Olmec
12-01-2007, 05:53 PM
***Please Note***
I want to make it perfectly clear that these are QUICK FIXES and not PERMANENT SOLUTIONS. If you don't want to send your (only) guitar back to EA and wait 9-10 days for it to come back, these fixes are perfect for you to do! You can keep on playing and send the guitar back at your convenience. I strongly urge you to send your guitar back to EA and get a replacement as soon as possible if you have encountered any of these problems.
If some of these descriptions don't make any sense, I can post pics or something to make it more clear.
***Double Strum Quick Fix***
Recently, I encountered the infamous double strum problem where strumming on the downstrum causes the game to recognize two strums instead of just one and thus making it impossible to keep streaks going even though you are playing perfectly. I opened up the guitar and looked closely at the strum bar.
The strum is recognized through two parallel plates. When the strum bar is hit, it puts pressure on the metal plates. Each plate has a small metal piece that sticks out, and when these two metal contacts touch each other, it creates a short, which registers the strum. I'm not sure what these pieces are made of, but I'm pretty sure it's sauder. The sauder is what causes the doublestrum problem.
Usually, the pieces of sauder are flat, so when you strum, it registers clean. However, after some time of rough play (or any play in general it seems), one or both of these sauder pieces lose their uniform surface and become U-shaped so there are two smaller contacts instead of one. For me, only one of the surfaces was U-shaped (the one closest to the strum bar). I confirmed the original rectangular shape of the sauder by observing the upstrum parallel plates, which were pristine as compared to my downstrum plates.
So here's the fix: I took a nail file (sandpaper works too), and GENTLY smoothed out the sauder contact surface so it became flat again. Don't push too hard otherwise, you'll take all the sauder off and you'd have to press the strum bar pretty hard to get the note to register. After adequately smoothing out the surface, I put my guitar back together, played a few songs, and confirmed that this fixed my problem. My strum bar no longer registers double strum notes.
***Whammy Bar Quick Fix***
The whammy bar also broke for me too, ironically while I was playing a song on Easy just for kicks. I opened up my guitar to see what was the problem. Just as you would expect, the whammy bar is operated by a simple spring. If you imagine a simple spring, one circumference on each end is folded upwards to be vertical to the rest of the spring. This way, the spring hooks on to the whammy bar and the guitar base. My whammy bar broke because the part of the spring that attached to the whammy bar broke.
Now the part that broke is only ONE circumference of the spring. After opening up my guitar, I eventually found the spring running around freely. I took my fingernail and bent another circumference of the spring to make it vertical to the rest of it. I then attached the spring back to where it was supposed to be, and everything was good to go! Of course, the spring is a little more stretched now that it has one less rung to operate, but I've used the guitar for a week since it broke, and no problems as of yet!
I want to make it perfectly clear that these are QUICK FIXES and not PERMANENT SOLUTIONS. If you don't want to send your (only) guitar back to EA and wait 9-10 days for it to come back, these fixes are perfect for you to do! You can keep on playing and send the guitar back at your convenience. I strongly urge you to send your guitar back to EA and get a replacement as soon as possible if you have encountered any of these problems.
If some of these descriptions don't make any sense, I can post pics or something to make it more clear.
***Double Strum Quick Fix***
Recently, I encountered the infamous double strum problem where strumming on the downstrum causes the game to recognize two strums instead of just one and thus making it impossible to keep streaks going even though you are playing perfectly. I opened up the guitar and looked closely at the strum bar.
The strum is recognized through two parallel plates. When the strum bar is hit, it puts pressure on the metal plates. Each plate has a small metal piece that sticks out, and when these two metal contacts touch each other, it creates a short, which registers the strum. I'm not sure what these pieces are made of, but I'm pretty sure it's sauder. The sauder is what causes the doublestrum problem.
Usually, the pieces of sauder are flat, so when you strum, it registers clean. However, after some time of rough play (or any play in general it seems), one or both of these sauder pieces lose their uniform surface and become U-shaped so there are two smaller contacts instead of one. For me, only one of the surfaces was U-shaped (the one closest to the strum bar). I confirmed the original rectangular shape of the sauder by observing the upstrum parallel plates, which were pristine as compared to my downstrum plates.
So here's the fix: I took a nail file (sandpaper works too), and GENTLY smoothed out the sauder contact surface so it became flat again. Don't push too hard otherwise, you'll take all the sauder off and you'd have to press the strum bar pretty hard to get the note to register. After adequately smoothing out the surface, I put my guitar back together, played a few songs, and confirmed that this fixed my problem. My strum bar no longer registers double strum notes.
***Whammy Bar Quick Fix***
The whammy bar also broke for me too, ironically while I was playing a song on Easy just for kicks. I opened up my guitar to see what was the problem. Just as you would expect, the whammy bar is operated by a simple spring. If you imagine a simple spring, one circumference on each end is folded upwards to be vertical to the rest of the spring. This way, the spring hooks on to the whammy bar and the guitar base. My whammy bar broke because the part of the spring that attached to the whammy bar broke.
Now the part that broke is only ONE circumference of the spring. After opening up my guitar, I eventually found the spring running around freely. I took my fingernail and bent another circumference of the spring to make it vertical to the rest of it. I then attached the spring back to where it was supposed to be, and everything was good to go! Of course, the spring is a little more stretched now that it has one less rung to operate, but I've used the guitar for a week since it broke, and no problems as of yet!
