How to Make Custom Maps In Beat Saber

[@cryangallegos]

Hey thanks for putting this together, my kids have been requesting all sorts of songs that surprisingly haven't been mapped yet. As a hobby I do a musical light display and I have a background in music and played the hell out of DDR back in the day (currently designing a custom metal pad for a separate project) so naturally I am drawn to mapping Beat Saber songs. I'm actually surprised at how complex the design environment is, but its cool that you can see in real time how blocks will flow in 3D space instead of designing in 2D and mentally visualizing while it renders to 3D.

[@NeonLabsss]

you must be so cool I wish my parents played rhythm games

[@YukiSnow75]

Can you make me a map I got the song ready

[@RandomFush]

This video helped me get my map ready and set to go to publish. I’ve absolutely made three songs published right now and you’ve actually made my progress really well great KZbinr great video 10 out of 10.

[@gr_pefxnta]

I'm a new beat saber player but I've been wanting to play custom songs for ages. this is really helpful for me to make my own too, thank you!❤

[@whimai412]

I am so damn excited to try mapping out my own beat saber maps. Like so many songs that could be added, as well as some sweet dance moves. Some maps are really robotic, but some are so fluid and made to dance. I want to make more of those :3 So excited to dive into VR programing, totes subscribed.

[@texasdreadnought9831]

*steals information to use for my school project* thank youuuu!

[@misiopuchatek152]

7:22 aaaand you've lost me 🤣 Thanks for a laugh and a great really easy and straight forward tutorial!

[@SurprisedBambooForest-ku4ji]

Thanks. Can't wait to give it a try.

[@Loopymtb]

Yo great video and actually really helpful, I've always wanted to learn how to make a map.

[@tychailatte]

Lol I hope I helped you 😝

[@MasterKZ1]

Thanks, i just got into mapping and wanted to learn to make one.

[@EVT.]

This literally answered all my questions

[@nitronik_exe]

oh nice, now I can finally start making maps! thank you!

[@tychailatte]

Fr, get on it! What have you been doing??

[@queenpushycat]

@@tychailatte @nitronik_exe is one of the top mappers. lol SHOW ME DA WAY, MASTER!

[@4everfreethinker]

This is the first video of this kind that I’ve watched and I think it will help me a lot when I finally dive into making custom Beat Saber maps. So thanks for posting. Even after 3+ years of owning an Oculus, Beat Saber is still my favorite game by far. I love it so much that I can’t help but say, “Ooo, this song would be awesome in Beat Saber,” when I’m just kicking back and watching music videos on KZbin. I’m sure some of those songs are already being represented out there by someone who is already making custom maps, but I love creating visual projects. Add in my love for music and it just makes sense that I give it a whirl!

[@Kindnetteth]

thx to u im able to make maps now ❤‍🔥

[@techstazack]

Thanks! This was really helpful! Can't beleive your only at 442 subs. Kepe it up!

[@Baldianim8orguy]

i am now a mapper because of this video tysm ❤

[@SkylerWallaceUS]

