Drums (Part 3 of N)

With L's help, the re-soldering got completed today. Here's what the box looks like just before assembly:

I've included all the tools nearby, as otherwise it looks very strange as you get random bits of tools near the box. Maybe this is an indication that I should actually pose my picture subjects better? Anyways, you can see the two connecting ends now, as well as where the USB cable to the Xbox fits into the lower box half. Finally, here's what the box looks like when powered up:

The light's on, the buttons are visible... some of them even work! For some reason the A and B buttons have stopped working, not sure why but I don't really want to take apart the circuit board to see the opposite side (which is where the buttons are mounted). The controller works fine though, so I can use the drums as those buttons, just can't use them on the box. Everything else appears to be fine though, so it'll do!

Next post: The drum kit itself! Plus possibly a video of actually playing a song. If there's interest and/or I can figure out how to do it decently.

Drums (Part 2 of N)

So, in the last post you saw the results of my ripping apart the Rock Band drum kit, plus the extra MIDI hardware. This post we get to take a look at the black box that everything's going into so that it's not strewn about all over the place. It certainly works that way, but this should be much nicer.

First up, we have the main box:
I've installed the MIDI port as you can see on the left, and most of the holes have been drilled, though as it turns out I needed two more on the bottom as my measurements were horribly wrong. I don't know how I was off by 1 cm twice and didn't catch it, but that's what happened.

Here's the completed box bottom, with everything hooked up. The wrapped cable (with convenient ethernet/RJ45 jack) attaches to a similar port that's on the box top. That way it's fairly easy to remove the top if needed, without having to undo every single wire.
Note the hole at the top, that's for the USB cable from the RB drum kit controller to the XBox. It just barely fits through, and I haven't figured out a good way to brace it so that tugs on the cable will transfer to the box rather than the circuit board. It looks like there's an angle brace I can set up, but the only way I can see to secure it right now is via epoxy, a bit annoying as it would make the top non-removable.

Here's the top (underside view):
Yep, those are balsa wood strips. They're covering up holes between the controller and the top, so that the epoxy doesn't drip down (much). The top was roughly measured, and cut via jigsaw. It wasn't very accurate, but I don't mind as it should be easy enough to paint up, and it's more about the functionality. The epoxy has fully set now, so it's pretty solid. The other side has all the buttons. They seem to work fine, though one or two feel a tad bit off. Note that the two unsoldered wires haven't been reattached yet. Soon!

Drums (Part 1 of N)

Okay, I'm back. Here's a side project I've been working on recently:


What's that, a ripped up Rock Band drum kit? Yep, sure is. I left the green pad on, because by the time I had figured out how to remove the pads, it was apparent that I didn't actually need the green one removed in order to remove the part I wanted:

Yep, that's some cutouts from the middle two drums (it's a separate piece of plastic that's in those two only), plus the main controller board upon which rests the normal buttons, though those are on the underside as shown.

Here's what the interior of a drum head looks like:

Note the white block in the bottom left, and in the center. Those are the spots where the drum pad actually connects to the the components shown. It looks like the pad has a piezo that's connected to some wires which go into that connector, probably so that the pads can be replaced easily. Here's what the other side of a pad looks like:
You can see the piezo in the center, plus some foam padding. The four rubber plugs are how the pad connects to the main drum kit. I've got a few extra drum heads if anyone needs to fix one. (One of each color, should be working fine, unlike the rest of the kit!)

And now for the payoff: the main control board, a closeup.

Note the inelegantly soldered wires to various spots on the main board. Those are the points that correspond to each drum. Two of the wires have come loose and aren't connected in this picture.

Finally, here's a neat bit of circuitry:

The board on the left is a MIDI decoder (with the MIDI port not attached), hooked up to a barrier strip that leads into a wire bundle. This wire bundle connects to the Rock Band board shown above, and the whole point is to let MIDI signals control the Rock Band drum board and send signals to the XBox, thus letting one play Rock Band Drums, using any MIDI device.

The whole setup's been tested a few times and works great, but isn't in a very usable condition - a lot of stuff has to be moved around, and it's a bit clunky. Plus, I need to resolder those wires.

More on this subject later, including pictures of the MIDI device that's the point of the whole thing, the building of the enclosure to hold all the circuit boards, and maybe even a video.

One Million Fans!

So M^2, L and I were playing Rock Band as our favorite band, the Potatomakers. Inching in on 1 million fans, we were picking them up 20000 fans at a time, playing in big venues. Got known as Big In France... So we're sitting at 997000 fans and go for a three song set at the RAWK-AID Benefit at the Klub Weisbrot in Berlin. Okay, we can do this. Everyone on expert, we pick Dani California, More Than A Feeling and Troublemaker. Start the set, and hey, we get the option of doing it as a benefit! If we average 4 stars, we get double the fans, but if we fail we lose them.

Sure!

...

Dani California we rock out on, 5-stars and probably my best run at it on drums, actually landed the wacky rolls near the end.

More Than A Feeling mellows everyone out, but we still 5-star.

Troublemaker, well, if we hadn't gotten 5 stars, we'd probably quit the game. But we get 5 stars.

Final screen comes up... did we get 3000 fans?

...

You have gained 694616 fans!

