Guitar Hero Drum Fix

In the words of a Lemming… YIPPEE!!!

Hey, this is James’ friend, Pat.  I’m one of the many angry people that purchased this game soon after it’s release.  Well, I should say that I WAS one of the angry people because I have figured out how to fix the drum pads.  If it’s your cymbals that aren’t working then you’re more than likely screwed (unless you plugged it in wrong) because I didn’t have a problem with the cymbals at all.  If your cymbals aren’t working, here are a few things you can try:

- Make sure they’re plugged into the correct jack.  If they’re not, turn off the set, plug them in accordingly, then turn it back on.
- Try switching the cymbals to see if either works in the other jack.  This will let you see if it’s the port or the cymbal itself that isn’t working.
- If you’re adventurous you could even open it up and see if there are any wiring problems.

Speaking of wiring problems, I guarantee this is 90% of people’s problems with the drum pads themselves (not the cymbal).  I’d classify myself as an adventurous person, so I actually unscrewed the back of the drum set and took a look inside (I figured it couldn’t hurt and I actually own two metal Dance Dance Revolution pads and had to rewire them a few times. So this adventure wasn’t totally without experience).  The first thing I noticed was that they used some sort of silicone glue to attach the wires to the sensor.  It became obvious to me that this was clearly interfering with the drum’s reception so here’s what I did (I encourage people to try this too, although I AM NOT AT FAULT if you screw yours up):

1. Unscrew the back of the drum set and SLOWLY remove the back piece.
2. Use some sort of sharp tool to remove the glue from the sensor. (I used a small knife)
3. Clean off the glue if you want, but there are two parts to the 3 sensors.  There is the inside circle and the outer ring. (Make sure you remember which wire goes to which, because you have to reattach it to the same one of your set wont work.)
4. Strip down the wire a little bit so that there is more of the wire for the sensor to read.
5. Use electrical tape to tape down each wire to the appropriate part of the sensor. (While doing this, it is good to connect it to the Xbox to see if the drums are working properly. You’d hate to screw everything back in and find out something didn’t work right.)
6. Finally, be careful that you reattached everything properly and then screw everything back in.
7. Connect your controller and drum away!

I promise you that this worked for me.  This is definitely much better than sending it back in and waiting 2-3 weeks for them to fix it and ship it back.  If you think about it the wiring problem makes A LOT of sense.  I’m sure they didn’t think this would happen and they weren’t careful when gluing each wire to the sensor.  Yes, this is a small project that we SHOULDN’T have to do, but it’s definitely worth it.

I will answer questions if people have any, just leave a comment and I will check them and answer to the best of my knowledge.