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WARNING! THIS WILL VOID YOUR WARANTY!* Welcome to my Rock Band mod page! I'm testing the button below (that's why I have the digg button as well)
page version: 1.0 (last update:
June 2, 2008 12:21 PM
) Rock Band is a very cool game, and I have been playing it a lot. I never really liked the Rock Band drum pads. The layout is funky and I hit pretty hard. playing with Hot Rods, or lightning Rods help, but it's still not the same. I'd like to point out before I go any further that I do not get a kickback for the sales of any products listed here. I have chosen to link to Guitar Center mostly because that's where I bought the components. They also are one of many companies involved in making Rock Band. My first thought was to just add an electronic bass drum trigger. I already saw a video on YouTube of RockBand being controlled with a V-Drum kit. While this is very cool, I don't have one. Being I am used to playing on a real kit, I found it difficult to play the controller that comes with the game. I started by purchasing the ddrum Red Shot 5-Piece Drum Trigger Pack. The first drum I attached the trigger to is the Bass drum. This seems like it should be the easiest being the Rock Band kit already includes a 1/8 inch jack. But it has been possibly the most difficult to get to work. True, all I need is either a 1/4" to 1/8" cable or a 1/8" to 1/8" cable with an adapter to connect the trigger to the drum set.
I tried using the bass drum as the bass drum trigger but was surprised to find it didn't work. I thought at first the problem could be that I was using a stereo plug for a mono signal. so I tried pulling the plug out partly and holding it on an angle. this was working somewhat but only in bursts. I then realized what I was seeing was just the voltage spike of plugging and unplugging the trigger. At this point, I realized the signal needed to be boosted. I plugged the cable from the ddrum trigger to the mic input of the Roland MA-8 monitors I already had sitting in my apartment.
After adjusting the levels this was working. I will explain later why I have such problems with this setup still. Luckily, I already had a short mono 1/4" cable. It doesn't need to be mono, but it's a mono signal. I found it necessary to tape the cable to the trigger as it didn't take long for the plug to vibrate out of the jack. (I used Gaffer's tape, a bit more expensive than Duct tape, but worth it. try removing duct tape 2 years later with no residue at all)
I then attached the other triggers to the snare, and toms.
initially, I wanted to make sure I didn't void my warranty with the Rock Band kit incase this didn't work. Or at lest try to modify it as little as possible. I carefully removed the pads and pulled out the place where the pads attach. I taped on speaker wire to the solder points and attached those wires to the solder points on the triggers. this wasn't very effective as the connections were weak at best. I decided to take it further and solder audio cables to the kit. using mono cables which were already stripped and soldered on one end, I attached them to each pad's wiring. Thanks goes to Jason who performed the soldering, and very well as I don't know how to nor do I have the desire to learn how. POLARITY MATTERS! please test each connection before soldering.
note, your drum kit will look different than it appears above, I already modified mine before this photo. (sorry)
a close view of the soldering
I found this small access panel on the back of the drums which makes a nice clean place for the wires to be routed. be sure to do this prior to soldering!
This is how I routed the cables on the RockBand kit. There are a few options here. one way is to buy the 1/8" mono cables which are already stripped and soldered, but you may also want to consider buying 1/4" to 1/4" male to male cables and stripping them yourself. The advantage is you need fewer adapters. You may also want to consider buying a 1/4" mono extension cable and cutting off the male end so you do not need the coupler to connect the splitter. Since I wasn't performing the soldering, I chose the easiest to work with, plus it was cheaper than the extension cables. here is how I connected the 1/8" male cable to the 2 1/4" cables linking the triggers to the Rock Band kit. click on the connector below to find it on the Radio Shack website.
At this point you should have The game working with the drums. Now on to the cymbals. For these I used a different type of trigger. The Pintech Acoustic Drum Trigger sticks directly to the drum head or, in this case, the cymbal.
Predictably, the problem with putting triggers on the cymbals is that once struck, they continue to vibrate which continues to send a signal from the trigger to the game which reads as missed notes. To try to cut down on this problem, I have attempted to dampen the cymbals.
Thanks for viewing. If you have anything to add to improve this setup (and there probably is a huge amount of room for that) Please visit the forum! Since I most likely legally can't charge for the information given here, please consider a donation. *disclaimers: I'm not a Lawyer, but I'll try to CMA here. I am also not an electronics Major. Although I of course encourage others to try the modifications listed here, I don't have a background in this type of modifications. I just wanted to use my drum kit with Rock Band and I pieced together a way to the best of my ability. This will void the warranty on the drum pads, proceed at your own risk. What I provided here is a starting point, if you know a way to improve on this, Please post to the forum and/or send an email to [rockbanddrums at gmail]. The Rock Band name and logo are trademarks of Harmonix Music systems inc. |
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