Selecting drum sticks for Rock Band

Posted on 2008/05/11 by richardykuo

Update – 2008-09-14

With six month of play under my belt, I now have a much better feel for sticks in general. My advice still holds…if you are not using mesh pads on an electronic kit, you'll want to pick up some Anti-Vibe sticks at a minimum, and experiment with other types of sticks as needed. The sticks should always be nylon-tipped.

Experimentation will always be necessary.  What I would suggest now, however, is that you adjust the size/weight of the stick you buy depending on your build and general preference.  Again, I have a fairly slight build … and after several months switched to lighter sticks on a lark and noticed an immediate improvement in my scores and stick control.

For the first few months, I was using Anti-Vibe 5A's … which are made of hickory.  The heavier sticks literally started to hurt my wrists.  Currently, I use Vic Firth SD4N's, which are made of maple (a lighter and more flexible wood) and have 7A-like dimensions.  It was actually pretty hard to find maple stick with a nylon tip in the proper dimensions, so I thought I would mention it.  I'm pretty happy with these, and my wrists are also thanking me.

Overview

 

Rock Band drums come with a pair of real drum sticks.  The question is, is it better to use something other than the bundled sticks?

 

The short answer is yes.

 

Selecting drum sticks – newcomer vs experienced drummer

 

First of all, the drum sticks with the Rock Band kit are selected on the basis of low cost and lightness/weight.  The bundled sticks are light so that the average player is less likely to destroy the kit with the sticks.  But they do the job.

 

If you're a real drummer, selecting drum sticks may be a serious issue for you.  On the other hand, if you're new to the whole idea of drumming in general, it probably doesn't matter what kind of sticks you get to start with.  There's no way to know what you'll end up preferring, and sticks are honestly just not that expensive.  So just pick a pair and come back to choosing sticks once you're a few weeks into it and have some context.  Either use the ones that came with the kit or fiddle with different pairs at your local Guitar Center and pick something that feels good to you.

 

Anti-Vibe drum sticks

 

However, the exception here, especially for Rock Band, is that you must get a pair of Zildjian Anti-Vibe drum sticks.  These sticks contain a shock absorbing core that deadens the vibration from traveling up the stick into your hands.  In songs like Reptilia or Blitzkreig Bop with extended and quick beats, your hand can really feel like it's taking a beating.

 

I cannot recommend Anti-Vibe sticks enough if you are playing on a standard Rock Band kit or rubber drum pads like the PD-8…the impact of hitting harder surfaces is exactly where the Anti-Vibe technology shines.  Anti-Vibe matters less if you're lucky enough to be hitting mesh pads, but in general the vast majority of Rock Band drummers would do well to have a pair.  They're only 10 bucks, so it's worth having them around.

 

I purchased a couple of pairs from Woodwind and Brasswind – Zildjian Anti Vibe Drum Sticks.

 

When you're ordering, if you're confused by the different options, just get the 5A nylon tipped versions.

 

What do those numbers and letters next to the drum sticks I'm looking at mean?

 

http://www.pearldrum.com/2002_techspeak/drumsticks.asp

 

Heavier or lighter drum sticks?

 

Heavier drum sticks are a matter of some controversy.  I would recommend playing around with some if you feel it matches your playing style, but otherwise, it seems like there are just as many potential cons as there are pros.  Some feel that strengthening your hands too much can actually lower your speed (it has to do with the type of muscles that get built with repetitive motions as opposed to heavy lifting).  Metal drumsticks in particular may transfer an undesirable amount of vibration back into your hands as well as destroy drums more quickly…especially the Rock Band drums.  Until you know enough to make your own informed decision on the topic, wood sticks with nylon tips are probably the way to go.

 

Wood, aluminum, other?

 

Aluminum is heavy … and we've already covered that topic.

 

Tips (not advice, the actual tips on the ends of the sticks)

 

Nylon tips have a "brighter" sound with acoustic kits, but on e-drums this makes no difference.  Nylon tips should last longer, but heavy hitters seem to have problems with the tips flying off.  I really don't think you should be hitting your e-drums that hard, tho.  Also, if you chip wood tips, they can slowly tear up or wear down mesh head drums.  So, in summary, I would recommend nylon tips.

 

Conclusion

 

I hope this article has been useful.  Basically, I would sum it up as this.  Buy a couple of pairs of Zildjian Anti-Vibe drum sticks (5A nylon tip).  If you know enough to prefer another set of sticks, you probably don't need any advice from me on this front anyway.

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The webcam method of properly calibrating Rock Band

Posted on 2008/04/13 by richardykuo

Link to Rock Band forums thread

Link to ScoreHero thread

One of the most important things you need to do when playing Rock Band is calibrate the game to your home theater system.  Most flat screen TV's and some audio systems introduce latency between when a signal is received vs when it is displayed.  If you don't account for this behavior by calibrating the game, your timing will be thrown off in subtle ways.  If you are playing with an electronic drum kit, I have to assume you're taking everything seriously and want to play the game right.

The key to this calibration vs other methods (and hence why I call it "reliable") is that it involves the use of a webcam to properly set the first calibration step, which completely eliminates human error from the equation.  No more guessing involved.

Adjust Audio/Video Sync 

1. From the Rock Band main menu, pick Options/Calibrate System.

2. Select the "Manually Set" option.

3. You should be on the "Adjust Audio/Video Sync" screen. Take your best shot at lining up the target with the click per the instructions on the screen, but don't leave the screen once you finish.

4. Now, point your webcam at the screen and record the screen + the audio for a few seconds.  I used the QuickCam application bundled with my Logitech QuickCam.

5. Open Windows Movie Maker (I'm using the Vista version).

6. Drag the recording into Windows Movie Maker.

7. Now drag the clip to the video timeline at the bottom

8. Expand the video track by clicking the plus box on the left of the track so you can "see" the associated audio track.

9. Zoom in as far as you can using the Page Down key so that you can see the blips of sound generated by the calibration process.

10. Use the frame step buttons ("J" and "L") to move the position indicator just after one of the calibration sound blips.

11. Next, use the frame step buttons ("J" and "L") to move the position indicator to the first frame where the target turns white that is closest to the calibration sound blip you are working with.

12. The goal is for you to adjust the A/V offset such that the first frame where the indicator fills with white is also the first frame displayed after the "blip" plays.  Based on the differences you see between steps 10 and 11, adjust the A/V offset by moving the target and repeat steps 4-11 until you achieve synchronization, then press OK to go to the Lag Compensation screen.

