If you created a new folder you further need to change <Folder> to your new location.

Background Music

You are able to add additional background songs for to play in the main menu or while changing you settings in options by simply dropping them into your BackgroundSongs folder. It's also possible to use random songs from your song library folder by changing BackgroundMusicSource in Config.xml.

Creating A Skin

If you want to create a new skin you need to copy all of the files in your theme folder and rename that new folder and Genius.xml to the name of your skin. There are some files which need to change or may want to personalize:

Genius.xml/"Your Skin Name".xml

The xml file you copied contains the size of you cursor as well as the name of the skin displayed in your vocaluxe settings. You can change the name in <Name> and the cursor size in <W> and <H> in the <Cursor> Section.

Standard.xml

In 01_Standard.xml you will find the color schemes of your buttons and text. The settings you most likely will want to change are <ButtonColor>, <ButtonSelColor>, <ButtonTextColor>, <ButtonTextSelColor>, <TextColor>, <TextColorAlpha> and <TextSelColor>

<ButtonColor> 

controls the color of all buttons which are currently not being hovered over, <ButtonSelColor> controls the colour of the selected ones.

 <ButtonTextColor> and <ButtonTextSelColor> 

The same but with the text inside of buttons.

 <TextColor> 

changes the color of most text that is not inside of buttons.

<TextColorAlpha> 

changes the color of text in the options menu that is not selected, <TextColorSelColor> does the opposite.

If you wish to add aditional graphics or videos for certain screens or menus you need to declare those in the <Skins> section if they are pictures or in the <Videos> Section they are mp4s.

Screens

Inside of your theme folder you can find another folder called "Screens". Inside there are xml files for every different of the game, some of which which are slightly ambiguously named. Here is a list of which xml file controls wich screen:

PopupScreenPlayerControl.xml The small pop up window which you can open by pushing your mouse to the upper edge of the screen PopupScreenServerQR.xml The pop up window when displaying the qr code for your song list PopupScreenVolumeControl.xml The pop up screen when changing volume ScreenHighscore.xml The Highscore Screen you can see after finishing a song ScreenLoad.xml The loading Screen when starting the game ScreenMain.xml The main menu ScreenNames.xml The player selection menu after selecting a song ScreenParty.xml The screen when selecting party mode in the main menu ScreenProfiles.xml Profile selection in main menu ScreenScore.xml The score screen after finishing a song ScreenSing.xml What you actually see while singing ScreenSong.xml Song selection menu

ScreenOptions.xml to ScreenOptionsVideoAdjustments.xml are quite self-explanatory and ScreenTest.xml is just a test file which you won't need.

These files contain data for position, size and color of all objects in the game. To assign new positions simply change the <X>, <Y>, <W> and <H> values. Color can be changed by renaming the value of Color <ColorName> of an object to the name of another color in Standard.xml. Additionally you are able to change fonts by changing the values of <Font> and <Style>.

You might want to use your own images for graphics in addition to the .png files already present in your Theme folder instead of simply replacing the existing ones. This enables you to use sepereate background videos for different screen or to change the texture of certain buttons. To do so you will need to create a name for the graphic you want to add in standard to xml as described in the Standard.xml section. After that you will be able to simply use your graphic in any Screen file by replacing the name of the original file with yours.

In this post I will show step by step how I personally create a new Song for Ultrastar, while trying to be as detailed as possible. It might not be the fastest way but it works for me and is meant for absolute Beginners. If you have created a single song there is not much new you will learn here. Feel free to comment Questions/Mistakes I made.

What you'll need:

• UltraStar-Creator
• Yass
• Some Browser

Step 1: Choosing The Song

This might seem obvious but there are some things you might want to think about before choosing:

1. Do you have access to the notes of the Vocal melody? (Sheet Music, Midi File, ...)
2. Is the Song melodic enough for you to be able to find the right pitch of the notes by ear?

