[Matt] found, like many people, his Guitar Hero: World Tour cymbals left much to be desired. They were only detecting hits intermittently and starting to crack and fall apart as well. While he was waiting for his warranty replacements to arrive, he just couldn’t help by try to make his own improved version. Using about $25 worth of parts, mainly consisting of plastic plates and some neoprene material, he managed to make some pretty fantastic replacements. A video of them working might be a nice addition, but the writeup was pretty detailed otherwise.
Ah, good ‘ol piezoelectric elements..
They’re good fun.
Nice, finally someone made those things a little better. I hate the design of the guitar hero cymbals. At walmart the other day, I was playing the RockBand drums demo and a kid behind me mentioned “Ugh, the rockband drums are such low quality, the GH ones are much better.” I wanted to drag him over to the GH drums at the other and of the store and show him how wrecked they were.
i haven’t played on gh drums, but the rockband ones are pretty bad imo. but im not a very good drummer, so that might be part of the problem… ;)
can he make it so my pinata doesn’t break too?
Why not make your own kit that will last beign wailed on and is far quieter.
I got a set of remo practice drum pads and Cymbols and mounted the piezo elements on them.
It rocks, has a REAL drum feel and is way better than the crappy toy they give you with the game.
LOL – what a waste of time. Learn how to play REAL instruments.
@vonskippy — The drums/vocals are the only ‘true’ instruments in the game :P Playing drums in rb is akin to playing a minimalistic midi set. That said – it could use a little more freestyle feel.
I have 3 sets of drums for the ps3, 2 for rock band 1, the classic wired set – VERY responsive, no cymbals
1 for the ps3 rb2, and its shit. The sensitivity is total crap – you have to WAIL on them to get anything above ‘minimum’ velocity, and lots of sporadic misses. This set is much like the xbox360 set, which *in my opinion* sucks more balls than imaginable.
I can 5* most songs on expert, so I think I have the right to judge which sets are decent.
I want to build some of these plate-cymbals just for look-see :D
Hullo, I’m the guy who wrote the article. Many thanks for your positive comments, I appreciate it. :)
“Why not make your own kit that will last beign wailed on and is far quieter.”
… I’m a step ahead of you – look for the writeup of that project soon!
Oh, and vonskippy, I do play real instruments. Here’s some vid of me and my Les Paul in a battle-of-the-bands grand final: http://www.youtube.com/fnaah
well, i just got gh4 on my ps2, but not the drums.
i’ve played the drums for 360 and stuff, and as far as i know, they work pretty well, apart from the fact that from left to right on the strike line the colours are as follows:
red-yellow-blue-orange-green
its heaps messed up because the guitar colours from left to right are:
green-red-yellow-blue-orange
anyway the games awesum and i reckon the drum cymbol pad idea rocks lol
Otronicon in Orlando had a Rock Band Concert Hall, complete with a real drum set modified for use with Rock Band. Brett Dawson, at the Orlando Science Center, has posted a detailed description of the construction and conversion here:
http://www.otronicon.org/InDash_Display.aspx?PGID=440
more can be seen here:
http://www.myspace.com/osc_otronicon
This is a kick-a$$ drum set with some serious durability. It stood up to five solid days of public play, except during the Halo Wedding, with no signs of slowing down.
-A_Null