I LOVE Rock Band. I love playing the drums, but I don't like that kick pedal. I have yet to have mine break, but I have used real kick pedals and they feel NOTHING like a piece of plastic being pushed up by a spring. I don't fault Harmonix for this. There is only so much you can put in a box for $170. I craved MORE though.

Just like the sticks need some bounce and positive reinforcement, so does the foot pedal.

I have seen several mods on the web using real kick pedals, but most just stick a sensor under the pedal just like the original pedal. I find that defeats the purpose of the mod, which to me is all about the positive feedback you get when the hammer slams into that drum (kickpad in this case).

The price?

I know this is the first thing to see if you are even interested in READING this or not. It's cheap if you can find a cheap used kickpedal.

• $15 Kickpedal (used at Guitar Center, they had another for $20; call around your local GCs and SamAsh to check what they have)
  
• $10 Magnetic sensor ($3 switch, $7 shipping)
  
• $6 1" x 3" white oak plank from home depot(about 3x longer than I needed)
  
• $4 2 metal angle brackets, the 5" plate and miscellaneous screws
  
• $3 monoplug from radioshack. You can also use broken headphones if you like, just strip the wires and do some continuity testing. Everyone has an old headset sitting around that should have been thrown out months ago.
  

So it came to about $38.00 for me.

Hows it work?

AWESOME!
I am so thrilled. The improvement in "feel" is indescribable. Kicking is extremely intuitive to me now since I have the positive feedback of hitting that kickpad with the hammer. Surprisingly, it is also very quiet unless I get REALLY into it. I originally thought the L bracket would need some support, but this thing is strong as an ox. White Oak is really rigid stuff, while still very light and attractive.

I haven't had a chance to play the songs that had me stuck on the hard tour yet, I just did BWT with my wife for about 2 hours. I did complete a song PAST where I was in the hard tour. Managed to get through foreplay/longtime on hard with very little effort.

To anyone nervous about modding, don't be! Get a normally closed magnetic sensor like the one linked below and attach it to some wire and to a mono plug. No soldering required if you have some of those tiny little screwdrivers for the mono plug end. Even then you could get away with just using tape. The electronics are as easier than you could imagine; basically just twisting wires together. The rest is just setting up a mount for the pedal and the kickpad.

The halfbeat kicks and fast kicks were what I was horrible at with the old pedal and they are almost instinctive now that I don't have to fight the pedal and can feel the hammer contacting the pad. Knowing and feeling where the sensor is tripping makes a huge difference. A real kick pedal also takes FAR less effort to double kick with. You get the benefit of the rebound as well as the silky smooth action of the spring, cam, and chain system that a real pedal uses.

Electronics:

The kickpedal is just a simple magnetic switch and a magnet. When the magnet approaches the switch, it closes the circuit and the game registers this as a kick.


Instead of reinventing the wheel, we can stick with a magnetic switch because that part of the design makes a lot of sense.

Basically, it is just this:
http://www.smarthome.com/7352.html
connected to a mono 1/8 jack.

Make sure the switch is 'normally closed' though. That is what Rock Band needs. This means that current flows through the wires when the magnet is near the switch. Security systems use both kinds depending on their make/model. The one in the link above is for SURE normally closed. It is the one I am using and is very tiny.

You can order the switch at the link above. If you can get a switch like this locally, then do so, you will save on shipping. Check for local security companies and see if they will sell to the public. Or you might get lucky at your local electronics store like a Radio Shack.

The mono plug can be found at almost any electrics store. You will also need some wire. Any wire will do, I used speakerwire because it was cheap. You don't need solder if have a tiny little screwdriver for the connection. I used solder just because I like any excuse to burn things.

The wires can just be twisted together and then taped up with electrical tape. Tape each twisted lead with a little bit of tape to keep them from touching and then tape them both up tight to make it look decent at the connection.



Use a continuity tester to make sure that you are getting a complete curcuit through the two leads on the headphone jack when the magnet is near the switch. It should work within about a 1" range. Or you could just plug it into Rock Band in practice mode and see if you can hit some beats by moving the magnet towards the switch.