Voila!  You have correctly calibrated this step without any guessing involved. 

Lag Compensation

Oddly, the description on this screen which says "Some TV's introduce a delay that makes playing difficult" appears to have nothing to do with this step whatsoever.  What you're trying to do here, as far as I can tell, involves compensating for the lag between your controller and the console.

The step does involve some human error, but it's fairly easy to check the results of this step now since the previous calibration step we executed using the webcam is guaranteed to be accurate.

1. At the Lag Compensation screen, select the Calibrate option.

2. Follow the calibration screen instructions and strum or hit your drum pad to the clicks of the notes.  Two things here are important.  First of all, close your eyes and do not look at the screen while you perform this step.  Harmonix should never have put the moving note and target into the calibration screen here as it misleads people into looking at the screen and not playing to the calibration blips.  Second, be sure to use the same method of playing that you are using to calibrate. For example, don't calibrate this step by using the buttons on the drum controller if you're going to be playing by hitting the drum pads.

3. You will receive a result which should be positive…something like 30 ms, in my case, with my drum kit.  If you have a negative number, you really screwed up as that would mean your inputs are arriving at the console before you enter them.

4. Feel free to repeat step 2 a few times to double check your results or to get a better average setting.  You may want to manually set your offset after checking your calibration a few times.

5. Go ahead and select continue to save your calibration settings.

6. Now, we're going to test your settings.  Go to practice mode and select a song like "I Think I'm Paranoid" or "Dead on Arrival".  Choose to repeat the first couple of intro sections and play them at full speed.

7. The goal is to ensure the timing window for each hit is centered around the targets at the bottom of the screen.  Let's use the drums as an example.  Calibrating with the red drum, first try hitting the red notes exactly with the sound of the drum in the game and verify that the hit happens when the note is completely centered on the target.  Next, try hitting the note earlier and earlier relative to when the note arrives at the target.  The hits should start to "fail" when you strike barely before the note gem touches the target.  Now, try to hit the note later and later.  Again, the hits should start failing when you strike and the note gem has barely left the target.  If the hit window is not centered as I've described, then go back and adjust the Lag Compensation settings manually to shift the hit window in the proper direction (leave the A/V offset as is).

That's basically it.  Right now I consider this method to be foolproof.  It may feel a little weird at first as I had trained myself to play the game and was unconsciously compensating for the game's improper calibration.  But now I'm able to hit notes on target with the music and it "feels" right.  Better yet, the hits line up with the chart on the screen.

Hope this helps everyone!  Happy plastic rocking!

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Programming the MSA-P and your drum brain for use with Rock Band

Posted on 2008/04/13 by richardykuo

Overview 

This is part 7 of the Using an electronic drum kit with Rock Band FAQ.

The MSA-P is a flexible MIDI decoder that can perform a number of different functions.  Now that your drum controller has been modified and your MSA-P has been built out, you're almost done.  Now, we just need the MSA-P to be configured for our special use case, which is that we want it to decode the notes coming from our electronic drum kit and trigger the inputs of the Rock Band drum controller.  Here's how we going about doing just that.

Get your computer ready to program the MSA-P

Connect your M-Audio Uno USB (which you bought from the shopping list, right?) to a USB port on your computer. 

If you have Windows XP, you will need to install the drivers that came with the M-Audio Uno USB.  If you have Windows Vista, you don't need to install any drivers.  It will just start working.

Now, download Bome's SendSX program and install it.  We will use this program to send the command to the MSA-P through the M-Audio Uno USB.

Figure out what command to send the MSA-P

Everything here is documented in the MSA-P manual.  I'm just going to give you the abbreviated version.

The command you are going to send does three major things.

  1. It tells the MSA-P how to behave when it receives a MIDI note.  In our case, we ask the MSA-P to produce fixed width pulses so that we can use the pulses to trigger the controller inputs on the Rock Band controller.
  2. For each output of the MSA-P, it tells the MSA-P what MIDI note should activate it.
  3. It tells the MSA-P how long each fixed width pulse should be.  Some generally accepted testing amongst the community has determined 25ms to be a good length.  However, I have been informed by at least one PS3 modder that a 40ms length was required for his controller mod.

Here's an example SYSEX command.  I'm going to break this down for you.

Header: F0 00 01 5D 02 01 03 26 03 30 03 2D 03 29 03 24 03 00 03 00 03 00 00 31 F7

Nothing to change here.

Outputs (8 total): F0 00 01 5D 02 01 03 26 03 30 03 2D 03 29 03 24 03 00 03 00 03 00 00 31 F7

OK…this is worth explaining.  There are 8 2-byte pairs here…each representing one of the eight outputs on the MSA-P.  The first byte of each pair represents the output mode.  In our case, it will always be "Note Trigger – Fixed Length" and hence always be "03".  The second byte represents the MIDI note which will trigger this output.  This is what you need to pay attention to.

Pulse length: F0 00 01 5D 02 01 03 26 03 30 03 2D 03 29 03 24 03 00 03 00 03 00 00 31 F7

This number represents a 25ms pulse.  A 40ms pulse would be 00 4F.

Footer: F0 00 01 5D 02 01 03 26 03 30 03 2D 03 29 03 24 03 00 03 00 03 00 00 31 F7

Again, nothing to change here.

Drum Kit Note Numbers

The following list shows what MIDI note numbers represent the different drums in your Roland kit.  Below is what represents the mapping for my Roland TD-3 … your mappings may be different.

The strikethroughs in particular instruments represent "edge" or "rim" shots produced by hitting the edges of the pads on your kit.  Rock Band really has no concept of this, and the last thing we went is the occasional off center hit to not register as an actual hit in the game.  So we need to remap the edge/rim shots to the "primary" instrument note number.  Please follow the instructions for your drum brain to do this.

The italicized instruments don't really have a clear equivalent in Rock Band (that I can see).

The bolded instruments have obvious equivalents in Rock Band.

  • 22 – CLOSED HI-HAT (Edge)
  • 26 – OPEN HI-HAT (Edge)
  • 36 – KICK
  • 38 – SNARE (Head)
  • 40 – SNARE (Rim)
  • 41 – TOM 3
  • 42 – CLOSED HI-HAT (Bow)
  • 44 – PEDAL HI-HAT
  • 45 – TOM 2
  • 46 – OPEN HI-HAT (Bow)
  • 48 – TOM 1
  • 49 – CRASH 1 (Bow)
  • 51 – RIDE (Bow)
  • 52 – CRASH 2 (Edge)
  • 53 – RIDE (Edge)
  • 55 – CRASH 1 (Edge)
  • 57 – CRASH 2 (Bow)

Rock Band instrument mappings

Remember, Rock Band has only five lanes in the game, but in reality there are more instruments than that in each song.  So what ends up happening is that multiple instruments are mapped into the same color lanes.