Some feedback: 0:43 - I would explain that OGG Vorbis is a lossy format. So if you export from MP3 (a lossy format) to OGG Vorbis (another lossy format), the audio's quality will degrade. It's not always noticeable but depending on the source file it can be very obvious. 0:50 - The game also supports .jpg/.jpeg file format for cover art. 1:26 - I'd also explain what the percentage is, which is Arrow Vortex's certainty that the BPM is correct. However, even Arrow Vortex is frequently incorrect. For example, the song "Savior" by "Rise Against" will say 100% certainty of a BPM value although the song has multiple drifting BPMs. The majority of live-performed songs, i.e. songs performed by people, have drifting BPMs and so Arrow Vortex will not be useful. In that scenario you will either need to quantize of tempo map the song. 1:39 - A good practice is to start the first beat of the song on the second (sometimes third) measure. For songs in 4/4 and 6/8 this will be beat 4, for songs in 3/4 this will be beat 3. 5:51 - This is just a nitpick but I wouldn't refer to a beat as a "bar". There are people coming into Beat Saber with a musical background where a bar means a measure, usually four beats. I remember mapping for another rhythm game where they internally referred to beats as "bars" and it confused the hell out of me. 5:55 - Another musical terminology nitpick. A "quarter note" in music terminology is usually just the beat. This confusion is partially my fault as I was mostly behind CM's last two UI designs where we should have renamed "Scrolling Interval" to "Beat Subdivision". I also referred to "1/4" in the editor as "quarter notes" in my mapping guide which is credited in the BSMG mapping wiki. In reality, "1/4" in the CM editor is actually a sixteenth note. 6:58 - I wasn't using CM for v2 lighting whenever that got added by "Flash" has never been a fade-in effect. Flash has always set the brightness value to around 120% and then very quickly faded to 100%. For v2 and v3 lighting, a fade-in effect is achieved using "Fade" and not "Flash". In fact, v2 and v3 lighting shouldn't even have a flash option so CM's UI with this is a bit confusing to me. Maybe somebody else knows? 7:22 - There once existed a fork of CM where I pitched an idea to add a lock icon that would lock the lighting event type. It made its way into the main CM branch in late 2020. I also had a cute lock icon I wanted to use. So that's what it does, it locks the lighting event type :) 8:38 - United Mapping seems to work on dev branch. I used it just a couple days ago. 8:47 - Amazing tip. I typically like to place my bookmarks to indicate the song structure: Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Outro, etc. Placing every 8 beats is a bit overkill for me, but I will sometimes break up a section into like Verse A and Verse B if it's a bit lengthy. Feel free to check any of my maps to see how I do it. 9:14 - Another great tip. We call these "timing notes" and it's to help get a good syncopation from the instruments. I haven't needed to use timing notes in a while but I feel they're an invaluable strategy for new mappers.

[@tychailatte]

Love all of the feedback! I wanted to keep it pretty short and simple for the newbies. There's so much more to possibly go into, but I'm glad to have this for people who are wanting to learn more!

[@Dirty_Alex_]

Awesome tutorial! The only thing I will say though is I use the Sub Name box on the info page as a sort of secondary title rather than showing who helped with the map, such as putting things like (feat. artist) or (artist remix), etc

[@tychailatte]

shoot.. I was misinformed lol. But thank you!

[@BiggEAlexx]

real quick, as someone who's been using AV for a couple years now (Beat Saber syncing and Etterna 4k charting), do note that the Find BPM button, even the highest percentage, can be wrong. in that case, you'll have to set the BPM manually. the best way i figure to do that adjust the offset so the first beat of the waveform is on Measure line 0 (you can do this easy by pressing the arrows next to the offset textbox), then press the up and down arrows next to the BPM textbox until the beat lines line up with the waveform. another thing you should do is make sure is that the song doesn't have any BPM changes. while a lot harder to do, you can always press tab to start a highlight, then go to the end of a section and press tab again to complete the highlight of a section. then, press the find BPM to get yourself the BPM for that section. though, it's easier to just open the adjust tempo menu, and click the arrows next to the BPM text box till everything is aligned again. One final thing is the waveform can sometimes look like a giant unreadable block. what do you do? you can open up waveform settings and turn on a highpass or a lowpass filter to help you sync the song up if you're having difficulties. you can also customize the waveform colors in that menu as well. if you also use AV often, it might be smart to pin those windows on AV so that they never close at all, even after closing AV (do note that if you close AV without maximizing the window while you have pinned tabs, the tabs position will be where they were last, meaning always maximize AV before closing it so your pinned tab positions aren't messed up). while this info is mostly useless and too complex for beginner mappers, i think it's something that should be noted if people plan to get into mapping full time.

