Guitar Hero - Home Cabinet - First Project

[BrianAg95]

Hi,  My name's Brian, and I have wanted to have a home arcade for a long long time.  Back in 2001 I bought a motorace cabinet I was going to convert into Mame, but kids, and jobs, and reality kept me from working on it, and I ended up selling it.  Fast forward to this year.  Tax season was decent to me, and my basement has been finished for a few years now (with a spot I set aside specifically for arcade games).  So it was time to get started on some cabinets.

I picked up a capcom bowling from craigslist, and I will be converting that into vertical only games, but while I was doing that I ran into a great deal on guitar hero stuff.  One of my friends plays guitar hero almost the whole time when we go to dave and busters, so I figured that would be an awesome arcade to have in the house for parties!  So I switched gears and made the guitar hero cabinet first.

I began with the ole doodles on scratch paper.  Then some looking around at real guitar hero cabinets, then some testing of components.

I then got busy with visio and made a design I liked on paper.


The typical arcade cabinets are square and have the guitars mounted on the front.  I went with an angled design, so I could mount them on the sides, but still have access to them from the front.  2 1/4 sheets of 3/4 mdf later, tons of cutting, painting, routing, tmolding etc.. later...






I had seen the images of someone who made a fake marshall amplifier stack for a home guitar hero cabinet, and I liked that but as I priced out all the amplifier parts (vinyl, corners, speaker grill cloth, etc..) I decided I would just go for the more arcade style.  Plus since I want 3 cabinets I think it will look better to have all three be arcade style.  But that is what lead me to the rock industrial style I went with with the Black cabinet, chrome t molding, and exposed screw heads.

I am not quite finished yet.  I still have to decide on the logo for the side, and what marquee I am going to go with.  Have been leaning toward just doing "Guitar Hero" in their standard artwork.  I have not built the marquee box that will sit ontop yet, as which logo I go with may affect the dimensions.  (as guitar heros standards artwork is square not rectangular like an old school arcade).  I alos have not installed my plexi monitor bezel yet.

I wanted to do this cabinet as simply as possible, so I figured the best way to run guitar hero games was with a traditional console.  I found a great deal on craigslist for everything for around $150 (console, games, guitars, drums, mic).  SO that is what is running the system.  I picked up a tube style HD sony tv from CL as well, and I am using an old Amplifier I had with 5.1 channels to run the subwoofer, and speakers.

Hope you guys like it!

[Well Fed Games]

I like it! You're right, a bit of art on the sides would really make it pop.

Does the kinect factor into the music games at all?

You may want to consider hiding the speakers in the upper marquee box area, so it all looks a little more like a single unit.

[Superfrog]

I still like playing some good rock song   

Sad they drop the guitar hero projects 
I play guitar and drums for real, but still great fun to bang the drums with guitar hero ... Metallica / Van Halen ... let there be some new versions coming out 

[BrianAg95]

I plan originally on those top speakers was to use chrome/polished tubing (like stage\light rigging) to attach them so they would be floating off the top.  But I have to figure out the marquee box before I can figure out how that will all work....  They are probably too big to hide inside the marquee box. 

For the Guitar games, You can use the kinect to start the games, but once in them you just use the guitar controllers. (at least with the games I have played),  For Just Dance it only uses the kinect, so since thats what the wife wanted I had to include it. (I figure thats better than building a dance dance revolution dance pad for her 

The deal I got from CL on the xbox, had guitar hero II, III, and world tour, as well as rock band and rock band Beatles...  so far I have only tried world tour, so I have 4 more games I haven't even cracked open yet, so some of them may use kinect more.

[Dawgz Rule]

Nice little Rock Band 3 trick it to roll it back to title update 4 to allow it to play customs.  You can find hundreds of good customs all over the place, including imports from GH.

[Well Fed Games]

Sounds good. I was big into the first Guitar Hero games on the PS2 but lost track until recently, when I've been picking up Xbox 360 guitars and games for a few bucks a piece. In my opinion, not a bad one in the bunch... even the younger-focused games (Lego Rock Band and Band Hero) have some great tracks.