Slashdot Mirror
Rock Band Drum Kit Modded
Brett "Buzz" Dawson writes "Seeing all of the Guitar Hero guitar mods I thought it would be an interesting change of pace to mod a full-sized drum kit for use as a Rock Band game controller. With everything that I build I take lots of pictures to document the build process so here is the full build of my drum kit." Fortunately at my house Kathleen has been doing the drumming, so I don't think I need to go to these extremes to handle the abuse. I'm more interested in mods that let you use the original drums as a real instrument like the guitar mods that are floating out there. The tiny bits of drum solo time in Rock Band don't satisfy my internal Keith Moon.
If you have the PS3 version of Rock Band, then here's how to mod your drum kit:
Step 1: Plug drum kit into PC.
Done. Your PC will detect the PS3 drum kit as a MIDI device.
Check out this link for details for the Xbox-360 version:
http://news.filefront.com/rock-band-drums-for-pc-xbox-360-vs-ps3-kit/
Is it DrumMania? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drummania
Haha, nice flamebait attempt there, you asshat. Unfortunately for you, machine dance is officially recognised as a dance discipline by the International Dance Organisation (IDO).
I can't really say the same thing for drums or singing. On a side note, has anyone actually used the microphone yet, and is it really lame?
As an owner of Rock Band, and an "actual" guitar player, I would add the guitar playing also teaches some fundamental strumming techniques as well. You learn to strum both down and up to reduce muscle fatique, and play faster.
For drumming, I'd say the sticks that come with the game are "ok", I replaced mine with some vinyl-tipped ones that I got for my standalone snare many years ago. They're bouncier.
In addition to the syncopation learned from the snare and hat/cymbal work, the drum kit has a bass kick pedal, and this helps would-be drummers gain limb independence (arms do one thing, right-foot does other stuff) and at "Expert" stage, you should be able to transfer what you learn in Rock Band to a real drum kit (not accounting for hi-hats).
To wit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ9XLiMfBRo&feature=user/ This guy uses some pretty cool video techniques to show both himself & the video from the game. He'll occasionally fade the game audio out to demonstrate what HE hears.
If you watch some of this users other videos, you can see what kind of work he has done researching the quality/effectivness of the Rockband drum kits. (Some models are better than others).
Also, the microphone is quite heavy for it's size and feels very nice. It's USB, and also doubles as the cowbell. (And you get to use it during Don't Fear The Reaper)
The crazy kids over at the rockband.scorehero.com forums have been modding the drum controller since like a week after the game came out: http://rockband.scorehero.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=1038&sid=d1748155f6f141a8f805db1bf5df84b3
Double bass pedals, yamaha midi kit mods, alternative bass pedals, analyzing how the piezos in the drum kid actually register hits and improving on them... List goes on.
I've modded my pedal after the cheap one that came with the kit inevitably broke after the third day of playing. Since the bass pedal connects to the rest of the kit using a mono audio plug, it's easy for someone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of electronics (me) to rig a real bass pedal to work with the kit. Documented here: http://rockband.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2029