Fortunately, Rock Band does tend to map multiple instruments into the same lanes consistently, with few exceptions.

  • Red – Snare
  • Yellow – Closed Hi-Hat, Tom 1
  • Blue – Ride, Open Hi-Hat, Tom 2
  • Green – Crash 1, Crash 2, Tom 3
  • Orange – Kick 

Let's outline the approach we are going to take to remapping.  First, we need to identify five primary instruments, one for each lane in Rock Band, whose notes will trigger the outputs on the MSA-P.  We will pick one instrument for each color.

Let's use the following instruments. 

  • 36 – KICK
  • 38 – SNARE (Head)
  • 41 – TOM 3
  • 45 – TOM 2
  • 48 – TOM 1

In hex, this is

  • 24 – KICK
  • 26 – SNARE (Head)
  • 29 – TOM 3
  • 2D – TOM 2
  • 30 – TOM 1

And ordered by drum color, it is

  • Red – 26 – SNARE (Head)
  • Yellow  – 30 – TOM 1
  • Blue – 2D – TOM 2
  • Green – 29 – TOM 3
  • Orange – 24 – KICK

So now we have our SYSEX command.  It is:

F0 00 01 5D 02 01 03 26 03 30 03 2D 03 29 03 24 03 00 03 00 03 00 00 31 F7

Save this for later use.  Also note that the last three outputs of the MSA-P are unused…hence the three "00".

MSA-P – Send the SYSEX command to it from your PC

Connect the MIDI Out of the M-Audio UNO USB (which is somewhat confusingly labeled as "To MIDI IN") to the MIDI In port of the MSA-P.

Connect your MSA-P to your modified drum controller using a standard CAT-5 cable.

Remember, we are powering the MSA-P from the drum controller.  So make sure your drum controller is connected to your XBox 360.  Then turn on the XBox 360.  The LED on the MSA-P should light up green when powered up.

Run SendSX.

From the Midi Out menu, select the "USB Uno MIDI Interface".

Cut and paste the SYSEX command you generated above into the Midi Out window on the left hand side.

Click Send.

There will be no indication of success from the PC side, but once you send the command to the MSA-P, the green LED on the MSA-P will blink 3 times in quick succession.  Depending on whether your MSA-P is sitting inside an enclosure, you may or may not be able to see this happen.

MSA-P – Set to listen on a specific MIDI channel

The standard MIDI channel for drums is 10.  By default, that's the MIDI channel your drum brain will be outputting on.  So, following the instructions in the MSA-P manual, you want to physically set DIP switches 1-4 on SW1 on the MSA-P board to the following:

  1. ON
  2. OFF
  3. OFF
  4. ON

MSA-P – Connect to your drum brain and test

Now, disconnect the M-Audio Uno USB from the MSA-P and use the MIDI cable you purchased from the shopping list to connect your MSA-P to the MIDI Out of your drum brain.

With the MSA-P now connected to the drum brain, if everything is working properly, you should now be able to navigate into Rock Band with your drum controller and play the game with your electronic drum set.  Only the five instruments you've mapped so far will play in the game.

Drum brain – Remap note numbers

But wait, there's still more.  You can, and probably should, reprogram the drum brain so that all of the non-primary instruments are mapped to one of the primary instruments of the same color that Rock Band uses.  And we still need to fix the edge hits so that they trigger in the game as well.  That way we can hit the "correct" instrument on the drum kit, rather than limiting ourselves to the five Rock Band drum colors, and still trigger the correct color drum in the game.

Any instrument that is bolded in the first list, but not a primary instrument, needs to have its note number remapped to the primary instrument of its color.  The following is for a Roland TD-3 … your settings may depend on your drum brain.

  • 42 – CLOSED HI-HAT (Bow) -> 48 (Yellow)
  • 46 – OPEN HI-HAT (Bow) -> 45 (Blue)
  • 51 – RIDE (Bow) -> 45 (Blue)
  • 49 – CRASH 1 (Bow) -> 41 (Green)
  • 57 – CRASH 2 (Bow) -> 41 (Green)

And any edge variation needs to be mapped to the primary color instrument as well

  • 40 – SNARE (Rim) – > 38 (Red)
  • 22 – CLOSED HI-HAT (Edge) -> 48 (Yellow)
  • 26 – OPEN HI-HAT (Edge) -> 45 (Blue)
  • 53 – RIDE (Edge) -> 45 (Blue)
  • 55 – CRASH 1 (Edge) -> 41 (Green)
  • 52 – CRASH 2 (Edge) -> 41 (Green)

Use these remappings on your drum brain and you should notice that all of your cymbals and pads now trigger the correct lanes in Rock Band.

Drum brain – adjust crosstalk and mask time settings

Crosstalk refers to vibrations from hitting one pad reverberating through the stand and triggering another pad.  In Rock Band this is especially bad because it will break your streak.  Once I realized I had crosstalk issues, I checked the crosstalk for each pad, adjusted the setting, and my scores went way up.  Be sure you save yourself the trouble and check for crosstalk issues ahead of time.

Most drum brains have adjustable per pad crosstalk settings, but the way to configure it is specific to each drum brain.  Just be sure to read your instruction manual.  Simply watch your drum brain and give each pad several especially strong hits.  If your drum brain indicates that a pad other than the one you hit registered its own hit, then you'll need to adjust the crosstalk settings.  On my Roland TD-3 drum brain, you adjust the crosstalk setting of the pad that is registering the erroneous extra hit.

Mask time is a setting which prevents extra notes from the same pad that appear too soon after an original hit from registering.  Basically, the assumption that is that another hit within the mask time of an original hit must be accidental or a mistriggered extra hit.  Again, this is adjustable per pad.  Personally, I haven't found changing this setting to be necessary.

There are other settings to play with, but I'll leave those to you to explore.  In Rock Band, crosstalk is the important issue you'll want to address proactively.

Conclusion

That's it…your MSA-P and drum kit should now be configured properly.  Use the above as a guide to go back and tweak your settings further, if needed.  Congratulations…and get ready for a truly rewarding musical and gaming experience!

