Vladislas
01-23-2009, 01:38 PM
Ok if enough people want me to I'll post some pics or contact me through the site and I'll give more detailed instructions but heres what I did.
I got the wireless 360 guitar for a b-day gift and right out of the box the tile to overdrive never worked. This whole time I leanrned to hit the back button to overdrive, but I only got so good that even when I was playing my best I would mess up and lose my x4 and it just bugged me. After trying about every fix I could find(cause as I'm sure many of you know I just didn't want to deal with the whole RMA thing) and I always wanted to have a pedal I could stomp on to set off my overdrive more rock star I thought so I figured I'd give it a shot worse I'd be is stuck with a guitar that I have to hit the back button to overdrive.
Now I know little of eletronics and mostly tinker. But my mod is simpler then a simular I found online of the same idea required no sodder just a bit of time a pair of computer speakers and a bit of ele tape.
I'm a pack rat and had a old pair of comp speakers lying around so I opened them up and took the head phone jack out(removing it from the board it was attached to), then I cut a good length of the power cord off the speakers and stripped each end. Then opened the guitar and noticed there were 3 cords comming off the tilt switch 2 colored ones that lead to a board and a black one that lead to the effects switch. I cut the two colored ones away from the switch(not the board dear god don't do that!) and stripped thoes wires as well and left the black one alone.
Now ages ago(RB1 era as I'll call it) me and a friend both destroied our bass pedals and had since modded real bass pedals for our drum kits so when my friend had gotten me the new RB2 drum kit for x-mas I had no use for the pedal that came with it.(Which btw took me 2 returns and 3 drum kits to acctuly get a good one that works which is simply annoying)
My previous work on the bass pedal and spending the better part of a week inside my guitar I understood the basic concept on opening and closing the circuit and figured the tilt switch was just doing simply that in a fancy way. So heres how all these pieces come together.
1. Take the headphone jack and make sure when you remove it from the board in the speakers that you leave all connection points intact(even if theres some board left behind on them its fine clean it up best up can but thoes points have to remain intact)
2. There should be a number of points the jack connected to the old board(mine had 5) and there should be a way to open the jack itself. Using the plug that would normaly go into the comp open the jack and put the plug in figure out which two connection points acctuly make contact when you insert the plug into the jack(should be easy enough to tell)
3. Once you know which two points are the connection points close the jack up take the plug out and connect two of the stripped ends from the old power cord to thoes connection points(make sure you have a good solid connection I just twisted mine on there nice and tight)
4. Take the other end of the old power cord and connect thoes stripped ends to the stripped ends on the overdrive wires you stripped eairler.
4a. Now this is where a little of trail and error comes in. You should have enough cord that its going to hang down past your guitar plug in your pedal to the jack and fire up rock band. Do a quick play and when you have enough for overdrive hit the pedal. If your overdrive goes off you have the posistive and negative connected properly. If not switch the ends at the overdrive wires around and try again this time the overdrive will go off.
5. Once you know where everything is to be wired time to set it in place.
using a swiss army knife i cut a notch into the top half of my guitar at a bottom point(almost perfectly opposite from where you would plug in your headset to talk online) You can use a drill or what have you but a steady hand is really all you need since its pretty soft plastic. I acctuly set the jack between a point where a screw goes in and the body of the guitar. Make sure before you set it in place that you use ele tape around the jack connection points to hold the wires there(you can sodder if you want but I don't have the tools for that)
6. Once you have that fit flush and looking good I held it in place with some ele tape(you can glue it but in case the jack ever goes bad its not going to be hard to get it out and replace it this way) Then i cut the power cord to a shorter length that would fit neatly inside the guitar(it acctuly snakes around the bottom of the guitar and comes under another wire to meet the overdrive wires. the going under another wire helps reduce stress on the connection)
6a. I stripped this new shorter wire and reconncted to the overdrive wires the exact same way I had it before ele taped each connection then ele taped down each connection to the body of the guitar way from each other(taping them down also helps reduce stress on the connection important if your not using sodder)
7. Now close up the guitar the new jack should come just out of the guitar and looks like its a part of the design(btw if you set the back end of the jack against a point where a screw goes in it will act as a brace when you plug the pedal into it once again reducing stress on the connections)
8. Now if your like me and have an extra RB pedal laying around you'll discover the cord isn't long enough you'll need and extenstion with a female end and a male end. That should give you enough cord as to not stess the connection. You can also create or modify any pedal so long as you have a switch that is connected in the NO(Normaly Open) posistion. Using a RB pedal was just convient cause I had one laying around.
And thats it! Now you have your own pedal that activates your overdrive its simpler then the one I found online where the guy attached it to the back button. And it definetly has more of a rock star feel having a pedal at your feet that acctuly does something. This is just a fun mod for thoes of us that have a failed tilt switch and are tired of using the back button. The best part is the back button still works..so in my case I have to smoke by the door cause of my daughter so I can just unplug my pedal keep playing and smoke by the door and overdrive with the back button then when I'm done go back and plug my pedal back in.
I showed it to my wife and she was amazed that it looked like part of the guitar and a friend of mine was really impressed with the design acctuly having them over tonight for a RB night just to show it off.
If anyone has questions or would like to see pics of how I did it you can contact me through the RB site or email me at vladislas@hotmail.com. Cause honestly its a bit of work but really fun to hit the pedal and go into overdrive and it doesn't mess up my x4 anymore!!! Hello more gold stars!!
BTW this is my first mod I've ever posted so I'm sorry for the lack of model number, spelling(which mine is horrible) or any such specifics so if you need pics to get a better idea I'll post some up.