Hardware:

Now that the electronics are done, the rest of this can be done however you want, really. The only real key is that you get a kickpedal, attach the magnet to the hammer and the switch itself positioned so that when the hammer hits your kickpad, the magnet is just close enough to close the circuit. The rest of this is a matter of aesthetics, and the following is how I chose to do it.

Shopping list:

• 1" x 3" White Oak plank. At least 3 feet long.
  
• 2 metal angle brackets (see photo below)
  
• 1 5" metal mending plate (attached to the kickpedal base in the below photo)
  
• 4 wood screws for the angle brackets (mine used #8 3/4" screws)
  
• 2 wood screws for the mending plate (#8 1 1/4" screws)
  
• ~10 1/4" washers. Buy a small bag, these are just spacers for the mending plate
  

Other items you need. Ask a neighbor if you don't have these:

• Wood Saw
  
• Drill and 1/8th inch bit
  
• Screwdriver. Phillips and/or stright depending on your screws
  
• (optional) Continuity tester
  

L shaped wooden frame
I wanted mine portable and somewhat compact. The easiest thing then would be an 'L' bracket with the pedal attached to one side and the other leg of the L being the kickpad.

White Oak is light and strong. A 1" x 3" panel from your local HomeDepot or Lowes will do great. 3 feet length will be plenty, but it will most likely be sold in 5 or 6 foot lengths.

Put your foot pedal on the board and cut a length about 3 inches longer than the length of the pedal. This will give you room to adjust the pedal forward or back as you like before you secure it. When finished, you can cut off any excess wood.

Measure how high the hammer gets at its highest part of its swing and again, probably give yourself another few inches of extra wood. You can always cut off excess later, but adding extra wood will be harder.

Line up the bracket for one side, mark the holes with a pen and push the tip of the pen into the wood in the center of the circle. This indentation in the wood will make lining up the drill that much easier. My angle bracket fit #8 wood screws and I use a 1/8th inch drillbit for all the pilot holes.



Repeat this on both sides and this L bracket should be more than strong enough for our needs.

Kickpad

You can use anything for this really. I used leather wrapped around a rolled up sock and 4 extra screws I had from the bag I bought at HomeDepot. You can use a rolled up sock duct taped to the board if you like or anything else you think would be appropriate. I have seen actual drum kickpads online for about $10 if you want to get really fancy or authentic.



Attaching the pedal
First move the pedal around forward and backwards to adjust to taste where you want the hammer to strike the kickpad. This is largly a matter of taste and how far you want the pedal to travel before contact is made.

I also used this time to play with how I wanted the switch connected (could be above or below the hammer for instance). I found mine worked pretty well above the hammer with the switch shoved a bit into the sock of the kickpad. This helped me figure out where I wanted the pedal as well. I grew a third arm to make it even easier to do some continuity testing. If you don't have a continuity testing, you can always just do the electrical connections and try this in practice mode of a song to see when the switch registers.




The pedal is attached to the wood by whatever means you like (I fixed a metal plate to the base with some spacers so that the kickpedal could attach to it like it would attach to a normal drumkit. I found a 5" metal mending plate at the hardware store along with the angle brackets and it looked like it would work perfect. It did. Just took some washers for spacing and some longer woodscrews.



Attach the switch
Tape the magnet part of the magnetic contact sensor to the hammer.

Then attach (tape in my case for now) the actual wired part of the switch near the kickpad so that when the hammer swings forward it just barely sets off the switch. (can either check ingame in practice or with a continuity tester). The switch above activates when about 1" from the magnet, and it is really fast and sensitive.

Don't permanently attach that switch until you practice with it. Play around with it to see if you want it more or less sensitive. If you get some 'double kicking' when it bounces off the kickpedal you can fix this by moving the switch just abit closer to the magnet where the hammer strikes the pad.

The switch I have has a sticky backing to it, and that is all I am using right now to attach it. Eventually I will probably put some screws in it. Or just add more tape. Tape is always good.

Thats it!

Hardwood floors

We have hardwood floors, which meant I had to buy some of these rubber anti-skid pads to attach to the bottom. Like most of these parts, they were around $2. I am actually surpised how well they work. This type is quite soft rubber and really grips our floors well. The original pad slippped more than this does.

Hope this was helpful!


Alluvian


Any comments? Discuss this in our fourms!