A script for reducing the file size of your Clone Hero songs directory.
You need Python installed. I've developed with 3.10, recent versions should work. Make sure to tick the option in the installer to add Python to your PATH.
Then download or install FFmpeg. If you're on Windows, you can just use the executable bundled with the script in Releases. If you're on Mac or Linux, install it through your package manager so it's accessible on the command line.
On the command line just do
> python compress_songs.py "<Your CH songs directory>"It will convert any mp3, ogg, and wav files present to opus. Additionally, album pngs will be converted to jpg and album jpgs and pngs will be resized so the maximum dimension is 500, if the maximum dimension exceeds 500. For an even smaller gain, files with the names ch.dat, notes.eof, and ps.dat will be deleted.
This job will take a while: on my machine it takes around 7-8 hours to do my 12k songs. And this is with my CPU usage being very high due to doing this. If you have a better machine you may have more luck, if you have more songs it'll take longer. I strongly suggest doing this overnight.
Finally this will make your songs incompatible with v23, due to it not supporting the opus file format. Be aware of this before proceeding.
The most common problem people run into is that even after installation Python will fail to run and instead you'll get some nonsense about the Microsoft Store. If you run into this problem, try the solution mentioned in this SO answer.
The other common problem is being told something like
'python' is not recognized as an internal or external command
which means Python is not on your PATH. The easiest way to fix this is to
uninstall Python, then reinstall it and make sure to tick the option to add
Python to your PATH.
Any bug reports can be filed on the GitHub page or sent to me on Discord. My account is GMS#5303.