Good luck with the mod rockers catch you all later!
-Taco(360 tag CaptSpaulding13)
I got the wireless 360 guitar for a b-day gift and right out of the box the tile to overdrive never worked. This whole time I leanrned to hit the back button to overdrive, but I only got so good that even when I was playing my best I would mess up and lose my x4 and it just bugged me. After trying about every fix I could find(cause as I'm sure many of you know I just didn't want to deal with the whole RMA thing) and I always wanted to have a pedal I could stomp on to set off my overdrive more rock star I thought so I figured I'd give it a shot worse I'd be is stuck with a guitar that I have to hit the back button to overdrive.
Now I know little of eletronics and mostly tinker. But my mod is simpler then a simular I found online of the same idea required no sodder just a bit of time a pair of computer speakers and a bit of ele tape.
I'm a pack rat and had a old pair of comp speakers lying around so I opened them up and took the head phone jack out(removing it from the board it was attached to), then I cut a good length of the power cord off the speakers and stripped each end. Then opened the guitar and noticed there were 3 cords comming off the tilt switch 2 colored ones that lead to a board and a black one that lead to the effects switch. I cut the two colored ones away from the switch(not the board dear god don't do that!) and stripped thoes wires as well and left the black one alone.
Now ages ago(RB1 era as I'll call it) me and a friend both destroied our bass pedals and had since modded real bass pedals for our drum kits so when my friend had gotten me the new RB2 drum kit for x-mas I had no use for the pedal that came with it.(Which btw took me 2 returns and 3 drum kits to acctuly get a good one that works which is simply annoying)
My previous work on the bass pedal and spending the better part of a week inside my guitar I understood the basic concept on opening and closing the circuit and figured the tilt switch was just doing simply that in a fancy way. So heres how all these pieces come together.
1. Take the headphone jack and make sure when you remove it from the board in the speakers that you leave all connection points intact(even if theres some board left behind on them its fine clean it up best up can but thoes points have to remain intact)
2. There should be a number of points the jack connected to the old board(mine had 5) and there should be a way to open the jack itself. Using the plug that would normaly go into the comp open the jack and put the plug in figure out which two connection points acctuly make contact when you insert the plug into the jack(should be easy enough to tell)
3. Once you know which two points are the connection points close the jack up take the plug out and connect two of the stripped ends from the old power cord to thoes connection points(make sure you have a good solid connection I just twisted mine on there nice and tight)
4. Take the other end of the old power cord and connect thoes stripped ends to the stripped ends on the overdrive wires you stripped eairler.
4a. Now this is where a little of trail and error comes in. You should have enough cord that its going to hang down past your guitar plug in your pedal to the jack and fire up rock band. Do a quick play and when you have enough for overdrive hit the pedal. If your overdrive goes off you have the posistive and negative connected properly. If not switch the ends at the overdrive wires around and try again this time the overdrive will go off.
5. Once you know where everything is to be wired time to set it in place.
using a swiss army knife i cut a notch into the top half of my guitar at a bottom point(almost perfectly opposite from where you would plug in your headset to talk online) You can use a drill or what have you but a steady hand is really all you need since its pretty soft plastic. I acctuly set the jack between a point where a screw goes in and the body of the guitar. Make sure before you set it in place that you use ele tape around the jack connection points to hold the wires there(you can sodder if you want but I don't have the tools for that)
6. Once you have that fit flush and looking good I held it in place with some ele tape(you can glue it but in case the jack ever goes bad its not going to be hard to get it out and replace it this way) Then i cut the power cord to a shorter length that would fit neatly inside the guitar(it acctuly snakes around the bottom of the guitar and comes under another wire to meet the overdrive wires. the going under another wire helps reduce stress on the connection)
6a. I stripped this new shorter wire and reconncted to the overdrive wires the exact same way I had it before ele taped each connection then ele taped down each connection to the body of the guitar way from each other(taping them down also helps reduce stress on the connection important if your not using sodder)
7. Now close up the guitar the new jack should come just out of the guitar and looks like its a part of the design(btw if you set the back end of the jack against a point where a screw goes in it will act as a brace when you plug the pedal into it once again reducing stress on the connections)
8. Now if your like me and have an extra RB pedal laying around you'll discover the cord isn't long enough you'll need and extenstion with a female end and a male end. That should give you enough cord as to not stess the connection. You can also create or modify any pedal so long as you have a switch that is connected in the NO(Normaly Open) posistion. Using a RB pedal was just convient cause I had one laying around.
And thats it! Now you have your own pedal that activates your overdrive its simpler then the one I found online where the guy attached it to the back button. And it definetly has more of a rock star feel having a pedal at your feet that acctuly does something. This is just a fun mod for thoes of us that have a failed tilt switch and are tired of using the back button. The best part is the back button still works..so in my case I have to smoke by the door cause of my daughter so I can just unplug my pedal keep playing and smoke by the door and overdrive with the back button then when I'm done go back and plug my pedal back in.
I showed it to my wife and she was amazed that it looked like part of the guitar and a friend of mine was really impressed with the design acctuly having them over tonight for a RB night just to show it off.
If anyone has questions or would like to see pics of how I did it you can contact me through the RB site or email me at vladislas@hotmail.com. Cause honestly its a bit of work but really fun to hit the pedal and go into overdrive and it doesn't mess up my x4 anymore!!! Hello more gold stars!!
BTW this is my first mod I've ever posted so I'm sorry for the lack of model number, spelling(which mine is horrible) or any such specifics so if you need pics to get a better idea I'll post some up.
Good luck with the mod rockers catch you all later!
-Taco(360 tag CaptSpaulding13)
