Uploaded August 2021 | Updated September 2026, 5 hours ago
This is, without a doubt, my best custom. This took so much effort and came out so close to Harmonix-quality--it just FEELS right when I watch it. This isn't the first Volume 1 chart I've finished, but this is me officially saying: Volume 1 is in progress.
I could write a whole blog post on this one and how I put it together, but here's the short. I've had the Jammit stems lying around for ages, which conveniently came in drums/bass/guitar 1/guitar 2/vocals/backing vocals/other--not far off from how RB stems are sorted! I jumped on it. Everyone I know likes this song, and dammit, I do too. I consider this the "Crazy on You" of Volume 1, and "Crazy on You" is just top-tier GH2.
Lead/rhythm customs always take forever, but in this case, since DX has rhythm quickplay, I had to do...well, an extra chart and an extra four difficulties as a result. It has to do with the fact that DX's way of making rhythm quickplay work is to add the rhythm stem back into the singleplayer VGS--thus meaning the part's actually duplicated in the audio, and thus much louder than the singleplayer guitar part (since the singleplayer part is also partially playing rhythm, thus two rhythm guitars at once...)
I therefore had my singleplayer mixture chart playing some of the lead, some of the rhythm, and then a second mixture chart of what ISN'T played in that first chart as the rhythm chart, and then I set up two MIDIs, since GH2 can load an entirely different VGS and chart in co-op. The co-op MIDI is true lead/rhythm, the singleplayer MIDI is singleplayer, lead-heavy and singleplayer, rhythm-heavy, roughly speaking.
If that's all confusing, it's just a way to work around having two of the same guitar playing at the same time. It sounds cleaner and avoids any potential phase/mixing issues (like how we shipped "Mother" in DX 1.0--listen for the high end of the guitar in singleplayer, it's basically missing).
Volume 1 is finally out, by the way! You can get this song, many other fine tunes on that disc, and many other fine modded PS2 game discs over at my website, all for free: mariteaux.somnolescent.net/modding/guitar-hero/discs
This is, without a doubt, my best custom. This took so much effort and came out so close to Harmonix-quality--it just FEELS right when I watch it. This isn't the first Volume 1 chart I've finished, but this is me officially saying: Volume 1 is in progress.
I could write a whole blog post on this one and how I put it together, but here's the short. I've had the Jammit stems lying around for ages, which conveniently came in drums/bass/guitar 1/guitar 2/vocals/backing vocals/other--not far off from how RB stems are sorted! I jumped on it. Everyone I know likes this song, and dammit, I do too. I consider this the "Crazy on You" of Volume 1, and "Crazy on You" is just top-tier GH2.
Lead/rhythm customs always take forever, but in this case, since DX has rhythm quickplay, I had to do...well, an extra chart and an extra four difficulties as a result. It has to do with the fact that DX's way of making rhythm quickplay work is to add the rhythm stem back into the singleplayer VGS--thus meaning the part's actually duplicated in the audio, and thus much louder than the singleplayer guitar part (since the singleplayer part is also partially playing rhythm, thus two rhythm guitars at once...)
I therefore had my singleplayer mixture chart playing some of the lead, some of the rhythm, and then a second mixture chart of what ISN'T played in that first chart as the rhythm chart, and then I set up two MIDIs, since GH2 can load an entirely different VGS and chart in co-op. The co-op MIDI is true lead/rhythm, the singleplayer MIDI is singleplayer, lead-heavy and singleplayer, rhythm-heavy, roughly speaking.
If that's all confusing, it's just a way to work around having two of the same guitar playing at the same time. It sounds cleaner and avoids any potential phase/mixing issues (like how we shipped "Mother" in DX 1.0--listen for the high end of the guitar in singleplayer, it's basically missing).
Volume 1 is finally out, by the way! You can get this song, many other fine tunes on that disc, and many other fine modded PS2 game discs over at my website, all for free: mariteaux.somnolescent.net/modding/guitar-hero/discs


![Take Me Home, Country Roads (Rock Band Track Pack Vol. 2)
I just flew in from Wales, and boy are my arms tired. Featuring a special guest to tell us all about it!
Intro song: Squeeze - Cool for Cats [Instrumental]
Note that I had to mute part of the Rio run because it got the video blocked worldwide. I still have the pre-mute version of the video, and heres what youre missing (its not much, only a minute and 15 seconds actually got dinged):
- Caby and I agreeing with chat that hillbillies can be gay
- Me wishing Caby could hear the song instead of just my guitar thanks to our wonky dual-stream setup and her connection sucking too much to watch the stream live
- The start of the story of seeing I Dont Know How But They Found Me open for Silversun Pickups in 2019 and me and the two people I went with all missing different parts due to being unfamiliar with each band and the sound in the venue sucking
Anyway, that Rio run was shit anyway. What a massively unfun song to play.
Games played:
Rock Band Track Pack Vol. 2 (PS2)
Rock Band 2 (PS2)
http://mariteaux.somnolescent.net/ Take Me Home, Country Roads (Rock Band Track Pack Vol. 2)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wOeGo6aYmmY/mqdefault.jpg)