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Exposing the Rock Band drum controller inputs

Posted on 2008/04/13 by richardykuo

Overview

This is part 5 of the Using an electronic drum kit with Rock Band FAQ.

As we noted previously, the Rock Band drum controller contains a unique chip that identifies it as a drum controller to Rock Band.  Although it would be nice if we could connect our electronic drum kit directly to the XBox 360, we can't fake the presence of this chip.  So we will need to use the drum controller as an intermediary.

Rather than connecting the MSA-P directly to the Rock Band drum controller, we're going to wire up the inputs of the drum controller to a standard RJ-45 interface.  This will allow us to keep the pieces of this mod cleanly separated, and it will make it easy to rearrange/connect/disconnect the MSA-P and the Rock Band drum controller with a standard CAT-5 ethernet cable.  The various buttons/triggers of the Rock Band drum controller can then be triggered by the MSA-P over the cable.  Also, as a bonus, the drum controller is powered by the XBox 360 over USB, and that can also be used to power the MSA-P.

To destroy or not to destroy?

You will need to decide whether, in the process of doing this, you want to cannibalize the Rock Band drum kit completely or leave it operational and slightly modified.

Pros of cannibalizing the Rock Band drum kit

Just to clarify, this involves completely removing the center controller portion from the Rock Band drum kit and accessorizing your electronic drum kit with it.  You throw away the plastic drum stand and drums.

First of all, the Rock Band drum kit takes up a decent amount of room in addition to the electronic drum kit you just bought.  It's also highly unlikely you will want to play on the Rock Band drum kit at all once you finally get the electronic drum kit connected.  Why have the whole thing around taking up space?

Second, properly cutting out the center controller section of the Rock Band drum kit gives you the option of mounting the controller somewhere nice and stable on your electronic drum kit stand.  If you do this, you won't have to step over to the drum kit every time you need to do something that can't be controlled by the pads (aka speeding up and slowing down practice mode, mostly).

Also, it's slightly simpler to cut away the controller portion from the kit (less finesse required) than it is to mount a port or extrude a cable from the overall kit.

Pros of NOT cannibalizing the Rock Band drum kit

Read more about k1ds3ns4t10n's modified kit.

You can always cut away the controller portion later after everything is verified as working.

You may feel safer during the whole modification process.  Most likely you'll still have a working Rock Band drum kit if something goes wrong, short of catastrophic damage to the drum kit controller board during the whole process.

You can practice on the Rock Band drum kit occasionally if you want to be able to play the game well when visiting friends.

Leaving the Rock Band drum kit operational might be good for guests or for kids you don't want touching your expensive electronic drum kit.

What I did 

Initially, I decided to just wire up the Rock Band drum kit, but leave it intact.  This seemed like a safe approach if things went wrong.

I cut a hole near the rear of the drum kit and put my CAT-5 cable through the hole after soldering in the connections.  Then I put an RJ-45 coupler on the cable …and voila, an RJ-45 port was hanging out of the drum kit that I could plug the MSA-P into.  This wasn't really as clean as mounting a port directly into the drum kit, but I didn't have the parts handy at the time.

However, after a couple of weeks, I felt that the Rock Band drum kit was just getting in the way.  So I opted to just go ahead and cut away the controller section from the rest of the plastic drums, as you saw in an earlier picture.  Plus with new drum kits now being sold in stores, I felt if something actually went wrong I could replace the drum kit very easily and quickly.

This has been great and I don't regret doing it.  However, I haven't yet gotten the parts I need to mount the controller to my Roland drum stand, so the controller is just sitting next to my drum throne for use when I need it.

Modding instructions

Exposing the controller board

Unscrew the three screws on the center underside of the Rock Band drum kit.  The following picture shows the screw holes that secure the plate.

Remove the plate secured by the screws and set it aside.  You should see something similar to the following…minus all the wires … this picture of someone's controller, post modification:

If you see a four wired USB connection, gently remove it from its jack so that it isn't in the way when you start soldering.

Getting the wires ready 

If you have decided to keep your kit intact, then measure out approximately 18 inches of CAT-5 cable and make a cut.  One end should be an RJ-45 connector, and the other should be cut and exposed wires from the middle of the cable that we will solder to the controller.  You need the extra inches so that the cable can extend out the front of your drum kit.  If you are not intent on keeping your kit intact, however, or if you want to just route the cable out the bottom of your drum kit (more on that later in the article) then you may consider cutting as little as 5-6 inches.  A longer length of wire will just get in the way and make the controller less self-contained.

Using some scissors, cut away about two inches of sheathing from the exposed end of the CAT-5 cable.  This will allow you to expose the eight wires inside the CAT 5 cable.  Untwist/separate each pair of wiring.

Now, strip about one cm of insulation off the ends of each individual wire.  The wires are 24 AWG (this refers to the diameter of the wire) so use the 24 AWG setting on your wire stripper to remove the insulation for you.

Soldering – a quick introduction

The next step is to solder the wires to the board.  So here are some quick tips.

This should be painfully obvious, but the soldering iron is HOT.  Don't touch it or you WILL burn yourself.  Be very careful with resting it on its stand and don't leave it plugged in and unattended.

Plug in your soldering iron and give it up time to heat up.  It will take about five to ten minutes.  It will probably be good to have a folded up wet paper tow
el or sponge around so you can clean extra crud off the tip in between soldering jobs.

If you are using the soldering iron for the first time today, I recommend you "tin" the soldering tip…that is, coat the tip in a very thin layer of solder.  Simply cut two inches of solder from the roll, grab one end with your tweezers, and melt about half a cm from the other end onto the tip of the iron.  Wipe off any excess solder on the tip with the wet paper towel in a very quick motion by "pinching" the tip with the towel.

Before each solder, I recommend you also "tin" the exposed wire.  Each individual wire is actually made up of about 8 copper strands.  First, just twist them up lightly with your finger to keep the strands together.  Next, take your tweezers and grab the wire by the insulation a couple of cm before where the exposed wire begins..  Touch the soldering iron to the flat exposed tip of the wire.  Then touch the solder to wire and hold it in place until the solder heats and flows into the wire.  Again, about half a cm of solder will probably be sufficient.

Some gotchas.  Try not contact the solder with the soldering iron…the idea is to heat the wire itself to the point where the solder melts over it.  Second, the heat of the iron is likely to melt away a bit of the closest insulation on the wire.  Don't worry about that too much, it's not a big deal.  Third, you'll note that you need to grip the wire with your tweezers, apply the solder, and hold the soldering iron tip to the wire.  In a perfect world, you would have three hands to do this.  In a less perfect world, you can try holding the wire plus the solder with one hand and the iron with the other (this is what I did).  You can also get a friend to help you hold one of these pieces.  Or you can get a stable vise or clamp to hold one of the pieces in place for you.  Your choice.

