Frets on Fire

Ahoy!

If you’re a fan of Guitar Hero (GH), then prepare to raise your goblet of rock! I’ve got a little post for you today that will help you get your GH fix for free…on your PC. Yes for free. No having to go out and spend $90 for the game + guitar. You can do it all at your desk.

So how does this work?

All through the magic of Frets on Fire. Frets on Fire is a Guitar Hero clone, so the player emulates playing the guitar section of a song. Notes appear on the screen, synchronized with the song, and are played by holding the correct “fret buttons” (F1-F5, these are customizable) and pressing the “pick button” (Enter or shift, these are also customizable) at the right moment.

But what about the guitar? Just pick up your keyboard and hold it upside down with the keys facing away from you. With your left hand, grasp the bottom (actually the top since it’s upside down) of the keyboard. You should be able to press the fret buttons (F1 – F5) with your left fingers. Use your right thumb to “strum” the enter and shift keys. Sure, you look a little goofy doing it, but it works great. Just check out the pic on their website to see what it looks like to hold the keyboard.

So that’s all the good stuff. As for the bad…Frets on Fire isn’t doesn’t have as much eye candy as GH. But lets be honest here, if you’re the one playing, you’re just staring at the middle of the screen with the notes anyway. Also, when you download the program, it only comes with three songs. And believe me, you’ve never heard of the bands or the songs they sing. You can think the RIAA for that.

However, this is an open source program. That means fans can create their own content and mods. If you’re musically inclined, it comes with a song creator where you import a song and you create the note patterns. If you own a copy of GH I or GH II on the PS2, you can import all the songs and note patterns using Frets on Fire (note this is a lengthy process). Or if A) you don’t have a copy of the games or B) you’re lazy, then just download the songs using BitTorrent (probably not legal).

Note: These links require a BitTorrent client.

Guitar Hero I songs for Frets on Fire. (276 MB)
Guitar Hero II songs for Frets on Fire. (511 MB)

Additional, fan created popular songs (note: most of these are of hard difficulty):

Frets on Fire Song Pack 1 (210 songs, 1.69 GB)
Frets on Fire Song Pack 2 (222 songs, ~1.75 GB)

As for mods, I recommend the RF Mod v2.42 (3.6 MB).

Finally, if you are looking for more mods, songs, or just need some help with the setup, try the following forums:

Keyboards on Fire (songs, forum)

Frets on Fire forum.

There, that should be everything you need to get started and keep you busy for a while.

Enjoy!

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