Guitar Hero Cymbal Remake

December 23, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 10 Comments

drums

[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.

MIDI Drums For Guitar Hero And Rock Band

November 30, 2008 by Eliot 18 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a497Hom8Gg&fmt=18]

Embedded above is [egyokeo]’s solution for using MIDI drums with Guitar Hero. He’s playing a DrumKAT MIDI kit. It connects to a PC running his MIDI Hero software, which handles timing and multinote combinations. The PC uses a USB ToolStick microcontroller to send commands to the console using an FPS adapter or soldered into the instrument. It’s a fairly good solution if you’re building a generic controller and need to modify the signaling.

When Rock Band was first released, modders sought to adapt their MIDI drum kits for use with the game. The easiest solution they found was Highly Liquid’s MSA-P. It’s a photorelay based MIDI decoder. You need to solder directly to the brain in the Rock Band drums. If you’re planning on modding any instrument, check the compatibility matrix first. Hopefully you’ll end up with something that can be used across multiple games.

[via Gizmodo]

Cythbot, Pneumatic Guitar Hero

November 22, 2008 by Eliot 7 Comments

cythbot

Here’s yet another robot hoping to dominate the human race through the power of ROCK. Cythbot was built to demonstrate Cyth Systems machine vision systems. The device uses a camera to watch the Guitar Hero monitor and identify notes for button presses. The strum bar is then triggered after a delay. The notes are identified solely by pixel intensity since star power can cause them to change shape and color. All button presses are done using pneumatics. The whole system is self-contained and doesn’t require a separate computer for processing. Our favorite part is that the controller remains completely unmodified and the industrial light tree used to indicate notes. The team says that the pneumatics aren’t quite fast enough to hit 100%, unlike some humans. Video of the bot in action after the break. Continue reading “Cythbot, Pneumatic Guitar Hero” →

Flaming Lips Guitar Hero Mod

October 27, 2008 by Eliot 16 Comments

Here’s a fun little suprise that showed up in a recent Flaming Lips interview. Frontman Wayne Coyne built this custom guitar rig out of a double-necked Epiphone. It has a neck from a Guitar Hero controller, which triggers a built in KORG Kaossilator touchpad synthesizer. Checkout the video interview at around 1:55 for a demo. He went with the Guitar Hero controller because he feels that it’s replacing regular guitars in childrens’ perception of how guitar is played.

[via Joystiq]

Hack Guitar Hero DS Into A Guitar Controller

August 20, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 11 Comments

[Eric Ruckman] sent us this awesome Guitar Hero hack. He wanted to get a more “true to the series” game play out of his DS when playing Guitar Hero: On Tour. If you’ve seen the adapter that comes with it, you’ll understand his desires. He found a wireless PS2 Guitar Hero controller on EBay to hack.

He’s cut a hole in the controller and removed all the guts. In the picture above the DS fits in the hole to allow strumming in the correct position. The controller buttons are connected to the DS by wiring into the adapter. He’s added an FM transmitter to the controller so he can play the sound through his home sound system.

Continue reading “Hack Guitar Hero DS Into A Guitar Controller” →

DeepNote Guitar Hero Bot

July 14, 2008 by Benjamin Eckel 18 Comments

A team of five high school seniors have released some videos of their new Guitar Hero bot named DeepNote. This bot uses a group of custom photodiode modules with an 8 nanosecond latency placed on the screen to sense the notes. The Parallax Propeller system takes this input and controls solid state relays hooked into the guitar’s circuitry. After we looked at a few videos of the early prototype system, we could really see how it has evolved. They have custom PCBs and a really nice frame for the photodiode sensors. You can find more info on their How It Works page and view a demo video embedded below.

Continue reading “DeepNote Guitar Hero Bot” →

Guitar Hero Actuator

June 11, 2008 by Eliot 5 Comments

Another day, another EE that refuses to play Guitar Hero properly. [Julian Bleecker] went into the design of this Guitar Hero actuator not really knowing how to size solenoids properly. Luckily, trial and error can get you a long way. The first solenoids he purchased couldn’t apply enough force. The second was overkill. It was certainly strong enough but too heavy and too large to mount to the neck. The final set ended up being both the right size and working well even at 12V, half the design voltage. The elegant mounting system is what really makes this project shine. [Julian] provides the schematic for the ATmega168 driver board, which is an Arduino stripped of the extraneous bits.