Hololive Dreams Create Chart Tutorial: Full Guide

The Create Chart editor is one of hololive Dreams's most ambitious launch features — a built-in rhythm chart designer that lets you author and upload custom charts to the official rotation. This hololive Dreams Create Chart tutorial walks you through the editor interface, note placement fundamentals, BPM calibration, difficulty tagging, and the official submission pipeline that determines which community charts appear in the global song pool. By the end you should be able to author a 90-second Normal-difficulty chart for any of the 150+ base songs.

How the Create Chart Editor Is Structured

The Create Chart editor in hololive Dreams runs in three layered screens: a song picker that loads the audio waveform of any song you own in your library, a chart canvas that lets you place notes on a timeline synced to the waveform, and a playtest mode that runs the chart against the rhythm engine exactly as it would run in a normal rhythm mode session. Each layer has its own toolbar, and you can save unfinished charts as drafts and resume them later. Drafts are stored locally first and uploaded to the cloud only when you explicitly submit them, which means you can experiment freely without affecting your published chart count.

The editor's coordinate system uses bars and beats rather than absolute time, which means a chart you author at one BPM can be tempo-warped to a different BPM without manually re-placing notes. The downside is that authors who are used to absolute-time editors (like Stepmania or ArrowVortex) need to recalibrate their timing instincts. The community wiki has a one-page reference card that lists the keyboard shortcuts for the editor; print it out or keep it on a second monitor for your first session. According to community testing on the official Discord, the average first chart takes 2-3 hours to author and another 1-2 hours to playtest and refine.

The fourth panel of the editor is the difficulty preview, which simulates the chart at Easy / Normal / Hard / Expert / Master density by thinning or densifying the note placement algorithmically. This preview is approximate — a chart authored at Hard will not automatically feel right at Expert just by switching the tag — but it gives you a rough sense of how the chart reads at other tiers and helps you avoid accidental tier-mismatch during playtest.

Place Notes on Downbeats First, Build Density in Layers

The most efficient chart-authoring workflow is to start with downbeats (the strong beats on every fourth beat), then layer eighth notes, then add sixteenth-note density, then sprinkle flick notes and hold notes. Trying to author a chart with all note types from scratch usually produces a chart that is rhythmically incoherent because you have not built the underlying beat structure first. Lay down the downbeats for a full song first (this takes 15-20 minutes for a 3-minute song), playtest it to confirm the timing feels right, then add the eighth notes in the next pass.

The second pass should add rhythmic phrases that match the song's natural structure — vocal phrases, melodic hooks, drum fills. Hololive Dreams charts that feel "musical" rather than mechanical always use phrase-based note placement, while charts that feel like a chart generator produced them are usually just dense note streams with no phrase logic. Reference how the official hololive Dreams charts handle vocal lines — they tend to spike note density during the chorus and thin out during verses — and try to mirror that pattern in your own charts. Community-recognized chart authors tend to use this phrase-aware approach and their charts get upvoted faster in the Create Chart voting system.

A third pass should focus on burst design — the 2-4 second sections where the song peaks rhythmically and the chart should spike density. Bursts are where most players will either love or hate your chart, so spend disproportionate time getting them right. The community-tested rule is that bursts should match the song's energy curve: chorus bursts should be densest, bridge sections should breathe, and post-chorus drops should spike and quickly settle. For reference patterns, our chart difficulty guide shows the burst density ratios that players rate highest.

Calibrate BPM and Timing Offset Before Publishing

The single most common mistake new chart authors make is failing to calibrate the BPM and timing offset before publishing, which causes the chart to feel "off" by 50-100 milliseconds even when individual notes look correctly placed. Hololive Dreams's editor lets you set a global BPM and a per-chart timing offset, and the offset lets you shift every note forward or backward by a configurable millisecond amount. The offset is critical because the audio waveform and the chart timeline can drift by up to 100ms depending on your device's audio engine.

To calibrate, place a single tap note exactly on a strong downbeat (usually the first kick drum hit), playtest, and observe whether the note lands "early" or "late" relative to the audio. If it lands early, increase the offset by 10ms increments; if late, decrease. Five iterations usually lands the offset within 5ms of perfect. Charts with poor calibration get downvoted quickly in the community voting because players can tell something feels wrong even if they cannot articulate what, and a chart with great note design but bad calibration will rarely survive the voting round. For more on community chart voting, see our Create Chart upload guide.

