All-in-all this project isn't that difficult from an electronics standpoint. All it is is a glorified gamepad. The fret buttons are just digital...buttons. The strum bar is just a moving actuator that hits two switches not too different from your average joystick. The only one that's a little more complicated is the whammy bar which is a rotary analog controller. The solderless PS1 hack is easy (thanks Spiffyshoes!). I've already done 3 of them (2 for my MAME cab controls and 1 for my home-build DDR pad). That's why I have spares. Every time I walk into a GameStop I check to see if they have any revision A Dual Shocks. $3.99 for an interface can't be beat.
The trickiest part is building a case that is solid and that the electronics can mount in. I've read and re-read the post over on the Guitar Hero forums about the
Elmo Guitar mod. This is one reason that I knew the PS1 Dual Shock would work.
I'm not sure about GH1, but in GH2 both PS1 and PS2 dual shocks work fine. As mentioned, the controller is recognized as the guitar by shorting left on the d-pad. I've even tested this with a simple spring clamp when LEFT is held down when starting a song, all the buttons remap to the face buttons. When starting a song without it held down, all the controls are mapped to the shoulder buttons and up and down don't strum (it strums automatically when your press the buttons). I'm actually considering shorting out LEFT through a switch so that it could also function as a standard pad. I'm not sure what games that would work with, but Frequency and Amplitude come to mind. IIRC, they use the shoulder buttons. I'm not sure if you can re-map that. BTW, anybody else notice that the interface of the game is basically Frequency/Amplitude with Karaoke Revolutions' backgrounds?
Below is a rough diagram of how I'm thinking the whammy bar will move the interor analog stick on the stripped-down pad's circuit board. In theory, I guess you could just replace the analog stick from the controller with potentiometer. Would probably be some tricky soldering, though.
SavannahLion--Play the game already! It's one of the most fun games to come along in a long time. Simple enough to pick up and play right away, but even the hard level can be quite challenging.
Watching this thread closely...I'm anxious to see how well it works!
You and me both. I'm guessing there will be some trial-and-error despite my planning and lovely diagrams.