[@tychailatte]

Thanks for the extra Arrow Vortex info! There is a ton that I don't know, I just use it to get the offset. And of course this guide really only accounts for songs without a bpm change and is for beginners as I'm still a beginner myself

[@skeeterburke]

is there a subreddit for beat mapping? are you on it? and the OP, yall are some geniuses@@tychailatte

[@tychailatte]

@@skeeterburke I don't know of any subreddits, there is a mapping discord, discord.gg/ArT4BTQ. I'm in it, not active

[@AnyeloDownzZz]

Good video

[@Konzertheld]

Finally, the KZbin algorithm gave me something useful! I'm still a bit intimidated but I understood everything you said in the video so might give it a try after playing other peoples' maps for dozens of hours by now. Thanks! :)

[@humanweeb7179]

W mans i hope you become famous

[@tychailatte]

💜

[@Cowbowguyvr]

you deserve more than 300 subs

[@bidhrohi12]

Thanks for this. I'm new to Beat Saber. It's amazing, but there's entire genres that seem underrepresented in the maps.

[@redroseshorts_]

nice vid

[@tychailatte]

DID I REALLY SAY FOLLOWERS?!?

[@TheTrueFlyingElk]

Yeah… (suffer)

[@Cowbowguyvr]

maby?

[@ETFVr]

Yes yes you did

[@T.S.P_God5]

Yes

[@techno_typing]

yeah

[@Duckthegatorreal]

you have cool vids

[@adikmumik1549]

thanks for the help but i have a problem and i dont know how to do it on quest because i dont have beatsaber as pcvr

[@AT_Videography]

Im curious. Can i use chromapper to generatr customs songs to import through sidequest? Or it that stricktly desktop only?

[@TriqxterRB]

when I try to open my song in Audacity after editing it in ArrowVortex it somehow always saves as an SM file. Which means I can't open it, do you know how to fix this?

[@Regular_D09]

I'm having an issue where if I try and preview my song, nothing happens. I change the preview start time, and duration, and I hit play, but nothing happens. When I go into the editor, and hit space bar to play the song, nothing happens either. It just vibrates the timeline, and nothing happens. My Audio file is OGG, and I followed everything up to that point.

[@Kiwiberryyy_VR]

is there a good arrow vortex alternative? the site barely loads and when i download it, it doesn't look like what it looks like in this video. i feel like i should be able to use any software to cut the music

[@n1ghtc1ub]

question. for maps with like.. high sounding bpm speedcore something type song. do we still follow like the whichever one is most prevalent like say theres a 170 bpm at 67% and then the rest is just 113.33 bpm or is there a different way of going about it?

[@tychailatte]

I would go with the highest percentage. But it may mean there is a tempo change in the song, which you'll have to figure out.

[@nicethunder7084]

How to transfer the test song if you got the beatsaber from meta (Beatsaber just on the Quest3 (standalone) ) ?

[@cwocwo]

I’m on a mac laptop so i don’t have a mouse so I can’t use right click and changing the keybidnds doesn’t work

[@V1_The_Machine]

Hi there! I hope you see this. I have an issue when trying to save my file in ArrowVortex. It always seems to save it as a “.sm” file, whereas I’d like to use the .ogg format. When I click on “save as” after adding a 2 second delay, “.ogg” isn’t one of the file extensions available. When I try to save the file as a “.ogg” file (by selecting “All Files” when saving and adding the “.ogg” extension), it saves as a “.sm” file instead. Is there something I’m doing wrong? Any advice in layman’s terms would be greatly appreciated.

[@dragonmaster4556]

Just curious, I bought Beat Saber on the quest store, is there any way for me to play test a map without having to spend another $30 for it on steam?

[@0mnifire]

hi this is something i saw when i open up beat saber in my quest the blue becomes red and the red becomes blue, do you now why this happens, i am using a strandalone quest 2

[@ZealBlox]

how to i make the y axis grid have smaller spaces so i can do some little slidey smooth notes? like the beat saber song oceans & galaxies.

[@tychailatte]

Gotta use mapping extensions or noodle extensions for that. I've never done it myself

[@JellyClub975]

when i try ajust sync it has only things that look like piano keys

[@alexissnead225]

I cant get aarow vortex to open any songs. any help?

[@jordanteems]

Every time I close out of ChroMapper, I lose my progress and it deletes the mapping. The song is still there, but the entire map is gone. I save the song and create a .zip file each time I make a new map. Any help please? Thanks.

