Load it up — your own songs included.

Make your own songs

You chart a song by placing arrows on a timeline synced to the music. The standard tool is ArrowVortex — a free, dedicated editor that auto-detects BPM, shows a waveform, and makes placing steps fast. (The in-game editor works too, but it's bare-bones — everyone uses ArrowVortex.)

Step 0 — Prep the audio (use OGG, not MP3)

MP3 adds a tiny silent gap at the start and drifts out of sync over a song — the #1 cause of "my chart slowly goes off." Convert to OGG first (from the highest-quality source you have):

No ffmpeg? Audacity → File → Export → OGG (quality 6) does the same. ArrowVortex can also convert internally, but doing it first lets you trim/level.

Step 1 — Folder structure

A song must live two folders deep — inside a pack. Make a "My Charts" pack:

Step 2 — Chart it in ArrowVortex

Golden rule: lock the sync before you place a single note. If you re-sync after charting, every note is now in the wrong place.

1. Open the song

   Drag the song folder onto ArrowVortex. Set Title/Artist/your credit in Shift+P (Properties).

2. Find the BPM

   Shift+S (Adjust Sync) → Find BPM. If it offers two numbers, pick the one matching the song's obvious pulse. Apply it. ArrowVortex is reliable for BPM — but you set the offset yourself.

3. Set the offset (the sync)

   Switch to C-mod / time-based view and open the waveform (Shift+W, enable the filtered overlay). Nudge "move first beat" until beat 1's line sits on the first downbeat's waveform spike. Turn on the beat tick (F3) and play — the tick should land on every beat. Off by a half-beat is the classic mistake; shift ±0.5.

4. Verify no drift

   Scroll the whole song in C-mod. If beat lines slowly slide off the waveform, the BPM is slightly wrong (or half/double) — fix it before charting.

5. Create a chart & place notes

   Shift+N → Dance Single (4-panel), pick a difficulty + meter rating. Set the snap with ←/→ (4th, 8th, 16th, 12th). Place arrows with 1 2 3 4 = Left/Down/Up/Right; hold a key and drag for holds; two at once = a jump.

   1 Left2 Down3 Up4 RightSpace play/pause

6. Set the preview & save

   In Properties, set the sample start/length (the clip that plays on song select). Save with Ctrl+S as .sm for max compatibility (use .ssc only if you need per-chart BPM changes or scroll gimmicks).

Step 3 — Test & fine-tune in-game

Copy the song folder into ITGmania's Songs/My Charts/, launch, and play it. If it feels off only on this song, press F6 mid-play (AutoSync Song), step to the music, and save the suggestion — then put that offset back into ArrowVortex and re-save. Chart for a 0 ms baseline (don't bake in the old ITG "9 ms bias"); leave display-lag compensation to the machine's global offset.

Add ready-made packs

A "pack" is a folder of songs. Drop it into your Songs/ folder and restart — the game rescans on launch. No installing.

Where the Songs folder is

Unzip so the top level is the pack folder, copy it in (Songs/PackName/SongName/), restart. Tip: AdditionalSongFolders= in Preferences.ini can point at a shared/external songs drive.

Free pack sources

Most community packs include the audio. Many use copyrighted music shared for personal use; Club Fantastic is the fully-free exception by design.

Other games you can play

The pad is just a USB controller — a handful of buttons. Anything that takes controller or keyboard input can use it. The 9-panel Cobalt Flux even gives you extra buttons most pads don't have.

Get the tools