Choosing a Song

As a GD creator, you have many options for your levels' songs. You can grab songs from Newgrounds, the music library, or even use a NONG (Not On NewGrounds) from websites like SongFileHub. Here are a couple of ways to do that. 

1. Open your editor's Level Settings, and note the Select Song text at the center of the screen. Normal songs are used in the main levels, while Custom ones are available through multiple means. For now, Click the Custom button, then the Select Custom Song one.

2. You can select a Newgrounds song by entering the Song ID, or choosing one from your saved songs if you've downloaded custom songs from levels you play. For your saved songs, click the Saved button in the bottom right, then choose a song accordingly.

3. To find the Song ID for a Newgrounds song, visit the Newgrounds.com audio portal and select a song. The ID is the number at the end of the URL (newgrounds.com/audio/listen/[ID]). Back in GD, copy this number into the textbox, click Search, and a card for the song should appear for you to use the song.

Newgrounds requires music artists to be whitelisted and enable external use on their songs before you can download them in GD. This is thanks to prior abuses of the custom song system. There was a time when kids would reupload copyrighted music into GD for their own use, which goes against Newgrounds' terms of service and is generally a risky thing to do.

Clicking the blue Artists button inside GD will lead you to some of these whitelisted artists, but not all of them. There's also a green Newgrounds button you can use to open the site.

If you're a music artist who wants to be whitelisted, you need to get scouted by another whitelisted artist. After that, you need to ask an Elder Moderator to manually whitelist you. For example, SirHadoken has a Google Form where you can request a whitelist.

The Music Library is a new Update 2.2 system which lets you select songs from pre-approved artists. There are a variety of artists available here, such as Camellia, T-Pazolite, and most NCS songs.

1. Open Level Settings again, go to Custom, and click Select Custom Song. Click the pink Music Library button.

2. Select and download a song here. You can use the Search button at the top left to find a specific song, the Filter button in the top right to filter by genres, and the Music Note button below it to search by artist.

3. As with the Saved Songs interface, click the Use button to use your song, and the Music Playtest button to its right to hear it play. The slider at the very top lets you skip through the song & quickly listen to different parts.

Newgrounds and the music library offer a lot of song choices, but they are still quite limited. If you want to use a custom song outside these options, you can replace the song files on your device.

This is where NONG songs come from, but they do have limits - namely, other people will need to replace their song files if they want to hear the same music as you. Levels using NONG songs also tend not to get rated as highly if the default replacement song doesn't match the level well - that is, the song people would hear before using the NONG one.

1. Download the .mp3 file for your song. This must be the file format for your song or this will not work. You can download these files through apps like 4K Video Downloader, or convert existing files to .mp3 with sites like CloudConvert, but be careful as some conversion sites are malicious.

2. GD has two places to potentially save songs, depending on if you use the Change Song Location setting or not. If you don't use it, your songs will be in the file path C:\Users\offic\AppData\Local\GeometryDash.
   If you do use it, your songs will be in the file path C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Geometry Dash.

3. Right click on your song folder, go to Properties, and disable Read-Only. Click Apply, then drag your custom song that you downloaded into the open folder.

4. Rename the song file to either the song title you wish to replace (e.g. StereoMadness, xStep, ClutterFunk), or the song ID from Newgrounds. Then close the game or move to a place in the game where the song can’t play.

1. Download the .mp3 file for your song. As before, this is the only valid file format.

2. Open a new finder window and press Command+Shift+G. Type in Library/Caches, then click Go when prompted with the text box. This should show you all your GD songs. Drag your custom song that you downloaded into the open folder.

3. Rename the song file to either the song title you wish to replace (e.g. StereoMadness, xStep, ClutterFunk), or the song ID from Newgrounds. Then close the game or move to a place in the game where the song can’t play.

Using NONG songs on Android is a bit different than on Windows or Mac. For this to work, you need to install a mod menu.

1. Download the .mp3 file for your song. As before, this is the only valid file format.

2. Download the Android Mod Menu from Italian APK Downloader - the link for download is in the description, but be careful which buttons you click on this site. Then install the APK.

3. In your files app, navigate to the GD Mods and then the Songs folder. Drag your custom song that you downloaded into the open folder.

4. Rename the song file to either the song title you wish to replace (e.g. StereoMadness, xStep, Clutterfunk), or the song ID from Newgrounds. Then close the game or move to a place in the game where the song can’t play.
   In the editor, the song card should have changed to something like the image below.

A song’s offset is where it starts playing in game. For instance, Bloodbath (which uses At the Speed of Light) has an offset of 81 seconds. This means that the game skips the first 81 seconds of the song, and starts playing at the 81 second offset whenever there is a new attempt.

1. Open your editor's Level Settings and go to the custom song selection page, as described in the Newgrounds section. Click the gear button in the top right, below the Help button.

2. You should see a box labeled "Start Offset" here. You can enter any start offset with precision of up to two decimal places. Test your offset by using the Music Playtest button to the right.

3. The Fade In and Fade Out buttons at the bottom let the song fade in as you start the level, and fade out as you complete it.