Clone Hero guide: music videos, lyrics, charts and library tips

Practical, step-by-step answers for getting more out of Clone Hero. Each section shows the quick way with Clone Hero Companion, a free open source app for macOS, Windows and Linux, and explains what happens to your files so you know what you are doing either way.

How to add music videos to Clone Hero

Clone Hero can play a video behind the note highway, but most charts do not include one. Finding a good music video, downloading it and lining it up with the chart's audio is slow to do by hand. Clone Hero Companion does it for as many songs as you select.

Turn on videos in the game. In Clone Hero open Settings, Custom Content and switch on Song Videos.
Download and open Clone Hero Companion. On the Game & folders screen confirm the game, its data folder (the one that holds settings.ini and Logs) and your song folders. Use Browse for any other location or drive.
Select songs. Click, Shift-click or Cmd/Ctrl-click, or press Cmd/Ctrl-A for everything shown. The No video and Video below 640p filters show what still needs one.
Press Run, choose what to get (video, lyrics, metadata) and press Start. For each song the app finds the official music video on YouTube, downloads it, and lines it up with the chart by matching the video's soundtrack against the chart's audio.
Play. Keep the app open while you play: it follows Clone Hero's log file and starts preparing a song as soon as you highlight it in the song list, so songs you browse are ready next time.

The Clone Hero Companion library with video quality and lyrics status for each song — The library shows video quality and lyrics status per song, so you can see what still needs a video.

What counts as a good video

Only 640p or better is accepted (720p preferred, 1080p optional). Quality is measured the way YouTube labels it, max(height, width × 9/16), so a widescreen 1280×526 video counts as 720p, while 854×480 and 640×480 are rejected. Still-image "album art" videos are skipped too. If nothing qualifies, the song is marked none found instead of getting a poor video.

If a video is early, late or the wrong one

Select the song, press Preview, drag the Video slider until picture and audio line up, and press Save sync to game. You can also pick a different candidate (only HD ones are offered) or paste a YouTube link of your own in the song panel. Some live or extended versions cannot be matched automatically, so a manual nudge is normal for those.

The sync editor previewing a music video with video and lyrics sliders — The sync editor: preview the video against the song and nudge it until it lines up.

Every file the app changes is backed up first (*.chc-backup), and Undo changes restores the originals. Videos and their alignment do not affect your scores.

How to add lyrics to Clone Hero songs

Charts with a vocals part already show lyrics in Clone Hero. For the rest, Clone Hero Companion can add them.

Keep Lyrics on in Clone Hero's settings.
In the library use the No lyrics filter and select the songs you want.
Press Run, make sure Lyrics is ticked, and press Start. Time-synced lyrics from LRCLIB are written into the chart and aligned to the chart's own audio.
If they are early or late, open the song panel, press Preview, drag the Lyrics slider and press Save sync to game.

Where the lyrics go depends on the chart format: for a song folder they are written as the vocals track in notes.mid or as events in notes.chart, and for a .sng package the same changes are made inside the package.

Scores: adding lyrics changes the chart file, so Clone Hero starts a fresh high-score list for that chart. Your old scores come back if you undo. To leave charts untouched, turn off Settings, In the game, Lyrics in the app. Lyrics are only ever added to songs that have none.

The same lyrics, with the video, appear on the karaoke-style Now Playing screen, which you can open in its own window or fullscreen on a second monitor, TV or stream.

How to download Clone Hero charts (Chorus Encore, RhythmVerse)

Charts are the song files Clone Hero plays. The two big community libraries are Chorus Encore and RhythmVerse, and Clone Hero Companion can search both from one screen.

Open Get charts and search. Filter by instrument and difficulty and choose how to sort.
Press the play button on a result to preview the chart's audio before downloading.
Press download. The app installs .sng, .zip and .7z files into your song folder, including links hosted on Google Drive, Mediafire and Dropbox. .rar works too when an unrar tool or 7-Zip is installed.
Optionally let the app add the video, lyrics and metadata right after the download.
In Clone Hero run Settings, Scan Songs so the game sees the new charts.

Chart search across Chorus Encore and RhythmVerse with instrument and difficulty filters — Searching Chorus Encore and RhythmVerse from the Get charts page.

Got a Spotify playlist?

Paste a public playlist link and the app looks for a chart for every song and marks the ones you already own, so you only download what is missing.

Downloading by hand

You can also download from either site in your browser. Put the .sng file, or the extracted chart folder, inside one of your song folders, then run Scan Songs in Clone Hero. Clone Hero Companion will then list it and can add the video, lyrics and metadata.

Clone Hero video background formats (WebM and MP4, per OS)

You do not have to convert anything when you use Clone Hero Companion, because it saves the format that works on your system. Here is what it writes.

System	Video file	Notes
macOS 11+	`video.mp4` (H.264)	One universal build for Apple Silicon and Intel.
Windows 10 / 11	`video.mp4` (H.264)	Nothing else to install; ffmpeg is bundled.
Linux x64	`video.webm` (VP8)	The format Clone Hero plays on Linux.

Song folders: the video sits next to the chart as video.mp4 or video.webm, and its offset is stored as video_start_time in song.ini.
.sng packages: the video and its alignment are added inside the package.
Resolution: 640p or better is accepted, 720p preferred and 1080p optional. Bigger files cost more disk space and decode time, so 720p is a good default for a large library.

If you add a video yourself, use the file names above for your system, then use the song panel's Preview and Save sync to game to set the start offset. The videos themselves are fetched from YouTube, so the original upload decides the source quality.

Organise a big Clone Hero library (duplicates, setlists, favourites)

Once you have thousands of charts, finding things matters more than collecting them. These tools are all in Clone Hero Companion's library.

Search, filter and sort

The list stays fast with thousands of songs. Search, filter by No video, Video below 640p, No lyrics, Favourites, Recently added or Disabled, and sort on any column. One-click metadata fills in album, year, genre, length and high-resolution album art.

Find and remove duplicates

The duplicate finder lists the same song charted more than once so you can keep the version you prefer and move the rest to the Trash. It is the quickest way to shrink a collection built from many chart packs.

The duplicate chart finder listing songs charted more than once — The duplicate finder groups charts of the same song.

Setlists

Create and edit Clone Hero setlists straight from your library, for example one per party, band or difficulty. After changing a setlist, restart Clone Hero to see it.

Favourites, inside the game too

Star a song with one click, or press F. The app keeps a Favourites setlist in sync, so the same list is one click away in Clone Hero. Signing in is optional; if you do, favourites sync between your computers and a new machine can reinstall them all with Install all.

The favourites view, including songs in your cloud that are not on this machine — The Favourites view, with songs from your cloud that are not on this machine yet.

Tidy folders and keep the game fast

Disable songs you do not want in the game; they are moved out of Clone Hero's way and can be brought back.
Rename folders by template so every chart follows the same pattern.
Export chart packs as a .zip to share or back up a group of songs.

Download Clone Hero Companion

Free and open source (GPL-3.0). More on what Clone Hero Companion can do, the frequently asked questions, or the privacy policy.