Make rhythm game charts by tapping along to the song

How tap-to-chart recording works

During recording, the game plays the song and logs every input with its lane and its song time from the audio clock. How long you held and how far you moved decide the note type:

• Tap: a short press.
• Hold: pressed longer than a threshold (for example 0.5 s), with the hold length recorded.
• Swipe: the finger moved further than a distance threshold while pressed.

Convert the times to beats using the song's BPM so the recording can be quantised and edited on a grid later.

Tips for a clean recording

• Record one lane or one instrument per pass, then merge, rather than trying to play the whole chart at once.
• Use wired headphones. Bluetooth latency makes every tap land late.
• Record on the target device too. Tapping a phone screen feels different from pressing keys.
• Expect to tidy up. Recording gets you most of the way, and an editor handles the rest.

Recording in Rhythm Game Starter

Rhythm Game Starter includes a Note Recorder and demo scenes for it (vertical, horizontal 5-track, and an Input System variant):

• Point it at a blank SongItem with your audio assigned and press play to record.
• The long-note and swipe thresholds are configurable in the Inspector.
• In the editor, it saves each recording as a SongItem chart, ready to open in the Sequence Editor and refine. It can also record on device.

Prefer charting in a DAW? See MIDI charts in Unity.