Now, practically speaking, you might be able to get some melted solder on the tip of your iron to simply rub off onto the exposed wire.  This doesn't really work as well as you might think, tho…it tends not to stick or flow into the strands of copper as well as if you apply the solder properly.  Still, if you're feeling lazy, you can try it.

If you've tinned the wire properly, odds are that you won't need to apply extra solder to the connection itself.  This is good, because if you do need more solder, you're going to need to do some three handed soldering again.

Let's assume you have the wire properly tinned.  Simply bend the wire a little bit so that it's naturally "coming into" the connection at a good angle.  Next, grab the insulation of the wire with your tweezers a little bit above the exposed end of the wire.  Now…

1. Hold the tip of the wire to the connection point.

2. Quickly heat the connection (which should also have a bit of solder on it) with the soldering iron tip.

3. Let the tip of the wire melt/merge into the connection.

4. Remove the soldering iron tip from the connection.

5. Allow the connection to cool…this happens within a couple of seconds, but be steady with your hand for a few seconds or so.

6. Let go of the wire.  The wire should be secured to the connection now by the soldering you just did.  Examine the connection and verify that no extra solder has crossed over from the connection to other connection points.

If you've made a bad/weak/off center connection, then you can try to reheat the connection and make a better connection with the wire tip.  If you've somehow used too much solder, you can lift off extra solder with a braided cord or soldering pump as mentioned in the shopping list.

The points to solder

OK, now that I've explained how to solder each connection, you just need to go and do it a few times.  Each connection you make will allow that pad to be triggered by the MSA-P on the other side of the cable.

The ethernet cables I use are color coded according to the TIA/EIA 568-B standard.  See this link for reference.  From what I can gather, every ethernet cable is wired this way.

Here are the connections I suggest you make.  We will make equivalent connections on the MSA-P side using this color coding.

  • Orange/White or Light Orange – Red drum
  • Orange – Yellow drum
  • Green/White or Light Green – Blue drum
  • Blue – Green drum
  • Blue/White or Light Blue – Orange drum (aka the kick pedal)
  • Green – unused
  • Brown/White or Light Brown – 5V
  • Brown – Ground

For the XBOX 360 drum controller (green board):

Here's a diagram of where to solder the wires if you have the following controller layout.  Note that since I do not have this board, I can't tell which wire for the USB port will give you 5V.  You can identify the 5V connection by looking at jack when the USB cable is plugged in and seeing which one has the red wire.

Post-solder pictures (minus the 5V connection, because people didn't know you could use it for power at the time)

 

For the XBOX 360 drum controller (blue board):

  • Red drum – right side, 5th pin down.  Connect the Orange/White or Light Orange wire.
  • Yellow drum – right side, 7th pin down. Connect the Orange wire.
  • Blue drum – right side, 6th pin down. Connect the Green/White or Light Green wire.
  • Green drum – top side, right most pin. Connect the Blue wire.
  • Orange drum (aka kick pedal) – bottom side, 5th from the left. Next to an unconnected pin.  Connect the Blue/White or Light Blue wire.
  • 5V – top most wire on the rear of the USB jack.  It's exposed on the right side of the jack and is not visible in the picture.  If you examine the USB cable that plugs into the connector, the red wire of the USB cable plugs into here.  Connect the Brown/White or Light Brown wire.
  • Ground – Right most pin in the pair of solder points beneath the USB connector. Note that even though in the picture both solder points in the pair are glommed together, I would try to avoid doing that.  You only need to make a connection to the right most solder point.  Connect the Brown wire.

For the PS3 drum controller:

I don't have very precise details for this.  The best post so far is here.  But it doesn't make specific callouts for the color of drum to particular pins, nor does it try to USB power the MSA-P.

For the Wii:

Coming at some point.

 

Exposing the cable

OK, now you need to route that cable somewhere.  The Rock Band drum kit wasn't designed for us to make crazy modifications like this, so we n
eed to open up a hole somewhere so the cable can get out.

If you followed the shopping list, then the soldering iron you purchased also has a hot knife tip attachment.  This can be used to cut/melt through the plastic of the controller.  Don't worry, the plastic doesn't smoke up the place or anything.  It doesn't smell great or anything…I would still ventilate the working area well, but it's not nearly as bad as you might expect.

If you chose to cut the controller out of the kit, then this is really easy.  Just route the cable out of the controller section like so.

If you chose to keep your drum kit intact, then you have a few more decisions to make.

If you want this over with quickly, then just cut a small hole in the bottom of the controller section like Flash did and slide the cable out of that.

If you're feeling like a completionist, then you can use the knife attachment to cut a hole in the rear of the drum controller.  You will need to route the ethernet cable out of the controller section, through the inside of the drum and out the hole.  This will involve disassembling the kit further. (more to come)

The following pictures illustrate where I chose to cut the hole … in the yellow drum in an area with some space to work with.

 

If you are particularly adept and have the tools, you can mount an RJ-45 port directly into the controller where you might have opened up a simple hole, as you saw in k1ds3ns4t10n's modified kit.  In addition to looking cleaner, this has the advantage of placing strain on the jack instead of tearing out the cable if you accidentally trip on it.  Unfortunately I didn't do this, so I can't give you more details.

Wrap up

Close up your drum controller, plug it back into Rock Band and verify that each button on the controller still works.  If you opted to keep the drum kit intact, also verify that the pads still work.

You're basically done now…you should have a drum kit or controller that can be used with the MSA-P to control Rock Band.  Unfortunately, it will be a little difficult to test the connections on the other end of the cable without getting the MSA-P up and running.  But congratulations, this is the toughest part!

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Wiring up the MSA-P and the enclosure

Posted on 2008/04/13 by richardykuo

Overview 

This is part 6 of the Using an electronic drum kit with Rock Band FAQ.

First, cut yourself about 5 inches of CAT-5 cable, with both ends exposed.  Remove the outer sheath and unwind all of the twisted pairs in the cable so that you have eight separate wires.  Strip about one cm from the ends of each wire.

