… and they both have the same problem my original had, of the tilt sensor activating when it feels like it, completely irrespective of actual tilt.
Time will tell whether they’ll shortly stop registering downstrums too.
Well, got my replacement today. Fucking Tilt Sensor does not function at all. The old guitar simply had a broken Effects switch. I think I need to RMA the replacement. I just want a fully functional controller.
Hey guys, Im new to the forum.
I did read this post before but I am looking for some further assistance. I was going over your fix for the rock band guitar and when I opened my guitar it did not look the same as the picture. So I took the liberty of taking one and hope someone can help me out.
BTW, very nice post, I already RMA’d my guitar and it worked out to my benefit cause EA sent me 2 more guitars. So I have a total of 3 Rock Band guitars, even though 1 is not working properly and hoping this will fix it.
Thanks in advance for the help.
-John
I just RMA’d my first guitar, so we’ll see what I get.
If this one goes bad, I may just mod it out. How’d your modding go, Ben?
I still don’t have my switches, but will post an update when I do!
anyone?
My strummer broke over the weekend. I opened it up, found the same setup as your photo, poked around for a few minutes, decided nothing was easily servicable, and promptly RMA’ed the guitar.
The replacement guitar shows up on Wednesday. Why don’t you just do the same? You don’t even need to talk to a hu-man; the process is entirely online.
Well, my guitar broke this weekend. Like, broke broke. It had gotten intermittently flaky before, and I used what I now call “the Sones Method” to tighten up that microswitch and it worked great.
Then this weekend it stopped registering downstrums like half the time, for about a minute, and then stopped registering them completely. Up-strums worked fine. I opened up my guitar and found that the “plastic nub B” in Ben’s diagram had broken off, taking a piece of metal with it. Needless to say, this is not user-repairable. I RMA’d it with EA using their online form, which was super easy, and now I’m just waiting for my replacement. I chose the express method but the UPS tracking still only says “Billing Information Received.” Bleh.
I dont really need to submit an RMA with EA since I already did and I recieved 2 new rock band guitars from them instead of 1 and they said I do not need to send the broken 1 back. I was hoping I could still fix it and use it at 1 of my friends house.
Those all look like words, and yet…
Yeah, my strummer is pretty much completely shot at this point, too. No amount of adjustment will make it work now. I think the contacts are worn down. Those switches just suck total ass. Having removed one entirely, I am now positive that they are exactly the same part as the one that I found on the web, which is rated for 50k cycles. That’s really just a couple weeks of play, if you play a lot.
From the rumors I’ve heard, though, it sounds like there are some new hardware revisions appearing–possibly even one with a magnetic switch. It’s probably be cheaper to just foot the money for better parts rather than to pay for all of these RMAs and replacement guitars, at this point. That has to be costing them a small fortune.
So you didn’t actually fix your strummer, then?
Looks like some cost-cutting executive heads need to roll on this one. The drums are a bit problematic too, between the pedal snapping and the way you have to tape the red and green drums to keep them responsive on Hard and Expert.
Yeah, I tried again to do some playing with the strat on hard today. Feels great, as always, particularly the shape of the controller and the feel of the frets. And then the strumming is such a different experience…until I realize I am bombing songs that are no big deal on my Xplorer. Then the magic is gone, and it goes back in the drawer. I wonder if the newer revisions have a different level of responsiveness generally or if it’s the same struggle to strum as the old ones without the breaking.
On the bright side, it’s a great workout, and then I destroy the songs on a GH guitar (relatively).
I was tired myself of the silent action of the rockband guitar, especially since it was impossible to determine if a strum was actually registering. Also, the guitar had a tendency to double strum for some unknown reason. So i ripped open the controller and installed a pair of micro switches that ‘click’ when pressed.
In the process of removing the old leaf-switches, I discovered that the wires connecting the leaf-switches to the rest of the guitar were spliced together with heat-shrink wrap. I am assuming there was supposed to be some solder, but apparently there wasn’t and the splice pulled apart easily.