A second calibration step is the snap quantization check. The editor lets you snap notes to a fixed grid (1/4, 1/8, 1/16), and most new authors default to 1/16 grid, which produces charts that feel mechanical and over-quantized. Songs with swing or shuffle rhythms benefit from 1/12 or 1/24 grids, and ballads benefit from 1/8 grids with intentional micro-offsets. Spend 10 minutes testing different grid settings on a single phrase to find the one that feels right for your song.

Tag Difficulty Honestly to Match Community Expectations

The editor lets you tag your chart as one of five difficulty tiers — Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert, or Master — and the community expectation for each tier is roughly the same as the official charts. Tagging a chart as Easy when it has 250 notes per minute will get it downvoted for false advertising, while tagging a legitimately Hard chart as Normal because "it feels easier than the official" will frustrate players who queue into it expecting a Normal-difficulty experience. Be honest about the tier, and if you are unsure, default to the tier above your guess (because players forgive over-tagged difficulty more than they forgive under-tagged difficulty).

The community voting system weights honesty heavily: a chart tagged accurately but with average note design will usually outrank a chart with great note design but mis-tagged difficulty. The first week of the Create Chart feature saw several charts removed from the rotation for difficulty mis-tagging, and the official moderator team has been transparent that they will continue to enforce this. For a deeper look at how community charts get promoted to the official rotation, see our Create Chart upload guide.

Submit Your Chart for Community Voting

Once your chart is authored and calibrated, you submit it through the Submit Chart button, which uploads it to the community voting queue. Community voting lasts 72 hours, during which other players can upvote, downvote, or flag your chart for difficulty mis-tagging. Charts with a positive net vote count and no active flags get promoted to the Community Charts rotation, where they appear in the normal song pool for all players for roughly two weeks. Top-voted charts get a longer rotation slot and a "Featured Community Chart" badge that boosts their visibility further.

The voting window is competitive — according to the official weekly report, only about 15% of submitted charts clear the community voting threshold each week, and the average chart receives 40-60 votes. To maximize your chart's vote count, share it on social media with the in-game share link, post a 30-second preview clip to the hololive Dreams subreddit, and tag the chart with relevant phrases like "vocal-phrase chart" or "stream-friendly" so voters know what they are clicking into. For deeper strategy on chart promotion, our Create Chart upload guide has the full promotion workflow and the seasonal rotation calendar.

Players seeking the authoritative reference on this topic should check the hololive Dreams on Steam. This approach is consistent with the optimal progression path identified by veteran players. This approach is consistent with the optimal progression path identified by veteran players.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I unlock the Create Chart editor in hololive Dreams?

The Create Chart editor unlocks at account level 15 after completing the tutorial and the first rhythm quest chain, usually within your first 3 to 5 hours of play. There is no separate purchase or gacha requirement to access the editor, though some advanced tools like the bulk note transformer unlock later at account level 25.

What format does the Create Chart editor export in hololive Dreams?

Charts are saved in a proprietary .hdchart format that only the official game client can read, so you cannot export them to Stepmania or ArrowVortex. You can, however, import .sm or .osz files from Stepmania into the editor, which is useful if you want to port existing community charts from other rhythm games.

How does the community chart voting work in hololive Dreams?

Submitted charts enter a 72-hour voting window where other players can upvote or downvote them, and flagged charts are reviewed by a community moderator before disqualification. Charts with a positive net vote count and no active flags get promoted to the Community Charts rotation, where they appear in the song pool for roughly two weeks before falling off.

How long does it take to make a chart in hololive Dreams?

The average first chart takes 2 to 3 hours to author and another 1 to 2 hours to playtest and refine. Experienced chart authors can produce a 3-minute Hard chart in 60 to 90 minutes once they are familiar with the editor shortcuts.

Chart Author Tools Comparison

Different chart editor tools serve different needs, and understanding which tool to reach for saves significant time per chart. Players who apply this consistently achieve stronger long-term results than reactive players. Players who apply this consistently achieve stronger long-term results than reactive players.

Common Chart Submission Mistakes to Avoid

Avoid these mistakes in your first charts because they trigger community downvotes and reduce your chart's promotion chances. The recommended cadence is to verify progress weekly during the first month of play. The recommended cadence is to verify progress weekly during the first month of play.