Guitar Hero:World Tour Drum Repair

Some problems have been noted with the GH:World Tour drums. This instructable aims to repair those issues while soundly voiding your warranty. If your red drum head is non-functional, or maybe your orange cymbal, or really any problem that the Activision support page doesn't address, this is the place to be.

Activision wants you (as of this writing) to prepay shipping and insure the drums whereupon they will be tested and then replaced. If you want to wait 4-6 weeks (estimated) to get them back.

I'm not sure whether to thank them for the inspiration or vilify them for the awesome customer service and manufacturing but that is neither here nor there. On with the show!

UPDATE! (11/04/08): I have determined that the multi-hit problem was due to a flaw in the plan. The supports under the drum heads should not have been attached to the main chassis but rather to the drum heads themselves. Towards that end there will be a GH:WT Drum Repair Redux soon.

Step 1 Baseline your kit

I used the Mii freestyle session to test my kit. Not sure if the other console systems have a similar feature or not. Regardless, you need to know what you are starting with.

I considered the performance of my yellow cymbal to be ideal: easily registered both hard and soft hits in the center and readily picked up hits to the far edges as light hits. It was also very easy to get a roll-type action with minimal force.

All other pickups were far from ideal. Congratulations to the yellow cymbal assemblers wherever you may be, job well done.

I decided that I wanted all areas of the pad to register hits if possible, or at least light ones on the edges. I didn't want a false-positive type of hit to register, however, a gentle accidental contact should be ignored.

Decide what you want performance-wise, test to find out how far from that you are, and let's dive in.

Comments

[abain]

Hey. Recently found that the red pad on my guitar hero drums is not functioning properly. I took off the pad and found that the wire had dettached itself. I cannot fix this. I was wondering if you had any suggestions

[Leahloo]

Awesome fix!  My drums work better than ever now. Thank you!  I'm almost embarrassed to say that I used some pieces of bamboo skewers and rolled up masking tape instead of the metal "springs".  I was able to push the skewers into each side of the foam and used the masking tape on top of the sensor and under the skewer.  I had to adjust the amount of masking tape for each sensor so they didn''t register when I hit the cymbols.  Works great!

[chilipepper69]

Hi!Im having problems with the drums connection to the ps3.While playing a song if i hit the orange cymbal a few times the connection goes .This is happening constantly, and very rarely can get through a full song without losing connection to the ps3.Your help would be much appreciated 

[natashia]

Hi,i am also having some trouble with the connection to the yellow pad.
We have got a new yellow pad today but it still wont work so its not the pad that is broken.
The black plastic coating has come off the wire slightly but the wires inside dont seem to be broken.
Any ideas what may be going wrong with it.
Any help would be appreiciated.

[tmlittle]

 Did you ever figure out this issue?  I'm having the same problem.

[jwilco86]

do the repairs of the main pads that i've read here apply to all of the main pads. seems that most are having problems with the red pad. my problem is with the blue pad. i'm over warranty, so i'm going to check out the problem since the kit can't be used i can't mess it up too bad

[jwilco86]

mission accomplished, and it works great. The ideas here worked great. the second that i split my drum console apart i saw the broken wire, not five minutes later i was resoldered, re-assembled and playing the drums. i also used the suggestion of the new cord for the drum pedal after my cat had chewed on the cord.....got it at radio shack

[adrian106]

would super glue work to hold the wires in place??

[RepairmanSki]

I don't know really, my understanding of superglue is that it can be brittle if it is applied thickly. Certainly no expert though.

[wally186]

I have a problem with my red snare pad. I took it a part and sure enough the red wire was totally off of the solder, I then have twice tried to solder the wire back on with no luck, after a few good beatings to the red pad the solder comes off. Any idea's on what I should use to solder it on? or would a bead of slicon work?

[ManlyJack]

solder is always a good choice when soldering anything, silicon makes a great insulator so that's no good

[corygirl]

I try but it doesn't work, I try with different materials but it doesn't work too, just works if I hit hard directly the golden circle, what can I do? :(

[Izzy462]

I did the repair and it works great. I did not use the metal band with foam.

[Izzy462]

I am getting ready to try this repair. I will let you know how it goes.

[jaredmccutch]

my red pad didnt work so i took off the pad and the black wire fell off....does taking off the pad void your warranty

[AJrockmusic4ev]

same happend 2 me ya i think it does fall of right wen u take it off

[AJrockmusic4ev]

UR sooo kool

[RepairmanSki]

I am certainly no expert, but as long as whatever you did was reversible without damaging anything I would hope you would still be covered. Then again, taking it apart sets you well on the path, you could finish the job and fix it yourself!

[hawke777]

This was extremely helpful. My Rock Band 2 cymbals broke and I used some tips from here and also the following to fix it:

http://www.protoolreviews.com/how-to/build-it-yourself/repair-broken-rock-band-2-cymbals

What's cool is that the end result was better than the original, since the drums stopped double registering as well as missing the occasional note. It's now pretty much dead-on with every note, even through fills.