[@fogfrogvr]

i use the quest ver of beatsaber there for this does not worrk for me can you make a vid for quest users

[@Twok4uuu]

how do i put in the song to the arrow vortex

[@RobbieWeirdicht]

Does it place the blocks for you or do you have to do it

[@Josephdavidson]

This is a great video. I've really wanted to start making some maps for songs I like that haven't been mapped yet. I would like to know if i need a powerful PC or just a chrome book will work. Ps: i play on quest 2.

[@0mnifire]

i mean it should work with a chrome book but arrow vortex is a zip file so idk if zip files would work and it works with q2 just make sure to have to emulate the beatsaber files, itll tell you in chromapper

[@Josephdavidson]

@@0mnifire thank you. I started mapping on a Windows laptop.

[@0mnifire]

@@Josephdavidson np

[@Mr_MAR-f5w]

How do I add mapping extensions

[@XyRippedAviation]

@TyChaiLatte I dont have a WIP folder, I am trying to playtest I dont know what is happening.

[@tychailatte]

If you're using BS Manager or Legacy Launcher then make sure you move the map to where you installed it

[@NICK43000]

What happens if you dont have the rights of the song and just take some youtube audio? i was bewildered because some popular songs are not online and thought i'll do them myself. But maybe they existed and got deleted because of the copyright issue? Sorry if the question is kinda dumb, i'm very new to the vr and beat saber world :)

[@tychailatte]

I would guess that about 95% of custom maps were done that way 😁

[@NICK43000]

@@tychailatte ah okay, thanks :D

[@x1orx]

hey so, does this require beatsaber installed on steam?

[@ThePinkThunder1]

Hey! Loved the video! Everything was going great till I opened up the song in the chromapper editor. I don't see the orange song waveform on the leftside, its just blank, I also don't hear anything when I hit play yet I got all check marks to light up in the previous menu so I'm not too sure what I'm doing wrong.

[@ThePinkThunder1]

Turns out I accidently created a 20 second silence instead of a 2 second one, oops!

[@Kellzedify]

How do you GET all of the items?

[@eggisbored]

So uhh, whenever I drag my song into ArrowVortex it just shows up as a picture of Mordecai from the regular show..??

[@vaguedestruction]

Do you have to have Beat Saber installed on Steam for this to work? I want to try it but just from skimming through the video I didn't see anything about connecting the headset. I have Beat Saber on the Oculus Quest itself, not through Steam VR.

[@tychailatte]

Yes you can transfer over the WIP map to the quest with a link cable!

[@vaguedestruction]

@@tychailatte I can use Link without a cable. Would it work?

[@lBlueVr]

So I have a problem. When I'm ready to export my map, it doesn't show up. Easy fix?

[@Chrome0wl]

i got the same problem. if i want to test it, it doesnt show up in the WorkInProgress Playlist. U got a fix?

[@davidandrade2390]

@TyChaiLatte i try to download Arrowvortex but it appears as a .rar file and i cant open the app

[@tychailatte]

You have to unzip it with a program like winrar

[@not_grainix]

am i able to do this on quest. on chromapper it says beat saber installation path but idk where it is

[@tychailatte]

I do not believe you can do it within the quest

[@raptorman5055]

1:59 After I adjust the sync of my song with arrowvortex and I save it, the song is saved as a .sm file and I cant open the song in audacity. I tried saving the song as some of the other options but none of them worked. How can I fix this?

[@tychailatte]

You don't need to save the file in arrow vortex. You just need the number

[@Fnafplushiesworldd]

How do I make an song In ogg4??? And wave???

[@gdbritzlar8142]

Hey, tiny question: How am I supposed to get the level into my Meta Quest 2? When I connect them to my PC and then click "export to Quest" , ChroMapper says it's done so successfully. However, the song is actually nowhere to be found in my Metaquest. What the hell is going on? I can't find a solution to this and I'm slowly going insane, as nothing I try works

[@tychailatte]

Transfer the WIP map via regular file transfer, or sidequest. It needs to go into the custom WIP folder

[@the179bobkiller]

Hey man, I wanted to say thank you for making this video! I have never played beat saber before, let alone made a map and when one of my friends convinced me to try it out, this video, along with your others, helped me so much! I recently released my first map. It's Underwater by Hylen if you're interested in checking it out/ giving me some feedback. Expert+ difficulty. Thanks!

