And well, a lot has changed over the last seven years. Like many other Makers out there, Evan Kale wanted to retrofit somewhat out-dated gadgetry into a fully-functional, modern-day piece of musical equipment. In this case, he converted a secondhand Guitar Hero controller into a real world MIDI drum kit capable of interfacing with digital audio workstations like Ableton Live, FL Studio and Pro Tools.
Not only is it cheaper than creating a set from scratch, it’s much easier as the game controllers are practically drum pads with piezo sensors already on the bottom. Kale employed the help of an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) given that he only needed six analog inputs; though, if more than six piezo sensors were required, the Maker suggests using an Arduino Mega (ATmega2560) with its 16 inputs.
Aside from the Arduino, the mod calls for a proto board, a 1MΩ resistor for every piezo sensor, male headers and a MIDI port with a 220Ω resistor. Fortunately for him, this particular controller already featured a MIDI input port. This was perfect, as he was able to save a MIDI jack and rewire it to transform it into MIDI output port.
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For those unfamiliar with Guitar Hero World Tour, the device comes with three drum pads, two cymbals and base pedal. There’s even a pair of stereo 3.5mm audio jacks — one of which connects the base pedal, the other for further modifications.
To get started, Kale removed the back of the controller to access the piezos, which were plugged directly into the main board. However, this board was swapped out for the Arduino. The Maker went on to build a shield for the Arduino that would allow him to plug in the piezos to the pin headers on the proto board.
Beyond the main board, the controller includes an additional board on top tasked with holding the back panel, whose inputs are also directly plugged into the main board. According to Kale, “Since we’re reusing the MIDI port on the back panel of this controller, we’ll need to make a slight modification to the back panel board. By adding a jumper between the two pins pictured above, we can ground the middle pin of the MIDI port which would otherwise be missing for a MIDI output port. We can then plug the last four pins of the cable ribbon directly into our proto board.”
Connecting Electronic Drums To Your Computer
To devise the shield that would sit on top of the Arduino, Kale added some pin headers, took a few resistors and connected them to a common ground. From there, he broke the pin headers in half and soldered the ends of each onto the end of the resistors, and attached the other pins of the headers to the ground as well. This enabled the piezos to be plugged directly into the headers.
As for software, the Maker uploaded his custom MIDI Drum code to the Arduino. With his retrofitted Guitar Hero unit, the default program worked fine right out of the box, while for others, you’ll most likely need to make a few minor adjustments. Intrigued? You can watch the entire breakdown of the build in the video below, or head over to its Instructables page here. Rock on!Hi! This tutorial is about how to modify a Wii console drum kit, the band hero, featuring a snare, 2 toms, 2 cymbals and kick pedal. Also, how to get the sound from the drum kit, with a step by step guide, using a DAW and VST availables for free.
This tutorial is based on Evan Kale´s work with a Rockband's drum kit. So if you have one of those, go for his tutorial:
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We just work on the module where the gamepad is connected. Once you have opened the module, remove the things we don't need like the analog stick, midi in and the gamepad's connector.There is a photocoupler PC900V, useful if you want to connect the drum kit to a souncard with game/midi port. Cut the tracks(snare, tom1, tom2, crash, hihat, kp, hp and midi out ) as shown on te pictures, to avoid the contact with the internal circuitry. Don't cut the 0V tracks. (watch the pictures). Remove the layer next to start button to make a common ground for the sensor's resistors and the midi port (output).
Now you need to solder a 1M resistor between the pad terminal and the common ground, as well as a wire to the pad terminal with a suitable connector for your arduino (i'm using a dupont connector). Wire the midi output as showed on the pictures, the red wire with 220 ohm resistor to arduino 5V and the brown wire to arduino TX. Ignore the short black wire, it was just for testing purposes.
I'm using an arduino nano, to fit it inside the box. Maybe you will get a warning when compile because there is no much memory available, but works fine for me .
How To Set Up Rock Band Drums As Midi Drums In Cubase
Use the schematic to wire from the board to the arduino (HP to A0, Tom2 to A1, etc). You can see the function of every analog pin in the code picture.
PS: For some reason i thought that KP was kick pedal but doesn't connect with the only black jack on the rear panel, that's why i used HP.
You can buy (really cheap) one or find it on a speaker (used as tweeter). Unscrew the cover and cut the built-in sensor and replace it for the piezo. Glue some rubber material to the cover bottom and fix the piezo.
Hack A Guitar Hero Drumset To Use It With Any Computer Over Usb, Part 1
The signal from the arduino (midi out) Is not audio, so you need a MIDI device. You have at least two options: MIDI to USB converter or use a pc sound card with MIDI interface.
You can buy a MIDI to usb converter on any big online store (you know).The blue one on the pictures is an example. Be careful with some cheap midi usb interfaces, just google cheap midi to usb and you will see.
My option was to use an old pc, install win XP sp3 (because the drivers) to use a sound card with midi interface. All the recommended software works on win XP.
Guitar Hero World Tour Boasts Midi Sequencer
You can use the photocoupler from the pcb and make your midi interface. Use the PC900 and make the circuit . The resistors were soldered on the midi port to simplify the circuit.
Conect the arduino to the pc.You will need that just for power or modify the code and re-upload(Maybe you will have to change the sensibility).
Upload the code. The first test, is to hit a pad and you must see the TX led blinks. If nothing happens, adjust the sensibility at the begining of the code and re-upload. Use my settings to begin.
Do Guitar Hero Drums Work With Midi
If you want, use edrum midi mapper to make sure your midi device is detected and the system is sending signals. This will make things easier than try to figure out If the DAW or VST is working properly. Watch the video.
ASIO provide a low-latency and high fidelity interface between a software application and a computer's sound card, will run automatically while Reaper is running
MT power drumkit is a VST or plugin and not an exe program.You need to copy the files (not cut) into the reaper plugins folder. The instructions are on the download page.
Enjoy Every Beat With A Wholesale Guitar Hero Drums
Donate or skip to start with Power Drumkit. Use your mouse to hit the drumkit. If everything works fine you will hear the sounds from the virtual drumkit.
Now we need to map the drum pads. Go to settings, you will see different drum gears, select one and hit the pad you want to assign.Repeat for all the drum set and save.So, you’ve got one of those Guitar Hero (World Tour) drumsets, and want to use it with your computer? Are you also looking for a fun DIY project involving soldering, electronics, and possibly voiding a few warranties on consumer hardware? Great! Read on.
I can’t claim all the credit. This project is based on a 2009 article, How to use Guitar Hero World Tour Drums as a real MIDI drumkit, by Mathijs van den Berg. His article proved to be very useful in helping me to initially understand the protocol and devise my plan of attack.
Midi Rocker Lx/midi Out Option Supplement
If you read Mathijs’ article (cited above), you already know that the drumset consists of two main components that communicate with SPI; the control box and the drumpad controller. The control box is the box that sits at the top of the drumset. It is specific to each console (the Playstation 3 drumset has a different control box than the Wii drumset, for example). The drumpad controller, inside the drumset, is the circuit board that interfaces the drumpads and cymbals to the control box. The drumpad controller board is common to all versions of the drumset.
It was nice to begin this project with a good idea of what lay ahead, and I’d like to thank Mathijs for reporting his findings. Unfortunately, his post lacked two important resources: the circuit he used to interface with the drumset and his software. Also, I would bet that his solution sacrificed the ability to still use the drumset to play Guitar Hero, which is one of my objectives.
With knowledge of the basic protocol in hand, I knew that I would need a way to debug whatever I was building to make sure that it was communicating correctly, so I ended up purchasing a Saleae
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