[Crmlcrw]

PAD problem. Hi. Hope someone can help me. I was trying to quickly fix my drums for my kids and took some quickly read advice from another site and removed the pad covers from teh FRONT of the drums and now as you might guess can not get them back on. I would like ot solve this problem before tinkering with anythign else since it may not be worth my time and effort to try. Under one of the pads the wires were completely detached so I am guessing I have to fix that first. Thanks for any advice anyone can give to get these back on.

[deano1985]

Hi there i was just wondering if anyone could help me my yellow cymbal has been turned 360 degrees and the wire has become detatched from the adaptor. i was just hoping someone could tell me how i can put the wire back into the apaptor? would be much appreciated

[RKVirginia]

I have the exact same problem as deano1985 and would really love a fix or where to find a replacement plug. My daughter spun the cymbal and pulled the wire loose. I can't reinsert without cutting the plug.

[RepairmanSki]

If you have a Radio Shack or similar store around you, this is what you need:<br/><br/><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062452">http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062452</a><br/>

[Jbar5]

Great! Just got the game and turned my back for one sec, my daughter pulled the wire from the 1/8 plug. This is a big help, thanks!

[vivt01]

hi i was just wondering how would I attach the wire to this new plug u stated to buy at radioshack. sorry im not very familiar with electronics but i also have the same problem my nephew pulled both yellow and orange cymbal wire and I cannot put it back to the original plug :(

[RepairmanSki]

I believe the one I linked to is a solder connection, which I would recommend. They may have crimp-on style as well, but with all the vibration and such it probably wouldn't last long.

[vivt01]

im sorry im still kind of confused so I have to sodder it to that one?

[GH geen]

uhmm i have a question because my drum set for guitar hero broke and i dont know how to fix it. my orange and yellow cymbols seem to go off by themselves and hit random notes and now the orange one just doesn't work and idk what to do!!

[aleettzz]

i need helppp!!!!!! with thisss guys i got these problem .My drums doesnt have the sensivility problem the right cymbal doesent work but i isnt the cymbal it is inside the drums kit or it can bee to the plug, because i change the cymbals and stils that side of the base of the cymbal that doesnt work

[erikasays]

How do you repair contacts?

[Jestersage]

I think the issue is about how hard you hit the drum. Basically, the idea is this: a) Rock Band drum: just hit it softly b) GHWT drum: hit them like real drums (really hard)

[RepairmanSki]

Not to be flagrantly dismissive, but that's not it at all. The performance of one or more of the heads degrade to an unusable state. Even if your assessment were accurate that would mean that part of the kit functions one way and part another way. Either way you look at it the functionality is not consistent across the kit. Further, having loose wires that literally disconnect when you touch them cannot be intended behavior. I feel I fully address both defective workmanship and manufacturing inconsistencies in the write up, at least to me, that is the issue, not impact velocity.

[Jestersage]

I think it's a combination of two things: a) make it require more forces b) Poor workmanship. In anycase, since the cymbal was broke due to someone horseplay around my drum, i decide to just take them apart. the yellow cymbla isn't too bad, but yeah... Anyway, I will check how well your modification improve.

[sapphireiiii]

hi! loved the info, thank you SO much ... a quick question ... my daughter turned the cymbal on my son's drum kit all the way around and the thin black cord must have broke though it looks perfect. any idea what that little black cord (the one that connects the cymbal to the drum kit) is called or where i might be able to get a new one? hope you're all having a great weekend!!

[RepairmanSki]

It should be 2 conductor audio cable. You could replace it with any two conductor wire really, and a mono 1/8" audio plug from Radio Shack or whatever similar store in your area.

[danieldrag]

yea i fixed mine, all i did is opened up the little hatch on the bottom of the cymbols and taped down the 2 glued wires, now mine are fine and my cymbals don't have any sort of problem.

[jfragment]

It helped me very much. Thanks. I had the red drum round censor lose it's adhesion to the pad. I tried scotch tape but that comes off after about a song of testing. My next test is super glue. Wish me luck!

[SpinozaQ]

I would try a high quality epoxy to re-attach any piezoelectric elements. It will provide a little bit of flex and won't crack like other glues. Super glue may work... but I think it would crack over time from flexing.

[danieldrag]

hey, i'm having problems with one of my cymbals. When i attach this cymbal to the yellow connection it multi-hits with red aswell (about 80% of the time i hit yellow it senses at red also). When i switch over this cymbal to the orange the multi hit problem is fixed but i now can't hit double notes involving red and orange? pretty confusing hey. I think there is a bit of a sensitivity problem with this certain cymbal aswell

[pacman1176]

Hey, this is a great fix idea, but activision has just tremendously improved their warranty process. You can now either send your drums (or any other instrument) in your original box with a pre-paid (by activision) shipping label, or request that they send you a new instrument immediately, provided that you give them a credit card number to hold onto funds until you send them the broken component back. Google Guitar Hero Warranty, then click the first link, and hit the Guitar Hero Support link, or visit here:

http://redoctane.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/redoctane.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php?p_sid=JXto77mj