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The Rocktimizer

How to read path descriptions

Need some help understanding path notation? This page has a more detailed description that should help

Guitar & Bass Paths

1. The number of overdrive phrases acquired before activating, as well as how many of those phrases are unison bonuses.
2. The number of overdrive phrases acquired while in overdrive, as well as how many of those phrases are unison bonuses.
3. The chord at the point of activation, as well as how many times that chord appears before the activation point

In addition, the main summary shows the measure number for each activation. Let's take a look at the first guitar activation in Alice in Chains's "Man in the Box " as an example.

Now let's look at the path image to make sure the listed path lines up with what happens in the song. We'll show all four instruments. The guitar is the second line from the top.

Here's the first unison bonus at measure 6. We don't need to start counting G notes quite yet.

Okay, here's the second activation at measures 13-14. Measure 16 has the 1st G.

There are two G notes in measure 18, bringing the count up to 3. There are 4 more in 19, taking the count up to 7. 4 more in measure 20 takes us to 11. In measure 21, we have the 12th and 13th Gs. After the 13th is a GYB chord, followed by the activation at the 14th G. You can see that the activation is in the third beat of measure 21. Let's keep going to see what happens before the guitar drops out of OD. Already in measure 22 the guitar picks up one OD phrase.

There's the unison bonus at measure 28th. At this point, there should be no more overdrive phrases until after the guitarist has already dropped out of OD.

The guitar has dropped out of OD, just like the path said. Hooray!

Drum Paths

Kawigi's drum paths include instructions on how to read shorthand drum paths.

Vocal Paths

Scorehero has a thread describing how to read vocal paths. I'll put up a more detailed version soon