[@kashabash]

I can't even find my beat saber_data file, fml 2 hours into researching all this to try and create my own map and I feel so dumb :/

[@bahnhofsganove]

idk why but if i click on adjust sync theres no text just random symbols in the place where the text should be. so i cant see my bpm wow

[@bahnhofsganove]

nvm reinstalled it and it works now

[@lefty1023]

how do I download the mods?

[@bg.k.7000]

Where is the sound wave 3d/2d selection?

[@wsmoney]

how do i test them in oculus quest 2, i dont have beat saber on pc

[@Herbieherbie693]

Not possible

[@braydengui6809]

I can't figure out how to playtest the map I'm making, should it just appear in beastsaber?

[@Chrome0wl]

got the same problem. it should show up in the WorkInProgress Playlist but it doesnt. U got a solution?

[@LRC23]

It won't save any file folders, and I have to create the files themselves, I am now to the point where chromapper will NOT save .dat files, any tips?

[@tychailatte]

Has it worked before? Have you tried a fresh install of chromapper?

[@SorayaSkyra]

After making a beatmap for a song, I imported it onto my quest and the play button is unavailable, I can play the song in it's entirerity via practice, but unfortunately not by clicking play. Any tips?

[@tychailatte]

You can only practice the map until you upload it!

[@SorayaSkyra]

@@tychailatte Thank you so much! That's great to know! Also your tutorial was amazing, great content 💜

[@teo_69]

how can i get an mp3 file of the song to put it in audacity?

[@tychailatte]

You've gotta figure that out. Always support artists and the hard work they do!

[@willow8139]

arrow vortex says im missing something and wont open

[@Sruedon]

I do have one question, where I get the songs that I want to map (legally)?

[@nexus02496]

Would need to buy them. I just download my songs off youtube.

[@ollie123blah4]

Can i do on mac

[@danimourinho]

Can I create custom songs to be used in the Meta Quest version???

[@PugVRYT_Official]

I don't think you can but search it up

[@Twok4uuu]

i can’t import the song to the audacity

[@Theboyevs09]

does anyone know an easy way to get the song files?

[@KiritoVR_]

Just download it from anywhere

[@ShupidStorts]

for some reason, I've got a song at 140 bpm, and chromapper set to 140 bpm, but when I open the editor, the mapping track thing is 100bpm. Very strange and I don't know how to fix it.

[@tychailatte]

Hmm, never seen that issue. Maybe check the github page to see if anybody has opened a ticket about it

[@ShupidStorts]

@@tychailatte oddly, I was able to fix it just by making a new song and setting that one to 140 bpm as well lol, good thing it was obvious on the broken one because that would be terrible to be halfway through and come across an issue I couldn't fix lol

[@cloudftw.]

how do you make poodles?

[@GazGaryGazza]

Great video and a big help, but why on earth do Beat Sabre offer so few songs - I find it truly bizarre, I can't imagine how much money they are missing out on from this. Obviously they have to pay fees for the songs but on top of that it's profit once the map has been created. Other companies would merchandise the heck out of it

[@tychailatte]

Yeah it's mostly profit after royalty fees, a little bit of labor, and advertising. The process to obtain the royalties can be lengthy, especially if they can sell the tracks individually. I'm guessing that's what takes the longest.

[@AtreusLmao]

uhm what if i dont have a home button

[@WooperMan1552]

I accidentally made a whole song in Custom Levels and Not WIP Levels. How do I play test this/ Change it to a WIP Level

[@tychailatte]

You can just drag the whole song folder into the customWIP folder

[@Plush1022]

when i try to get into the editor it loads forever and doesn't let me in

[@Plush1022]

nvm got it lol

[@Danielop79Pro]

My map does not appear in the "WIP" section in the game but it does appear in the game folder, I need help

[@tychailatte]

Are you using a different version to play? BS Legacy or BS Manager?

