Rock Band with Electronic Drums (HOWTO)

[Flash]

Hey guys,

Thanks so much to everyone on this thread for your work.

So, inspired to learn to play by RB, I got myself a Yamaha DTXplorer electronic kit. Its really awesome on its own, but I want to try to use it to play the game too.

I'm not savvy enough to do all the programming/modding/soldering/etc it takes to do the MIDI-XBox Controller conversion, so I think I will take the piezo switch attachment route taken by ThePro2001 above.

My question is this: Is it possible to splice two piezo switches together so that they trigger the same action/button?

The reason I want to do this is that (as I think you all know) some of the four pads sometimes do double-duty in RB. So, for example, yellow is the hi-hat most of the time, but other times its a tom.

So what I want to do (if possible) is attach a second piezo switch to the piezo wire for the yellow pad and attach one to the hi-hat pad on my DTXplorer and the other to the left tom pad. I'd do the same thing with the blue switch (tom/ride cymbal), and red (crash cymbal/floor tom).

Sorry for the long-winded post, but is it just as simple as buying a piezo from Radio Shack, stripping the piezo wire on the RB drum controller and splicing?

Thanks in advance!

[Blanko]

Have you read back into this thread? Your questions have been answered in great length.

We're all running multiple vdrums pads to single rb controller pads. Start at page 7 with Zolon for the MSA-P solution. I've just wrapped this mod - and it works flawlessly.

EDIT:
Sorry, I'll be a little more explicit. I know what it's like coming into a 25pg thread. You'll be able to find everything you need in this thread. This includes:
- pictures of two different xbox board solder points
- modded controllers
- (option 1) MSA-P midi relay links and information
- (option 2) R8 midi relay links and info
- and all the in-between technical questions

D

[Flash]

Originally Posted by Blanko

Have you read back into this thread? Your questions have been answered in great length.

We're all running multiple vdrums pads to single rb controller pads. Start at page 7 with Zolon for the MSA-P solution. I've just wraped this mod - and it works flawlessly.

D

Thanks, but that's not what I was asking about.

I'm not talking about doing anything involving MIDI, or an MSA board.

All I want to do is pop off the RB drum heads, pull out the piezo switches, and attach them to my DTXplorer drum heads.

See this post by ThePro2001: http://www.rockband.com/forums/showt...ezo#post247109

Then I want to splice in some other piezo switches so I can have two heads trigger the same pad/color.

[Blanko]

Sorry - completely glazed over on that one.

We haven't spoken at any length about that method. Im sure The Pro is having a good time with it - and I haven't tried it myself - but I can't imagine it being nearly as reliable as the MSA or R8 solutions.

If I could offer one piece of usefull advice - if you have midi drums - go the midi route. I was extremely overwhelmed when I started the mod. (Heck, just go back and read my posts from the beginning. N E W B). But at the end of it all - and looking back - I think anyone with a little interest could easily pull this off.

EDIT: one more selling point for midi over piezo. With midi you can use all your pads, cymbals, triggers. Whereas the peizo's would only really work with mesh heads. Furthermore, on the midi route you'd be actually be playing the *real* drums and learning real techniques (outside of just limb separation and rhythm).
Otherwise, maybe ThePro wants to post more details regarding his experience with the peizo's.

Hope that helps a little.
D

[superchud]

I don't believe you can double up piezos I could be wrong though.

My mod just got put on hold do to a RED RING OF DEATH.

At least when my xbox gets back everything should be good to go (I hope).

One question how hard was it to program the MSA to the brain to trigger the proper output?

[Blanko]

Not difficult at all.
We've already locked it down on page 17.

Highly_Liquid recommended a simple utility to that send the Sysex message to the MSA. On page 17 I've given two example of these messages. The second one I'm using exactly.

Midi notes may differ depending on the drum module. I can load the settings screen for each trigger on my kit. If I hit other triggers the settings screen stay up. Only the settings change (midi included). So I could tap away at all the pads aligning all the midi notes to what I programed the msa to do.

Most of the cymbal pads have multiple triggers that fire different midi notes as well as instrument cross-talk. At first I was getting many double / wrong note hits. Even after banging all over each pad I was still getting some inconsistencies. But after I reset my module to factory defaults, and re-aligned the midi notes, everything worked perfectly.

D

[Flash]

Blanko: Thanks. I've now read the thread. I am definitely not 100% confident in my abilities, but I may have to attempt the MSA route.

One question though that was not clear from the preceding pages: would it be possible to cut up a REGULAR old, wired Xbox 360 controller for this project or do you HAVE to use the RB drum controller? I'd love to do this without risking my RB kit dying beyond repair.

[Blanko]

Yeah - unfortunatly you have to use the rb drum controller.

D

[zolon]

The RockBand Drum Controller has a chip in it that identifies it as the drum kit. Until some one has the ability to find out how to emulate that chip, we are stuck ripping apart our drums.

Also, if you do the MSA route, GET IT PRE-ASSEMBLED. (Unless you are a god with a soldering iron) Also make sure you mention Beta Firmware when you fill out your info to pay. It won't work with out the beta firmware. John at Highly Liquid is on top of this one, as he was my first contact with them.

The pezio route is one of the easier routes. There is a thread on doing just that, and many other websites actually. I beleive the thread is under the RockBand grouping and not General.

Before you start any of the mods, research. I mean REALLY look into it. If you don't feel confident doing some basic electronics, then I would really look into other options.

[ThePro2001]

Originally Posted by Flash

Hey guys,
So, inspired to learn to play by RB, I got myself a Yamaha DTXplorer electronic kit. Its really awesome on its own, but I want to try to use it to play the game too.

I'm not savvy enough to do all the programming/modding/soldering/etc it takes to do the MIDI-XBox Controller conversion, so I think I will take the piezo switch attachment route taken by ThePro2001 above.

My question is this: Is it possible to splice two piezo switches together so that they trigger the same action/button?

If I am not mistaken, the Yamaha pads are in rubber? If so, the piezo method may not work well. With the Roland V-Drum, the head vibrate enough for the piezo to trigger the drum, but I tried to put the piezo on a cymbal that is in rubber and it did not work. So, don't cut any wire yet... Like I did, begin with just one pad, you can remove the piezo from the red pad, the wire is long enough to test it on one of your pad and you will see if it work.

I wanted to try to plug 2 piezo like you said, but since the piezo was not working on the cymbals that I have, I did not tryed it.

I have now upgraded to the "Midi Solutions R8" method and, WOW, the piezo method was working, but not as well as with the R8. I can now have 5 star at all songs in medium. Since I have the tendency to hit the pads lightly, the piezo was working about 95% of the time, but now with the R8, I could almost play with a feather... Playing with a real pedal is also a big improvement.