Okay, must play at benefit concerts more often, on expert! We're now at 1,691,616 fans. Win!

Next goal: Big In Japan!

Blockhead

A great product: A replacement drum pedal for the Rock Band drum kit! When I tried to get our broken pedal replaced and found out that the warranty time was being enforced (though I just read an article today which stated that this policy would be suspended again), the helpful guy on the phone at the warranty department recommended buying a replacement. Look at Best Buy, he said, and it's called Blockhead.

So I did so, and found that Blockhead was the manufacturer, and for 20$ picked up this kit. A drum pedal (adjustable height), drum pad silencers, and a new pair of drum sticks.

Drum pedal: this was the key component, and it works great. Took a little getting used to, but it's got good action and seems well built. There's also the option of either a low point or high point for the normal rest state. I found that the low point was great, it takes very little action to press and even at full release it's easy to use. The high point was very similar to the pedal that shipped with Rock Band and works okay. The mechanism used to switch between the two is very clever. The pedal initially had some trouble with the cord (it wasn't stretched out and so it had some tension at the normal position), but after a day it was fine. It also attaches more firmly to the drum kit than the original, which I like.

Drum pad silencers: A very clever product, these are basically round pads, plus circular strips of rubber. The strips fit snugly around the outside edge of the drum heads, holding the pads in place. They work great, and are even quieter than my original homebrew felt pads, and a lot easier to have stay in place. Very much recommended.

Drum sticks: The only part of the bundle which I had trouble with. They're black. I tried playing with them without lights. I couldn't tell what I was doing. Later trials with the lights on reveal that I can't drum with black drum sticks. I may have been hitting too lightly, or not judging distances well, or something else, but they just didn't do it. Switched back to the Rock Band wooden ones and am happy. Your results may vary!

Stuck On...

I'm now only stuck (in Rock Band, drums/hard) on Run To The Hills. I can make it past the song if we're playing multiplayer, but my best try solo has been dying right around 70%. Sigh. Still working on it! Also playing some on expert, things go crazy on that difficulty with some songs. For example, Maps becomes a song all about the kick drum on every beat. It's actually almost easier than the version on hard!

Extremely Dangerous

L, M^2 and I started a band. (In Rock Band. We're thinking of starting a band not in Rock Band too, but that's further out.) With the goal of only playing songs on expert difficulty. This was surprisingly easier to start out than I had expected. I was on drums, M^2 on guitar, L on vocals. We opened the night with "Say It Ain't So", and while I was expecting that to be our top scoring song, it only clocked in at #5 as the night went on.

Most fun to play: "Here It Goes Again" - OK Go. This one was a real blast! I actually got the drum beat and we were rocking it like mad.

Second most fun to play: "All The Small Things" - Blink 182. Crazy drumming but it felt so good! We followed this one up with "When You Were Young", one of our favorites, but it was also a real killer on the drums. I managed to die about 2/3 through, and after that couldn't get back into the beat. We finished the song with me having failed out, but the others held through.

Gaming the system: The setlist that lets you get a van has a mystery song. The first time we tried, it was Epic. Ouch. After the burn from that one, the next shot got "Go With The Flow", which some readers may recall I was horribly stuck on about a week ago, on hard. That went poorly as well. Third try we got the Ramones and finished it off. Whew. (Do I need to say which song by the Ramones? Didn't think so.)

You can tell it's been a good jam session when you have to get up to change your shirt halfway through. And then it's dripping again when you finish.

"You can tell it's been a good jam session when the guitarist can't find his shoes." - M^2

Stuck On...

(Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
Foreplay/Long Time - Boston

Working on the second to last set on hard drums (Rock Band), and these two songs have me stuck. The first one is just fine, up until 90% through when everything goes crazy. I probably just need to practice it once or twice, as I have only tried it once and failed right there when everything went wacky (it was a nice beat, and then all of a sudden half the drum hits came between the beats they were on before). Foreplay/Long Time has an intro of DOOM. Oh my god. I think I can make it past there now, maybe, but not in the sense of actually playing it well, at all.

The good part is that this means I got past two of my previous stumbling blocks - Cherub Rock (Smashing Pumpkins) and Go With the Flow (Queens of the Stone Age). I can at least complete them now, if not play them well yet.

Addendum: yes, this does mean I'm close to announcing a time for trying the Endless setlist on hard. I figure once we have two people who can do every part on hard, we'll have the numbers to actually sit down for the whole 5 hour thing (or however long it ends up).

Oh Noes!

So L and I were rocking at Rock Band tonight, me playing drums on Hard and her on vocals (also Hard difficulty), when calamity struck! The drums stopped working! More specifically, the green pad stopped responding. Luckily the song we were playing didn't use it much, but I couldn't activate star power. Afterwards, it appeared to not be coming back at all, so I think the drum pad is officially dead. I hear that customer service is good about replacing them, so I'm going to call tomorrow, but until it's fixed I won't be able to practice drums! I was getting pretty good, was on the 3rd to last set on Hard, and I think I could get further pretty easy, just haven't had the time to actually play it. :)

Oh well, time to actually try the guitar solo career for Rock Band and learn some of the hard guitar solo sections. I'm pondering getting my Rock Band guitar replaced at the same time, it has some issues as well. We'll see when I call up customer service.