Anyone playing bemani games on their cab?

[Shieldwolf]

Which ones do you like and think work best for the cab

[grafixmonkey]

hehe, you know what I think...   5-key and 10-key beatmania with MixWaver II is awesome.  To get 7-key or 14-key song support, you have to build your panel pretty special.

I bet you could do "poor man's DDR" by putting large, widely spaced buttons on the panel instead of the dance pad.  I don't know how you'd go about making a drum-mania or a guitar-freaks game work on a cab.

Got any favorite songs in beatmania yet?  I'm trying to get where I can play the middle section in "Blue Water Blue Sky".

I also suggest "Bourbon Cowboy", "Plasmasphere", "BrownWater", and the "Dragnet Remix"

[Sephroth57]

i dont have my cabinet yet but i plan on using it to play DDR. i already own 2 metal pads that hook up to my PC in my room with a PS->USB adapter. Using stepmania with tweaked accuracy windows (by default its easier to get perfects on stepmania than true arcade) i have every mix/song there is. I plan on doing the same thing with my cabinet, cept it will be cooler on a arcade screen and with my big speakers ill have hooked up, i got 2 12" subwoofers from my old car setup i just upgraded so im gonna hook those up =)

[Sephroth57]

oh and as far as IIDX, im pretty sure ive seen 7 button controllers with spinners you could buy... if i find them ill put the link up


**edit: wow check out this really nice controller u can get if you buy the game bundle from this guy. im sure u can find it elsewhere but theres good pics here

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3258766644&category=1345

[LOKIOLR]

Well I will be playing bemani games on my cabinet. For current project the BEMANICAB, I'm building a few control panels to go with each game. First a DDR setup, which is basically 2 sets of the menu select arrows. The DDR stages connect to the bottom of the front panel of the cab. Also there's the IIDX setup with full arcad sized turtables and buttons. Pop N Music with 9 slighty smaller pushbuttons. And finally Dancemaniax with custom made optical sensors. Then of course there will be the standard 4P mame setup. I'll be putting up pics and a website as soon as I get further along.

[Sephroth57]

so is this actually in the works or just your plans for now? id like to see how its coming because i plan on doing something like this eventually, id like to make my current cabinet dedicated mame and have a dedicated BEMANI so i would have to swap controls so much

[b3atmania]

Well I will be playing bemani games on my cabinet. For current project the BEMANICAB, I'm building a few control panels to go with each game. First a DDR setup, which is basically 2 sets of the menu select arrows. The DDR stages connect to the bottom of the front panel of the cab. Also there's the IIDX setup with full arcad sized turtables and buttons. Pop N Music with 9 slighty smaller pushbuttons. And finally Dancemaniax with custom made optical sensors. Then of course there will be the standard 4P mame setup. I'll be putting up pics and a website as soon as I get further along.

Where did you find the full arcade sized turntables? I've been looking anywhere to buy 'em. I have every official (not the third party clones) PlayStation Beatmania controller and the turntable on those is about 60% of the arcade size. I don't consider them appropriate for an arcade panel as it won't look authentic.

Also I need a source for arcade Beatmania buttons. They appear like the buttons you find on poker/fruit machines, but they are not. The arcade beatmania buttons have minimal travel and can be tapped in quick succession. They also need to be recessed more than poker buttons for comfort.

Also, can someone confirm the dome buttons sold by Suzo are the type  used in an arcade Pop'n Music panel or Bishi Bashi panel?

[LOKIOLR]

Well for beatmania some good scematics can be found here:
http://www3.ctktv.ne.jp/~pamnes/bmc/bmc.html

As for the buttons I got them from happscontrols. They're just rectangular 2" illuminated pushbuttons.

The cabinet is in the cutting stages. I have all of the actual cabinet pieces cut and they will be put together next week. Then I can begin on the CPs. The turntables are being done very strange. Reason being the way my cabinet is being setup it will have option controller outputs so the CPs can be hooked to the console systems and an external A/V in on the side of the cabinet so those systems can be played on the cabinet monitor. Because of that I couldn't do the turntables via an standard optical setup. So for these turntables to act like key presses I'm using 2 atari trackballs and hacking them for their optics. That way the output is exactly like a standard keypress.

The pop n music buttons are the same jumbo dome pushbuttons found on happscontrols. I unfortunately didn't use those because they were too expensive.

[hooded_paladin]

I'm sorry for the bump, but ... I can't resist replying to Bemani stuff.

As for people wanting Pop'N Music stuff, there are some nice cheap options nowadays.

Big Getting-into-Pop'N FAQ
Ransai controllers $250 + miscellaneous fees
Desktop Arcade controllers $200 + shipping
BYOPop'N (around $100)
Wico Dome buttons, significantly cheaper than Happs

I don't think Pop'N is emulated, but there are Pop'N Simulators

And finally Dancemaniax with custom made optical sensors.

I didn't know there was a Dancemaniax home version, emulator or simulator.  Could you tell me where to find one?  And maybe where to get those instructions, if you didn't come up with them yourself.

[walls83]

I use stepmanina and it works like a champ I got about 900 songs for it..

stepmania.com

[froggerman]

Sorry to ask some very basic questions but Pop 'N Music is very new to me. Am I correct in assuming that you are talking about playing Pop 'N Music on a Playstation or Dreamcast(?) unit and just displaying it on your cabinet? In other words this is not emulated in MAME?

The other question is the correct buttons for Pop 'N Music are $28 from Happs. There is another source for these buttons but it is in China. I know that someone was talking about ordering some. Is there enough interest here to place a large order? The reason I ask is that I know someone that imports containers from China on a regular basis. There is always lots of extra room in the containers as the items he imports are very heavy and he always has room for lighter items. This means that the shipping from China would not be a big deal.

Let me know if there is any interest and I will persue this with him.

[hooded_paladin]

Pop'N Music is available for the Japanese versions of PS1, PS2 and Dreamcast.  They are not emulated in MAME.

The buttons that are at Happs and Wico are the same as the arcade version.  You should buy them from Wico unless you want to pay 2.5 times as much.  There are some available from a site in China or Japan or some Asian country, but they come in boxes of 80 (all one color).  Not good unless you are going to mass produce controllers (as Ransai and Desktop Arcade have done ^ )