For a nice clean layout of what the guitar looked like before I meddled with it, refer to Ben’s original post. In a nutshell, I simply installed the micro switches (Snap Action, hinge lever).
Some notes first:
The Snap Action micro switch has some size requirements. To fit vertically like I have shown, it can’t exceed 7/8". Even then, it will get in the way of the battery compartment. Wired guitars do not use the compartment, but wireless ones do. I had to create a large hole (in the compartment only, which is not visible when the guitar is sealed) to get the switches to fit in. So this WILL NOT work on wireless guitars.
Any number of switches can be used. I used some I found at a nearby electronics store, similar to this one
http://alliedelec.com/Search/ProductDetail.asp?SKU=821-1516&MPN=SS-5GL&R=821%2D1516&sid=47685F0027F9617F
The most important things to note here about the switch is the size, terminal location, and leaf-lever.
The total height of this mod should not exceed the height of the strum bar housing.
My Procedure
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I opened the guitar and removed the entire strum bar housing. It detaches neatly from the rest of the guitar.
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The old-leaf switches were removed.
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I had to cut off the plastic hooks (under the word ‘contacts’ on Ben’s pic) to make room for the micro switches. This also will make the strum bar housing into 2 pieces, but that’s ok because the screws will still hold it snugly to the guitar.
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The new switches were spliced onto the existing wires. I decided to remove all previous wire splices so I had to add some wire. Be sure to follow the wiring diagram on the switch to know which leads to connect the old wires to. It also may be a good idea to test your connections by connecting the guitar to your xbox and pressing the switches manually. Just don’t shock yourself obviously.
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Reattach the strum bar housing to the guitar. Be sure to screw it down tightly.
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Position the switches vertically against the strum bar’s little triangle tabs. This part takes a little trial and error finding the optimum position. Just rock the strum bar to trigger the switch until you find it. Be sure to release the strum bar and not move back to it’s default position manually. If it’s too close, the switch won’t release naturally and too far the switch won’t trigger.
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Once you find the best position, glue it down. I used just hot glue myself, but it makes a bit of a mess if you’re not careful.
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Almost done, but not quite. You will need to add some type of bar to go across the switches. This will prevent them from pushing out from the pressure of the strum bar. I used a Main Event card (the ‘Card is reusable blah blah’ text) and glued it to both switches. You can use pretty much anything, just make sure its somewhat thin and rigid.
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Depending on the size of your switches, you may or may not need to do some ‘slight modifications’ on the battery compartment. A dremel cutting tool would work best, but I did so using a drill and pliers. It wasn’t pretty at all, but it is not visible when the guitar is sealed
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seal it up, and enjoy
Closing Notes
I am sure I missed some steps, so I wouldn’t really recommend this unless you know what you’re doing. It is mildly simple though… at least I think so.
Nice mod!
Well, I got my replacement strat from EA yesterday, so the turnaround time wasn’t bad at all. The tracking number never really did give me an arrival date or anything other than “tracking info received” but I got home and there it was. So, bonus.
I’m so glad the strat doesn’t click, can’t imagine modding it so it does.
Well my strat broke with bad downstrumming and flaky tilting so I did the easy RMA off of the website on the 7th. Just got my replacement guitar today and it downstrums just fine but doesn’t register a tilt at all. So I’ve sent support requrest on what to do with two bad guitars and one RMA box… We’ll see what they say.
Second time was the charm. I have a working strat now. It looks like one of the second run guitars. The strum bar and fret buttons feel a little more tighter than my previous two strats. Now I just have to get the two boxes to a UPS store before my credit card takes the hit.
What would I need to do to mod the buttons so that when they are pressed they automatically activate a strum?
Would such a mod be possible?. Because I have no faith in the strum bar working correctly forever after the free RMAs dry up.
Zep–