First post here. Might as well show my work.
So, for those familiar with music games, along the lines of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, drums were added a few years after the guitars.
Alongside Rock Band 2's debut, Harmonix worked with Ion to develop a $300 drum controller. For all intents and purposes, it IS a real electronic drum kit, just lacking a drum brain, instead plugging into a controller interface.
It was awesome! I had to get it, hence pic #1.
There's no way to get more real. At this point you can just buy the new equipment yourself. Everything is modular and plugs in through stereo jacks. (Well, mono for the pedal)
Now the issue comes into play. In Rock Band, there's 4 lanes + pedal. Now, there's 8 inputs on the Drum Rocker. 4 pads + 1 pedal + 3 cymbals. Each one of the cymbals doubles up one of the other lanes. Red is the exception.
In Guitar Hero World Tour, there's 5 lanes + pedal. Instead of doubling up 3 lanes to do double-duty as cymbals, they instead have 3 drum lanes and 2 cymbals.
However, to maintain compatability, if you insert standard Rock Band drums, the game drops down to 4 lanes, effectively merging the 3 drum lanes to 2.
This SHOULDN'T happen on the Ion drums. They have the cymbals! It can do it!
So my desire was to make the Ion drums work in 5 lanes in Guitar Hero. I mean, the stereo jacks are right there, I just need to connect to the GH brain instead of the RB one.
Step 1 was taking apart my GH drums and taking off the drum brain. It was simple enough inside and the connections to the drum pads were clearly marked.
Step 2 was getting a project box at Radio Shak. There i got 5 stereo jacks, and drilled some holes and mounted them. I left a hole from plugging in the pedal. (The GH Pedal is an analog signal, while RB is digital, so they need to be separate)
Step 3 WAS to solder the wires to the stereo jacks, but I soon figured out I wasn't skilled enough to work in a small box. I had to get a bigger one. (Make the joke, go ahead)
Step 4 was testing it. The connections worked! However, I was getting WAY too much "crosstalk." Crosstalk is when the pads pick up nearby vibrations and send it as a hit.
That's where Step 5 came in: Getting potentiometers. It took a bit of searching, but I eventually settled on a set of 5 logarithmic pots, 150k, I believe.
I then borrowed a Dremel, carved out the box, mounted the pots on the front and the mono jacks on the side.
Step 6 was to fine tune it. The drums themselves have a software calibration, but pots allow for MUCH FINER tuning, plus it works instantly.
I just used a magic marker to tag a side so I can see them rotating, put some velcro on the bottom so it'd temporarily stick to the drums when needed, and superglued the GH Drum Brain onto the top and screwed it down.
Now I can play GH with 5 lanes with my Ions!
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