[@Danielop79Pro]

Legacy 1.29.1 @@tychailatte

[@tychailatte]

@@Danielop79Pro You have to move the WIP into the installation folder where you installed legacy 😁

[@malachineedschips]

My ChroMapper is not opening

[@VoidBsrk-hn9yr]

This is awesome but do you need windows?

[@tychailatte]

Chromapper has versions for windows, osx, and linux

[@not_grainix]

i did it on quest

[@Semi-DailyRandomness]

Quick Question: How do you playtest your map on a quest 2?

[@tychailatte]

You can transfer it onto the quest with regular file transfer into the install folder on the quest, or you can use sidequest too

[@Semi-DailyRandomness]

Thanks

[@enlargedpickle7969]

Why is the waveform not 3D and is there any way to make it 3D? It is hard to read the one I am trying to map

[@tychailatte]

In settings go to graphics and you can change spectrogram to 3d!

[@tychailatte]

You may have to save and close then reopen to see the change

[@Kitkat915e]

Has anyone else had the issue when they click Open Editor it just loads indefinitely? No matter what I do, the application won't proceed and the only way to exit is to restart my laptop.

[@thepookypig]

I am having the same issue, also my preview isn't loading. Were you able to fix this problem?

[@ranchyfinch1011]

How do I find a legal file for the song 😵‍💫

[@bluestation1234]

Make sure the song is not copyrighted and make sure you have permission from the artist if you want to get permission from a artist ask a smaller one they will most likely say yes since it’s like porting the song to a new platform

[@COSMIC-VR-177]

ay homie where did you put your beat saber avatar in there?

[@tychailatte]

Wdym?

[@COSMIC-VR-177]

@@tychailatte in the end I saw your beat saber multiplayer avatar in the menu when ever you choose a song but idk 😑

[@tychailatte]

@Bella-world123 ahh, there is a mod called Nalaluna Avatars. You can join their patreon (free tier) for access to a bunch of their mods

[@COSMIC-VR-177]

@@tychailatte I tried to get that but I looked around in my mod manager and I don’t see it what version is it on ?

[@tychailatte]

@@COSMIC-VR-177 its not through mod assistant. You can only manually install it. I believe it works up through all currently modded versions

[@surge2260]

Where can i find a legal audio file?

[@tychailatte]

Yall are so dense

[@surge2260]

@@tychailatte ?

[@GoldSrc_]

@@surge2260 If you can't figure it out, you need to learn how to use computers.

[@hashiragamers9321]

@@surge2260either create your own lol or ask for permission 😂😂🤦🏾‍♂️

[@mikstahthemilkman]

legal file? does this mean i cant just download the song and use it?

[@chelsiecoryell7132]

im also curious what he means by this!

[@KiritoVR_]

You can. It doesn't matter

[@therealleaf9434]

They’re not in my custom songs ?

[@Hunter-x666x]

someone please make loathe - screaming as a map need more loathe songs

[@uwuQuentin]

Is it possible to do this on mobile

[@tychailatte]

I don't think there is a mobile mapper, at least not that I know of

[@my5t1c4l]

Lighting is so hard how do u do it?

[@tychailatte]

Lot's of time and patience haha, might do a video that touches on it more soon!

[@i.zackydood4128]

Do you need to buy beat saber to map

[@tychailatte]

You don't have to, but it definitely helps with testing and knowing what goes into making a fun map

[@RetroBeats.]

do you need pc beat saber?

[@tychailatte]

Nope, you can transfer them to quest!

[@Liam_utb]

Arrow vortex wont download, any help?

[@tychailatte]

It won't download at all? Hmm.. maybe try turning off any VPN you're running?

[@Liam_utb]

@@tychailatte it downloads but says I can't open it with any app

[@tychailatte]

@@Liam_utb do you have to unzip it still?

[@AlessandroGamerGaViralKJ]

and the link?

[@tychailatte]

Don't know what link you're talking about, but they are in the description