Riff Hero
Riff Hero is a rhythm game for guitarists who want practice to be more fun. Notes fall down four lanes towards a line, and you press when they reach it. The drums play along at the tempo you choose. You earn score, combo and a multiplier, and an energy meter can run out. After each run you get stars, accuracy and a tempo suggestion. Play with the keyboard or tap the lanes, or try the microphone mode and play your real guitar.
How to use it
- Choose a chart and a tempo. Start with Warm-up and a low tempo.
- Calibrate the audio delay once, so that your presses are judged against what you hear.
- Press Start. After one count-in bar the notes fall. Press the key or the lane when a note reaches the line.
- Read the result and follow the tempo suggestion. A finished, clean run is logged in the practice log.
How does hit judging work in Riff Hero?
Every press is compared with the time of the nearest note in the same lane. At a low tempo Perfect is within 40 milliseconds of the beat, Good within 80 milliseconds and Early or Late within 130 milliseconds. A note that nobody hits inside the window is a miss.
At higher tempos the notes sit closer together, and the windows shrink so that a press can never belong to two notes in the same lane. Time is measured on the audio clock, not on the page timer, so that the drums and the judging always follow the same time.
Which charts are there and what do they train?
The charts go from easy to hard. Each chart has its own drum backing and several tempos to choose from.
- Warm-up: quarter and eighth notes for learning the lanes and the keys.
- Gallop: an eighth and two sixteenths per beat, with accents in other lanes.
- Tremolo: eighth notes with short bursts of sixteenths. The game trains the rhythm, not the picking technique itself.
- Alternate picking: down and up in two lanes, with string changes in the other two.
- Blast: kick and snare take turns on every sixteenth, with chords on the crash.
- Death metal: gallop, tremolo, blast and double-kick changes in one chart.
How does the microphone mode work?
In the microphone mode every attack counts as a hit against the nearest note, whatever the lane. Play the rhythm of the notes on your guitar and the onset detection decides when you played. The sound is processed locally in the browser only and is never stored.
The mode is experimental. It works best with a clean signal, one note at a time and muted strings between attacks. Scores from the microphone mode are kept among the recent results but give no personal best, since they cannot be compared with the keyboard scores.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a guitar to play Riff Hero?
No. The standard mode is played with the keyboard or by tapping the screen and trains timing and stamina. With the microphone mode you play a real guitar, but that mode is experimental.
Why should I calibrate the audio delay?
Time passes between the sound and what you hear, especially with Bluetooth. Without calibration it looks as if you are behind, even though you play in time. The calibration measures the delay and subtracts it from every press.
How are score and stars calculated?
Perfect gives 100 points, Good 70 and Early or Late 30, times the multiplier. Stars are based on hit quality without the multiplier, so a long run does not get more stars than a short one.
What happens when the energy runs out?
The run stops and gives one star at most. In No-fail mode the energy cannot run out, which suits learning a new chart.
Is Riff Hero a game like Guitar Hero?
Riff Hero is its own rhythm game in the browser, with notes falling down four lanes, and has no connection to other games. It is built for guitarists to practise with: charts for gallop, tremolo, alternate picking and blast beats, drums at the tempo you choose and a tempo suggestion after every run.
Which keys do I use, and can I play on my phone?
You choose between A S D F, D F J K, arrow keys and 1 2 3 4, or tap the lanes on the screen, so you can play by touch on a phone or tablet. Calibrate the audio delay first, especially with Bluetooth headphones.
Does Riff Hero make me better at guitar?
The game practises rhythm, timing and stamina, not picking technique. Use it for variety, and use Tremolo trainer, Gallop trainer and Alternate picking trainer when you want to train the technique itself.
Related tools
- Gallop trainer: Practice typical metal rhythms: gallop, reverse gallop, triplets and syncopation, at your own tempo.
- Tremolo trainer: Practise tremolo picking with eighth notes, triplets or sixteenth notes on one or more strings.
- Brutality Meter: Measure how brutal a riff is, with sub-scores for tremolo, chugs, dissonance and melody. Unscientific but honest.
- Daily Riff: A new riff every day, the same for everyone, with tab, playback and a streak for the days you practised.
- Gothenburg Compliance Test: Test whether a riff follows the rules of melodic death metal: twin harmony, minor key, pedal tone and sequence.
- Riff Weather: Tonight's riff forecast: key, weather and the chance of harmonised guitars, with a playable forecast riff.