The keystone jack you purchased from the shopping list will serve as the RJ-45 interface for the MSA-P to the Rock Band drum controller.  The jack itself as well as the instructions that come with the kit will show you which wire colors should be punched into each respective slot on the jack.  Remember we are using the TIA/EIA-568-B standard.  Follow this mapping precisely and you should have the correct pinouts.  Watch this video for an example of how each wire is punched into the jack.

Note that the jack comes with a simple plastic punch tool so you don't need to get your own fancy puncher.

Connect wires from the RJ-45 keystone jack to the MSA-P

After following the above instructions, you should have an RJ-45 jack with 8 wires coming off of it.  You now need to connect those wires to the MSA-P.

The following diagram shows you where to wire everything, presuming you have an XBox 360 (instructions for a PS3 are slightly different and I don't have time to get into it right now).  Ignore the yellow wires on the right side of the picture…these are for the MIDI jack and we'll cover that later.  The wires going to the terminal block set on the left side of the picture are color coded according to the drum they will activate, so use the above mapping of wire to drum color to figure out which wires to connect.

The only tricky part here is that ground is needed in a lot of places.  You can just route wires in series from one ground to the next to connect them all together.

Also note that we are bypassing the voltage regulator of the MSA-P.  The MSA-P accepts 7.5V to 12V on its power input leads, but the voltage regulator accepts this and generates 5V regulated power for the rest of the MSA-P.

Fortunately, 5V regulated power is already provided by the USB drum controller.  So all we need to do wire the 5V and the ground from the drum controller to the 5V output and ground of the voltage regulator on the MSA-P.  As shown in the above diagram, we can actually accomplish this by wiring 5V and ground into the power outputs of the MSA-P.  The power outputs of the MSA-P are directly connected to the 5V and ground outputs of the voltage regulator, so making our connections there is completely equivalent and has been verified to work.

You could do what I did and solder wires directly to the pin outs of the voltage regulator, but I can't think of any reason you would want to bother with that approach now that the approach of powering the MSA-P through the power outputs is confirmed as working.  See the below picture for the obsolete approach.

Connect MIDI In to the MSA-P

The following diagram illustrates how to connect the MIDI In port to the MSA-P.  Picture borrowed from Flash's article on this modification.

Ignore the other portions of the diagram…just worry about the two wires that run from the MIDI In port to the MSA-P.

You will probably want to solder the two wires from the MSA-P to the MIDI In port.  This is a really easy soldering job.  Just thread the wire leads through the connectors of the MIDI In port, wrap it around once, and apply the solder.

Enclosing the MSA-P

Believe it or not, this is all the connecting you need to do.  The next step should be to put the MSA-P in an enclosure so that you have a nice and neat little box to interface with instead of an exposed board and connectors hanging off of it.

Unfortunately, I do not have any advice for you right now on how to put this together.  I have a custom enclosure that was made by a kind forum member and those are gone for good.

 

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Using an electronic drum kit with Rock Band – The parts list

Posted on 2008/04/12 by richardykuo

Overview

This is part 4 of the Using an electronic drum kit with Rock Band FAQ.

This project requires you to make use of a pretty varied set of tools and assorted gadgetry.  For your convenience, I've collected everything you need to buy into a shopping list. 

I'm assuming you've picked out a drum kit already.  If not, visit the guide to selecting an electronic drum kit.

No major modifications are required to the electronic drum kit to use it with Rock Band…which is good, because operating on something costing hundreds to thousands of dollars would be a little scary.

To connect the electronic drum kit to the game, you need a module that will decode the MIDI data coming out of your electronic drum kit and convert it into XBox controller inputs.

Unfortunately, because there is a special chip in the Rock Band drum set that we can't duplicate the behavior of, we need to actually use the Rock Band drum kit itself as an intermediary between ourselves and the XBox 360.  So there are four major pieces to the entire setup.  In order, they are…

  1. Electronic drum kit
  2. MIDI decoder
  3. Rock Band Drum Kit
  4. XBox 360

Main parts and connectors

1. One 10ft. MIDI cable – Amazon link OR One 3ft MIDI cable – Amazon link

This cable will connect your drum brain to the MSA-P.  A 10ft. cable gives you a lot of leeway to put the MSA-P enclosure within the general vicinity of your drum kit.  A 3ft cable will barely reach the floor, but if you plan on mounting the MSA-P on your drum kit near the drum brain, you likely don't want 10ft of cable getting in the way.

2. One MSA-P – Link and One MSA Terminal Block Set – Link

This is the MIDI decoder mentioned above.  Buy the Terminal set together with the MSA-P … and request in your purchase notes that the Terminal Blocks be assembled onto the MSA-P.  Add the 29.95 for assembly … it's a giant pain if you have to do it.

What the terminal block set does is allow you to simply insert wire leads into the holes in the blocks and tighten screws into the leads to secure the connections.  This is immeasurably easier than soldering each connection.  You want this.

3. A suitable enclosure for the MSA-P

Unfortunately, I have no suggestions for this.  I bought this enclosure back when he still had a few in stock.  The MSA-P product page suggests some SERPAC enclosure model numbers…whatever that means.  Wish I could be of more help here!

4. One ethernet cable – Amazon link

This will connect the Rock Band drum kit to the MSA-P.

5. One Roland MDP-7U Mounting Plate – Woodwind and Brasswind link

If you decide to cut away the controller portion of the original drum kit, you can attach the controller to this plate and mount the controller directly onto your drum kit.

6. One Roland MDH-10U Hatched Pad Mount – Woodwind and Brasswind link

The MDP-7U mounting plate will attach to this clamp, which in turn clamps to your drum kit.

Accessories and tools

5. Xacto X73780 Precision Soldering Iron & Hot Knife Tip – Amazon link

The soldering iron is what you need to assemble some parts of the MSA-P and especially to make all the necessary connections to the Rock Band controller board.  The hot knife tip attachment will let you melt/cut through the plastic drum kit.  You'll either be cutting a hole in the drum kit for a new cable to be exposed, or entirely cutting away the controller from the kit.  Optionally, some people have opted to use a Dremel rotary tool to cut through the kit.  Either way is fine…although the Dremel will probably look nicer if done properly.

6. Solder

Not much to say about this.  Just buy some solder from Radio Shack.

7. Braided cord or desoldering pump – Amazon link

Not 100% necessary, but good to have around as a safety net if you're new to soldering.  Basically, these suck up extra solder if you happen to get too much onto the connection and/or neighboring connections.

8. M-AUDIO USB Midisport Uno MIDI Interface – Amazon link

You use this in conjunction with your computer to program the MSA-P.