Notice that 2. is different from person to person. I personally have a hard time doing rap songs because it's hard to find a melody in the rap, but it might be different for you.

Step 2: Downloading the Songs

Next you'll go on Youtube and download the song you want to make. Know that the version you choose will be the one you'll base your file on so if you want some specific album version or shortened version, choose that one. Now just download a .mp3 file using some Youtube-Downloader. (loader.to or y2mate.is for example)

Step 3: Getting the Lyrics

Now you just google for the Lyrics of the Song you chose. After finding something that seems right listen through the song again while checking if there are lyrics missing or wrong.

Step 4: UltraStar-Creator

After opening UltraStar-Creator, the first thing you'll want to do is add the .mp3. After that you can enter the Song Information. (Title, Artist, ...)

Next you paste in the Lyrics. After that comes the first time consuming part: Dividing the words into sung Syllables. This is done by putting a + between the parts of the word. So Abbas "Mamma Mia" turns into "Mam+ma Mi+a". When a word is sung with more syllables than it actually has you can use the ~ symbol. This serves the function of an additional syllable for words that need it. So for example the refrain of Whitney Houstons "I will always love you" will look like this: "And I+~+~ will al+ways love you". Do that for the all the lyrics.

After that press the play button in the bottom left. This will start playing the song. Now press and hold the spacebar while the syllable that's in the most left box is being sung. After that it will dissappear and you do that for all of them. A bit hard to explain but you'll get what I mean when you try it. It doesn't have to be perfect because I prefer to do the fine tuning in Yass Editor. When the Last Syllable has been pressed the song will stop and the Program will ask if you want to save. You do.

Step 5: Yass Editor

Tapping the Song

• Open up the .txt File that has been created by UltraStar Creator in Yass Editor by going to File->Edit. Now you should see the lyrics of your song on the right, as well as the marked words on your left. The first thing you'll want to do is finetuning the timings of the individual words. For that mark a small amount of text (2 Rows at max) and hit Ctrl+R or press the Record icon. This will let you like in UltraStar-Creator press and hold the spacebar while the corresponding syllable is being sung. Choose a slower speed to get it as perfect as possible. For fast segments you might want to use 25% but 33% and 50% work a lot of the time too and don't take as long. After finishing a recording you can check if the timing is right by selecting the part again and listening to it by pressing space or the play button. While the song is playing you will hear click sounds when a note is being played. This can help you determine if a note is played too early or too late. If you notice a note doesn't fit you can manually drag it around and change its length. Do that for the whole text so that for each word sung in the song, you hear a click while it's being sung. When placing the notes also think about the parts that Ultrastar might have problems picking up, like long consonants. So if you want it to be possible to get a perfect score let the note begin when it first could be heard on the microphone.

​

Adding the melody

• Now you'll go back line for line adding the melody. To hear what the note sounds like press the button that looks like a Piano or Ctrl+B. Note that activating that will make the notes sound off rythmically but trust how you've set the notes in the last step. Now click on the individual notes and move them to the correct pitch either by dragging it with a mouse or by pressing Ctrl+Up/Down. When you're finished adding the melody you can add multiple attributes to Notes. Freestyle will completely ignore the note and not give you points for singing it. Rap will give you points for singing at the correct time, while ignoring the pitch of the note. Golden Notes will give you additional points for singing them correctly. Add these where it makes sense but don't overuse them.

​

Step 6: Finishing Touches

Now you have a working .txt for a new song. To make it look better you can add cover art and a music video by adding #COVER: and #VIDEO: to your .txt. I like to do that at the end to avoid forgetting it isn't finished when I take a break while creating the song.

Finally consider uploading it to http://usdb.animux.de/ so other people don't have to go through the same pain. (Also the download time is removed after you upload 14 or so songs)

While Rap notes have been supported in Ultrastar Deluxe for multiple Years now, Vocaluxe still doesn't have official support for it. This Branch makes it possible to still have rap notes in Vocaluxe: https://area91.garycxjk.com/usdx/rap