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Connecting Guitar or Drums to arcade cabinet...

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pboreham:
Hi all,

Think this is one for further down the line, but its been something thats been on my mind the last couple of days as I plan my new project.

Ok, I love Guitar Hero type games and see that MAME supports GuitarFreaks and DrumMania.

Has anyone connected up any peripherals for these games? I think the 360 Guitar Hero peripheral works via USB, but would that would with GF and would it simply just connect via USB?

If this is a crazy question then please bear with me - got a lot to learn!  :dizzy:

buks:
You can connect an xbox360 guitar or a Playstation guitar with an Ps to usb connector. I'm not familiar with the games you mentioned but theres a couple of windows clones of GH that are worth looking at :

1. Guitar Zero - no longer in production as the author pulled it after complaints from the GH authors. You can find it though by searching google....

2. Frets on Fire - I've written a software review of this in the softare forum (sub forum "software reviews"). Its excellent and you can get the GH hero song packs as well as 100's of fan made packs.

There another one as well but I've not tried it and can't remember whats its called.

As you haven't started your cab yet this is an excellent side project as you don't actually need to do muchother than get the software and a guitar.

Buks

pboreham:
Excellent, thanks Buks!

I used to have Frets on Fire, but it ran like a dog on my PC for some reason. I've got a pretty powerful iMac (running Vista), so not sure what the issue was, but will certainly give it a go.

I've got a PS2->USB convertor, so I may even build that flush into the front or side of my cab!

Thanks again, Paul.

MonMotha:
For DrumMania, get DTXMania and a Yamaha DTXpress or similar.  This is a MIDI drum set and can be hooked up directly to your computer.  The arcade controls for DrumMania are EXTREMELY similar (they're made by Yamaha), and the DTXpress is actually a little nicer since you can adjust the hi-hat to a position more conducive to cross-sticking.  DTXmania basically stepmania for DM/GF.  Simfiles are available for many of the songs from the series, and many extra ones are also available.

I'm not sure how MAME has the control emulation set up for DrumMania.  I haven't taken apart a DrumMania cab (about the only Bemani cab I HAVEN'T taken apart) to check how the controls are wired natively.  I know KeyboardMania is actually MIDI, but I believe DrumMania just hooks the sensors directly up to the IO expander board.

For Guitar Freaks, things are likely a little easier as there's a lot fewer controls and buttons.  I'd say just get a Guitar Hero controller and either mod it to have raw button outputs and use a controller interface of your choice or attempt to use a playstation USB converter - probably the cheapest way. I should point out that while the control concept is similar to Guitar Hero, gameplay is NOTHING alike.

Mostly arcade faithful home versions are also available for PS2 (Japan region only, so you'll have to import).  Guitar Hero controllers won't work since the idiots making them decided to deliberately make them incompatible, probably since many of the 3rd party Guitar Freaks controllers already supported 5 and even 6 buttons.  You'll have to get a real Guitar Freaks controller (3rd party available more often than the original Konami one at this point).  Konamistyle sells a GF ASC, which most of the importers will also sell you, at a price.  The USB drum set option works with GF/DM 3rd/4th and newer (including V, V2, and all the collections from in between).  If you really want to play the oldest 2 versions with your MIDI setup, I have an adapter board to adapt MIDI to the digital controller that Konami originally specified (and that is almostly unplayably small).

Crowquill:

--- Quote from: MonMotha on July 08, 2007, 01:33:12 pm ---For Guitar Freaks, things are likely a little easier as there's a lot fewer controls and buttons.  I'd say just get a Guitar Hero controller and either mod it to have raw button outputs and use a controller interface of your choice or attempt to use a playstation USB converter - probably the cheapest way. I should point out that while the control concept is similar to Guitar Hero, gameplay is NOTHING alike.

Mostly arcade faithful home versions are also available for PS2 (Japan region only, so you'll have to import).  Guitar Hero controllers won't work since the idiots making them decided to deliberately make them incompatible, probably since many of the 3rd party Guitar Freaks controllers already supported 5 and even 6 buttons.  You'll have to get a real Guitar Freaks controller (3rd party available more often than the original Konami one at this point).  Konamistyle sells a GF ASC, which most of the importers will also sell you, at a price. 
--- End quote ---

IIRC, Harmonix hated Konami's guitars and kept breaking them which is why they designed their own. Konami's read as a special controller while the Guitar Hero guitars for PS2 are read by the console as a normal dual shock 1-style pad with the left d-pad held down. In fact, if you start a song in GH with the left d-pad held down on a controller it'll re-map all of the buttons since it thinks the guitar is attached. Any PS->USB adapter should work with it but left will be held down and you might have to remap things a bit to compensate. Up and down on the strum bar are digital up and down, the whammy bar is left analog stick up. From memory, the fret buttons read as:

R2
O
Triangle
X
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