9. Wire stripper/cutter – Amazon link

You'll be cutting and stripping a lot of wires.

10. Assorted screwdrivers and tools – Amazon link

A standard home tool kit with lots of screwdrivers and other goodies.  If you want to open the Rock Band kit, you're gonna need these.  A lot of you will already have a tool kit lying around somewhere.

11. Two ethernet cables – Amazon link

We're going to use these ethernet cables and harvest the wires in the cables with the wire stripper using the 24 AWG setting.

12. Tweezers – Amazon link

For holding wires to the solder points without burning yourself or otherwise picking up/controlling tiny objects.  Again, many of you probably have some tweezers lying around for other stuff.

13. Snap-In Category 5e RJ-45 Jack – Radio Shack link

Lets you punch all the wires coming out of the MSA-P into a single easy to connect/disconnect from ethernet/RJ-45 jack.

14. Snap-In RJ-45 Coupler – Radio Shack link

Put this on the end of the ethernet cable you're going to be wiring to the Rock Band board so that you can again, attach and detach an ethernet cable from it at will.

15. Velcro – Amazon link

A nice way to mount the cut away controller to the MDP-7U mounting plate in a non permanent fashion.

Optional real drumming equipment

Ro
c-n-Soc Nitro – Woodwind and Brasswind link

A proper drum throne helps quite a bit with posture and comfort.  What makes this particular drum throne stand out is that it has a very comfortable padded seat, the seat is slightly bouncy, the height is quickly adjustable because it has a nitrogen piston and lever similar to any ergonomic chair, and the chair swivels smoothly.  Many cheap drum thrones have none of the above.

DW5000 Kick Pedal – Woodwind and Brasswind link

You'll need a kick pedal to go with your drum kit..so if you haven't picked one up yet, you might want to try the DW5000.  I don't have one of these yet, but I want one.  Many of the top scoring drummers on Rock Band use this pedal, so I figure it can't be all bad.

Drum sticks – We'll talk about these in another article.

Conclusion

With the above parts, you should have everything you need to begin the modification process.

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Understanding the different parts of your electronic drum kit

Posted on 2008/04/12 by richardykuo

Overview

This is part 9 of the Using an electronic drum kit with Rock Band FAQ.

An electronic drum kit is made up of a lot of different pieces.  You probably want to know more about them.

The stand

The drum stand is the frame that holds up all of the electronic drum pads and other equipment that make up the kit.  Stands are typically comprised of 1 1/2" diameter metal tubes that are connected together via plastic or metal joints to create the whole assembly.

I don't have much to say here.  There are some differences in how quickly these stands can be torn down and put back up, but that's unlikely to be an issue for most people.

Of course, size is certainly a consideration.  The bigger stands give you room to mount bigger drums and cymbals around you.  But creating such a setup is an integrated project … it makes little sense to buy a big stand and not spend more money on the bigger drums that should go along with it.  What I'm trying to say is…if you're putting together your own kit from the ground up, don't buy a big stand and then realize you only have enough money to put small pads on it.

Clamps and rods

Clamps are attached to the metal tubing and, in turn, secure cymbal arms or steel l-rods that are used to mount the drum pads or cymbals.

The clamps made by Roland are made of plastic.  This generally works fine, but if you are not paying attention, it's possible to overscrew the clamp while securing it and damage the plastic.

Steel clamps such as those made by Gibraltar are definitely superior.  While heavier, the metal clamps do not flex at all and when you are securing a clamp to the stand, the screw used to tighten the clamp will stop very quickly and firmly as opposed to a plastic clamp.

 

Drum pads – rubber vs mesh

Electronic drum pads are made a couple of different ways.  Both types of pads are far superior to the plastic drum set provided with the Rock Band kit.

Lower end pads are made of black rubber.   These  have a nice bounce back to them that helps your drumming.  The material produces a deep thumpy type of sound on their own when you hit them.  Imagine you are hitting a tire with your drumstick.  That's basically what it sounds like.  In terms of shock transferred back to your hands, there is a medium amount of it as compared to the Rock Band kit…much better, but definitely not perfect.  My hands still hurt a little bit if I bang on a rubber pad as a hi hat for too long.

HItting rubber pads is OK, but does not really feel the same as hitting a real drum head.

High end pads, on the other hand, are made of a tightly woven mesh material.  The best way I can think of to describe it is that it feels like you are hitting a trampoline.  The feel is very much like hitting a real drum head.

In addition, mesh pads have good bounce back and are extremely sensitive…you can take a drum stick, let the end fall onto the pad and bounce, and the pad will detect nearly every bounce as it settles down onto the drum pad.   This isn't to say that rubber pads are not sensitive…unless you are trying to breathe on a rubber pad with your sticks, a rubber pad will pick up every hit.  But you can use a very light touch with mesh pads.

There is almost no shock transferred back into your hands from mesh pads due to the bounciness of the mesh material.  This makes them much more comfortable to play on for extended periods of time.

Mesh pads have a quiet sound to them.  To me, they sound like you are hitting a very quiet snare drum.  I would say a mesh pad sounds to me about as 2/3 as loud as a rubber pad…plus the quality of the sound is not thumpy or resonant as a rubber pad, which means it probably won't carry through walls as easily.

A frequent compromise in lower end kits is to use a mesh pad for the snare and rubber pads for the rest of the drums, since the snare is so frequently used with rapid hits.

In addition to the regular pads, special variations include the cymbals (which are usually always rubber) and the kick drum, which can either be rubber or mesh.  Also, you can use a regular drum pad as a hi-hat, but Roland does make special electronic hi-hats which look and behave more like the real thing.

The hi hat pedal

Not much to see here…stepping on this pedal simulates closing the hi-hat.

The cables

Each drum pad or cymbal is patched into the drum brain via a cable.  In every case I've seen, the cable is a 1/4" TRS to 1/4" TRS cable … which is, in layman's terms, the same type of connector that you see on big headphones.

Usually one end of the cable will be an L-shaped connector.  The L-shaped end should be plugged into the drum pad…the L-connector reduces the stress placed directly on the drum connector in the event that you inadvertantly yank or trip on the cable.

Some controls or drums only need a mono connection … for example, the hi-hat pedal and the bass drum.  Roland only sells stereo cables standalone, but the stereo cables work perfectly well as replacements for the mono cables and are still inexpensive.

The drum brain

Every electronic drum connects back into a drum "brain" that actually detects what is being done to each pad and makes the appropriate sounds when an electronic instrument is struck.  You can switch out all kinds of different instrument kits on the brain, which gives you a very large palette of virtual instrument sounds to work with.

