A cover version of a song is a song that is recorded by a different artist than the original.
Cover versions are mostly used in Guitar Hero because of an artist not allowing the use of the original Master Track or otherwise not having the master track available. Cover versions are shown with the phrase "as made famous by," for example; "Heart-Shaped Box as made famous by Nirvana" in Guitar Hero II. A majority of covered songs featured in the Guitar Hero series are arranged by WaveGroup Sound, but some music companies like Line 6 assisted in covering some songs in the Guitar Hero: On Tour series.
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock has significantly fewer of cover versions, since Neversoft was able to get more bands to sign up, while the series is now more famous. It should be noted that every bonus song has been a master track except for "She Bangs the Drums" in Guitar Hero III. Steve Ouimette made heavy metal covers of The Charlie Daniels Band's "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", some traditional songs like the Christmas songs "We Three Kings" and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", and some movie songs like "Top Gun Anthem" and "Dueling Banjo".
Every console Guitar Hero game since Guitar Hero World Tour does not contain any covers, although the downloadable tracks "Gimme All Your Lovin" and "Black Betty" are covers. The Guitar Hero: On Tour series still feature cover songs and the Guitar Hero Mobile series features songs covered in MIDI format but may offer downloadable MP3s of the original master tracks.
Remix[]
A remix differs from a normal song cover as remixes use official tracks/sources from the original song(s) to create a new arrangement. While not commonly presented in the Guitar Hero series, the DJ Hero subseries feature many arranged remixes of songs.
Many songs in the DJ Hero series mixes two songs and their tracks into a single mix such as mixing "Beverly Hills" by Weezer with Evidence's "Fresh Rhymes and Videotape", Tears for Fears' "Shout" with Eric Prydz's "Pjanoo", and even Motörhead's "Ace of Spades" with NOISIA's "Groundhog". But mixes of a single song are in the subseries too like the Beat Juggle version of "Groundhog" by NOISIA.