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What is Konga Beat?
Konga Beat is a custom track editor for Donkey Konga 2 and 3. It allows you to import songs (MP3s or WAVs), write scores, and export them as DK2/3-compatible tracks. You can then play those tracks in DK2/3. This is already doable with the combination of Reaper and a string of community conversion tools, but my hope is that Konga Beat will make the process of creating custom tracks easier than doing all that manually.
To give some background, in 2019, my friends and I discussed cover songs in music rhythm games. It started with Lego Rock Band and finally settled into a conversation about Donkey Konga, specifically, the very questionable cover of Smash Mouth's All-Star. Having already spent some time poking around 1080 Avalanche, I contemplated if it would be possible to replace the covers with the originals. One thing led to another, and I figured out a way to not just replace the audio but create entirely new custom tracks in Donkey Konga 2 and 3 using a combination of Reaper and community-made tools.
The particulars of creating a DK2-compatible track made the process of authoring a track in Reaper less than ideal.1 Nothing felt quite right, and frankly, I wasn't happy with how long it took to make my custom score for my own custom score for Toxic by Britney Spears. It was going to take weeks!
Naturally, to address this problem, I spent the next four-ish years working on a custom editor.
To be totally fair, it wasn't four straight years. The bulk of development happened in mid-2020 and late 2023. Between work, school, and a host of world-changing events, there were long stretches of sporadic development. In fact, an entire year flew by during which I didn't work on the project at all. Despite the temptation to pursue other projects during that time, I stubbornly insisted on following Konga Beat to completion.
Now, Konga Beat is ready to share with the world. Just in time for Donkey Konga 2's 20th anniversary!
1 To get an idea of how the process would work, check out dotcomboom's Donkey Konga 2 modding guide. Their writeup is very close to the steps I had to go through to make a custom track.
What games does Konga Beat support?
Konga Beat fully supports Donkey Konga 2 (US and EU) and Donkey Konga 3. It also has partial support for the Japanese version of Donkey Konga 2.
Why does Konga Beat only partially support the Japanese version of Donkey Konga 2?
You can author tracks and create game-compatible files without any issue. However, unlike later releases of Donkey Konga 2, it does not manage the library through SongInfo.res. Instead, the everything is packed into Start.dol. Unless you can modify Start.dol, track information like the song title and artist for the shipping songs cannot be overwritten. While other folks like RadioTales have figured out the process for working with Start.dol, it isn't something I have dabbled in very much. I would like to fully support the Japanese version in the future, but for now Konga Beat fully supports the American and European versions of Donkey Konga 2.
Can I use the DK bongos in Konga Beat?
Not yet! But I would like to include bongo support in the near future.
That said, any tracks made using Konga Beat will work with the DK bongos in the Donkey Konga games themselves.
Will Konga Beat eventually work with Donkey Konga 1 or any other Namco rhythm games?
Before hammering out the process for creating custom tracks in the later Donkey Konga games, I originally figured out how to produce custom notes in Donkey Konga. Unlike some of the later games, Donkey Konga 1 hardcodes a lot of the information about its song library. It also handles its track files very differently from Donkey Konga 2 and 3, making modifications more challenging. I would like to add Donkey Konga support eventually, but I don't have a concrete timeline.
As far as other Namco rhythm games, I don't have any plans for Konga Beat to support anything beyond the Donkey Konga games.
Where can I get help? Is there an official Discord server?
If you run into any bugs, have feature requests, or just want to share what you've been working on, check out the forum! I'm stubbornly refusing to make a Discord server because I would rather all of the resources be easily accessible and searchable without needing to join a server and depend Discord's awful search tools. Also, I don't think there would be a big enough community to necessitate a dedicated Discord server anyway.
Why did you build Konga Beat in C# and Unity and not language X and/or framework Y?
When I started this project, I only knew how to build a GUI app in Unity, and I was eager to begin working on Konga Beat immediately. Picking Unity as the foundation for this project was the natural choice. Knowing what I know now, if I started this project today, I wouldn't use Unity. That said, while not ideal, Unity is still good enough to see this project through to completion, and I would rather finish this project than restart from scratch in a new environment.
Does Konga Beat have telemetry or collect any analytics data?
Konga Beat does not collect user data other than reporting the current version number when the user visits this webpage using the update reminder tool. However, the project is built in Unity and may include engine-level trackers beyond my ability to remove. This website and forum use Matomo to collect anonymized traffic data.
How can I support the project?
I'm not accepting donations, but the project is open to feedback and bug reports. This is my first hobby project of this size, so please be patient as I figure out the process for giving input.
What's next for Konga Beat?
I took on this project for fun and have zero expectations about how many folks will use it. If even one person makes a custom track, the project will be more successful than I ever envisioned. As far as updates, in the short term, I want to address any bugs and stability issues that pop up as more folks get their hands on Konga Beat. If this project develops a following, I'll work on addressing any problems and requests brought up by the community.