| Current mood: |  accomplished |
| Current music: | Dethklok |
Rock Band Pedal Adventures
We got Rock Band a little while ago and I've been playing the living daylights out of it. I never liked the feel of the Rock Band bass drum pedal, which is just a plastic pedal with a spring beneath it. I've strongly missed the "feel" of a real pedal, specifically the beater bouncing off the bass drum, especially in songs like Tom Sawyer.
After some googling, I found a thread about making a custom Rock Band drum pedal using a real bass drum pedal. Essentially it uses a magnetic switch from a home security system to open/close a circuit, which Rock Band detects. It's similar to how the real Rock Band pedal works, only not made out of thin plastic.
I already have a drum pedal from my real set, and I've purchased the sensor and cable for it. I just ordered a drum pedal practice pad for it to hit against. There are people who have taken the beater off their pedal, or changed the beater angle to hit the floor or some other padded surface. I considered these, but the whole reason I'm doing the mod in the first place is to get the feel of a real pedal, and having the beater angled downward (and gravity going WITH the beater when pressing downward, instead of against it) really feels different.
It's a good thing that I was planning on this replacement pedal, because tonight when I was playing Rock Band, the original pedal cracked. It didn't crack all the way through, but there are cracks on both side of the pedal on the bottom half near the base, and it's obvious that it will only take a little more pressure for it to crack all the way through.
The good news is that EA is replacing all broken Rock Band hardware for free. Just head to http://support.ea.com/rockband, describe the problem, and they'll get you the new stuff.
I'm getting a replacement even though I'm doing the pedal mod, just in case.
Now we'll see if the practice pad arrives before the original pedal fully snaps...
*EDIT*
The other thing I forgot to mention is I'm NOT rough with the pedal at all. I usually use heel down, only switching to heel up on repetitive songs like Maps and Won't Get Fooled Again. I also play very lightly for a drummer, so I'm really surprised I had this problem, and I can see how some heavy-footed players could have it in a manner of days.
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beanalby) wrote,
