Songs

Song format

• An UltraStar song consists of at least
  • (a) an audio file
  • (b) a txt file (plain text file) with information about the song (audio file, artist, title, lyrics, notes, etc.)
  • other files are optional (cover image, background video, etc.)

Adding songs

Download archive

• Use can use the download feature to let UltraStar Play download and unpack a song package (ZIP or TAR archive).
  • There is a demo song package with Creative Commons licensed songs that can be downloaded this way

Add existing songs

• If you already have all files of an UltraStar song, you can
  • add a new song folder in the settings that points to your UltraStar song
    • Android requires songs to be stored in special folders for security reasons. The required folder is named in the song library options.
  • or add your UltraStar song to an existing song folder

Create own songs

• You can create the txt file for a new UltraStar song using the integrated song editor of UltraStar Play.

Finding Songs

Downloading Archives

ZIP and TAR files can be downloaded in-game. These are extracted automatically after download.

In particular, any GitHub repository with songs can be downloaded as ZIP file.

Example archives that can be downloaded in-game:

• https://github.com/UltraStar-Deluxe/songs-stream/archive/refs/heads/main.zip
  • GitHub repository with few Creative Commons licensed songs.
  • This archive does not contain media files. Instead, the songs link to media files of the UltraStar-Deluxe/songs repository for streaming. As a result, this archive has a small initial download size.
• https://github.com/UltraStar-Deluxe/songs/archive/refs/heads/main.zip
  • GitHub repository with several Creative Commons licensed songs.
  • This archive includes all media files.
• https://42.usplay.net/ultrastar-songs-cc.tar
  • Copy of the UltraStar-Deluxe/songs archive (see above) but as a TAR file.

GitHub Repositories with UltraStar Songs (txt files only)

The following repositories do not include audio or video files. They contain only the UltraStar txt file with notes and lyrics.

• razzertronic/usdx-songs
• derco0n/UltrastarSongs
• Vasil-Pahomov/UltraStarSongs

Song Websites

There are several third party websites that offer UltraStar song downloads.

Please bear in mind that any song, video, lyrics, music score, etc. may be copyright protected in your country.

• UltraStar-es (has also non-spanish songs): https://ultrastar-es.org/en/canciones
• usdb.eu: https://usdb.eu/
• usdb.animux.de (txt files only): http://usdb.animux.de/
  • usdb_syncer is a tool that can be used to download songs from usdb.animux.de, including the audio, video, and image files when specified in the txt file.
• Index of all UltraStar songs available in several databases (as of 2017): https://usdb.hehoe.de/
• Performous: http://performous.org/songs
• UltraStar Altervista (italian): http://ultrastar.altervista.org/
• My Little Karaoke: https://mylittlekaraoke.com
  • Includes a large collection of songs from the My Little Pony series, as well as many community created songs. The songs must be downloaded using an installer for an UltraStar Deluxe distribution. However, most songs are compatible with UltraStar Play as well.

Creating Songs

UltraStar Play has an integrated song editor.

There are also various other tools to create or convert songs, for example:

• UltraStar Creator
• Performous Composer
• Yass
• UltraTools
• SingStar ripper

For details see the wiki page about tools.

Supported Song Formats

UltraStar Play at the moment supports songs in UltraStar txt format only. This is a simple song format and there are thousands of already created songs.

The UltraStar txt files should be encoded in UTF-8.

You can find details about the format here.

Supported Media Formats

Best results are achieved using ogg or mp3 for audio and mp4 (h264) for video.

For details and other supported formats that might work on your system see here.

Limitations / Known Issues

UltraStar Play at the moment does not support

• using a video file as audio file. In constrast, UltraStar Deluxe works with an mp4 file in the #MP3 field. UltraStar Play does not support this (272).
• the P3 notation to specify lyrics for player 1 and player 2 at the same time. As a workaround, you can copy these parts of your song and use blocks for P1 and P2 respectively.
• the (rarely used) #RELATIVE tag. This tag changes the semantics of time notation in the file.

There are plans to remove the 2 player limitation of the UltraStar txt format. For details see here.