PSARC Importer

A standalone add-on for The String Theory that converts Rocksmith 2014 .psarc files into .theory packages. Built with .NET 8 and Rocksmith2014.NET.

Features

• Convert single .psarc files or batch-convert entire directories
• Cross-platform GUI (Avalonia) with folder pickers and progress display
• CLI for automation and integration with The String Theory
• Automatic output naming from song metadata ({Artist} - {Title}.theory)
• Skip existing files and detect duplicates by metadata in batch mode

Prerequisites

• .NET 9 SDK (required to build the net8.0 target; includes net8.0 targeting packs)
• Git (with LFS support recommended for large .psarc test files)

Clone & Build

# Clone with submodules
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/odejesush/PsarcImporter.git
cd PsarcImporter

# If you already cloned without --recurse-submodules:
# git submodule update --init --recursive

# Restore and build (NuGet audit is disabled via Directory.Build.props)
dotnet restore src/PsarcImporter/PsarcImporter.csproj /p:NuGetAudit=false
dotnet build src/PsarcImporter/PsarcImporter.csproj /p:NuGetAudit=false

The submodule lib/Rocksmith2014.NET is pinned at tag v3.5.0.

Publish

# Windows
dotnet publish src/PsarcImporter/PsarcImporter.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained -o publish/win-x64 /p:NuGetAudit=false

# macOS (Intel)
dotnet publish src/PsarcImporter/PsarcImporter.csproj -c Release -r osx-x64 --self-contained -o publish/osx-x64 /p:NuGetAudit=false

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
dotnet publish src/PsarcImporter/PsarcImporter.csproj -c Release -r osx-arm64 --self-contained -o publish/osx-arm64 /p:NuGetAudit=false

Installing in The String Theory

1. Build the importer for your platform (see Publish above).

2. Copy the published output folder into the game's importers directory:

   Platform	Install Path
   Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\StringTheory\StringTheory\Importers\psarc-importer\
   macOS	~/Library/Application Support/StringTheory/Importers/psarc-importer/

3. Verify the folder contains:

   • importer.json (add-on manifest)
   • PsarcImporter.exe (Windows) or PsarcImporter (macOS)
   • All required .dll and runtime files

4. Launch The String Theory — the add-on is auto-discovered and registered for .psarc files.

CLI Usage

Single File Mode

PsarcImporter --source "D:\dlc\Song.psarc" --output "C:\Songs\Song.theory"

Batch Directory Mode

Point --source at a directory to convert all .psarc files in it:

PsarcImporter --source "D:\Games\Rocksmith 2014 Edition - Remastered\dlc" --output "C:\Users\You\AppData\LocalLow\StringTheory\StringTheory\Songs"

Output filenames are derived from song metadata ({Artist} - {Title}.theory). Existing files are skipped.

Arguments

Argument	Description
--source {path}	Path to .psarc file or directory containing .psarc files (required)
--output {path}	Path to write .theory package, or output directory in batch mode (required)
--work {path}	Temporary working directory (optional, defaults to %TEMP%\PsarcImporter_<GUID>)
--force	Skip metadata duplicate detection in batch mode (optional)

Exit codes: 0 on success, 1 on failure, 2 for invalid arguments.

Batch mode automatically detects duplicate songs by reading manifest.json from existing .theory files in the output directory. Songs with matching title and artist are skipped. Use --force to bypass this check and re-import duplicates. Failed files are listed by name with error messages after the batch summary.

GUI

A cross-platform GUI is available in the src/PsarcImporter.Gui project:

# Build and run the GUI
dotnet run --project src/PsarcImporter.Gui/PsarcImporter.Gui.csproj

# Publish GUI for Windows
dotnet publish src/PsarcImporter.Gui/PsarcImporter.Gui.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained -o publish/gui-win-x64 /p:NuGetAudit=false

The GUI provides:

• Folder browser pickers for source and output directories
• Checkbox list of detected .psarc files
• Progress bar and status messages during conversion
• Select All / Deselect All controls

Project Structure

PsarcImporter/
├── Directory.Build.props       # Disables NuGet audit warnings
├── lib/
│   └── Rocksmith2014.NET/      # Git submodule (v3.5.0)
├── src/
│   ├── PsarcImporter/
│   │   ├── importer.json        # Add-on manifest
│   │   ├── Program.cs           # Entry point & CLI parsing
│   │   ├── PsarcConverter.cs    # Orchestrator
│   │   ├── TheoryPackageWriter.cs # .theory ZIP writer + models
│   │   ├── Conversion/
│   │   │   ├── ArtworkConverter.cs   # DDS → PNG (raw encoder)
│   │   │   ├── AudioConverter.cs     # WEM → OGG
│   │   │   ├── MacWemAudioConverter.cs # macOS WEM decoder
│   │   │   └── ToneExtractor.cs      # Tone definition extraction
│   │   └── Models/
│   │       ├── ArrangementBuilder.cs # Variant building
│   │       ├── CachedModels.cs       # Cached song format models
│   │       ├── NoteBuilder.cs        # Note conversion logic
│   │       ├── ParsedArrangement.cs  # Arrangement context models
│   │       └── TimingExporter.cs     # Timing data extraction
│   └── PsarcImporter.Gui/       # Avalonia GUI front-end
│       ├── PsarcImporter.Gui.csproj
│       ├── Program.cs
│       ├── App.axaml
│       ├── ViewModels/
│       │   └── MainWindowViewModel.cs
│       └── Views/
│           ├── MainWindow.axaml
│           └── MainWindow.axaml.cs
├── tests/
│   └── PsarcImporter.Tests/     # xUnit tests
└── README.md

License

Subject to the same license terms as Rocksmith2014.NET (LGPL-3.0).