The drum brain, in addition to making sounds on its own, also outputs MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) data when you play on the kit.  This data doesn't consist of the sounds being made by the drum brain…it's actually just data about the drum that was struck, the velocity of the hit, etc.  It's essentially
feeding tablature or sheet music out in real time.

This data can be sent to a PC, where it can then be used for all sort of purposes.  For example, you could simply have your PC act as an infinitely flexible drum brain, or you could actually record your performance (again, as the notes, not the actual sounds themselves).  This MIDI data is the key to connecting your drum kit to Rock Band.  The MSA-P reads this MIDI data in real time and triggers the drum controller to signal the correct hits.

High end drum brains are very expensive and make up a good portion of the cost of a high end electronic drum kit.  Fortunately, for the purposes of Rock Band, it almost doesn't matter what kind of drum brain you get.

Two minor things to watch out for:

You want a drum brain that can customize the MIDI note numbers it sends out when a pad is struck, or else you may be slightly limited in the pads you can use while playing Rock Band.  Every current Roland drum brain can do this, except for the HD-1.  The Yamaha DTXplorer III cannot remap MIDI notes either.

If you are going to be serious about trying to hit the correct drum for a note as opposed to just matching the color of the note on the screen, then you need enough inputs on the drum brain and pads to match.  Again, even the low end TD-3 has tons of inputs, and I haven't seen a case where more inputs would be needed…but it's theoretically possible.

A final work on this … every Roland drum brain that I know of has settings to prevent crosstalk between drums and adjust pad sensitivity.  If you buy a very cheap or generic electronic drum kit, be sure to do your homework and figure out if the kit you are buying has these settings.  Some do not, and it can be a deal breaker for use with Rock Band.  Nothing is worse that hitting one drum and triggering another one if you are trying to play seriously.

 

Conclusion

By now, you should have a pretty good understanding of what you're actually getting when you go out and buy an entire kit like, say, the new TD-9SX.

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Selecting an electronic drum kit

Posted on 2008/04/12 by richardykuo

Overview

This is part 3 of the Using an electronic drum kit with Rock Band FAQ.

OK, so you're convinced you'll benefit in some way from getting an electronic drum set for Rock Band.  You'll possibly bypass several months to a year's worth of lessons on real drums.  You'll never miss a hit in the game because the hardware wasn't up to the challenge.  Or maybe you just need a hobby to work on for a few weekends.  You're ready to take the big plunge.

The short answer is that most of you will want to buy a used TD-3SW or TD-6SW kit off Craigslist for around 600-1000 dollars.  For the long answer and some context, read on.

Manufacturers

There are several companies that make drum kits.  The most common and popular models seem to be the Yamaha DTXplorer line or any of the kits by Roland.  The Alesis DM5, Simmons SD7K, and the ultra cheap Ion audio kits are also options that we've seen in use.

Personally, I decided to stick to Roland because they're a very familiar name to me, and they have a very wide range of options available.  Roland also just happens to be one of the premiere names in electronic drums, so you're definitely not getting steered in the wrong direction by going with them.  There's also an excellent online community for Roland V-Drums at http://www.vdrums.com/.

So for the purposes of this guide, we're going to go with Roland.

Used or new

Used.  Definitely used.  You'll save at least a few hundred dollars and these electronic kits don't blow up over time like a car, so you're not losing anything.  In most cases you'll find that someone bought the kit, didn't play it as much as they would have liked, and are unloading it to cut their losses.  Standard new music instrument-itis syndrome.

Also, if you decide to sell the kit later, it will lose little to none of its value.

If you're dead set on buying new, you can go to a Guitar Center.

Where to buy

Craigslist is probably your best bet for getting a used kit.  Just search in your area for "roland" and you'll turn up some options.  You'll be able to pick up the kit locally to avoid shipping costs, and you won't end up in the middle of a bidding war like you might see on eBay.  The only downside is that you will need to be a bit patient if the kit you want isn't up for sale at the present time.  But if you live in a decently sized area, you shouldn't have to wait too long.

eBay is a good option if you don't turn up any local deals for a while and want to get the ball rolling.

Building your own kit from scratch

If you're getting a kit mostly for the purposes of playing Rock Band, and you're not so interested in playing the kit standalone, then an attractive option may be to build your own kit.

Let's talk about why.  Most drum kits are tiered by the quality of the different parts in the kit,  but, as you go higher end, the drum brain becomes a very large portion of the total cost.  Because the quality of the drum brain has basically no bearing on playing Rock Band, building your own kit allows you to devote more of your limited budget to things like nice mesh heads and stands, which can really enhance the physical aspects of your drumming experience.

Remember, a low-end drum brain like the TD-3 sounds just fine and has a good selection of instruments.  What it lacks compared to a TD-20 brain is expansion, extra controls for real-time adjustment, more inputs and outputs, more sounds, programmability via PC, the ability to actually adjust the mathematical model of each instrument, etc.  These are all features where you really need to be at a level above casual to appreciate the difference.

Also, there's no law that says you can't upgrade to a really nice drum brain if you happen to get musically inclined enough to appreciate the features a high end drum brain might have to offer.

The downside to putting together all the parts for your own kit, of course, is that the whole process may be more trouble than you're willing to go through.

The kits

HD-1 – Product details

This is the lowest end kit in the Roland V-Drum line.

The drum brain cannot remap MIDI notes, which is quite limiting for Rock Band.

The kick pedal isn't an actual vertically placed drum where you need a real kick pedal to beat the drum…it's just a pedal with a sensor.  I suppose this saves some money, but it's completely inauthentic…and I have to assume anyone undertaking this project is doing it to realize some level of authenticity.  So this is a minus.

The HD-1 kit itself is extremely compact and pretty quiet for a drum kit, so if you're in seriously confined quarters, it might be your only option.

To sum up, though, I don't recommend buying this kit.  You get way more flexibility and quality by going up one rung in the ladder.

TD-3SW (or the older TD-3Kit) – Product Details

I bought a used TD-3Kit, and it works just fine.

If you buy used, be aware that older kits (TD-3Kit) had all rubber pads and did not have the hi hat.  The new TD-3SW kits generally have a mesh pad for the snare and a specially designed hi hat pad.

The one thing I will say is that the TD-3 drum stand is a little cramped for me, but quite usable.  I stand 5' 8" and have a slim frame.  I could easily imagine that someone taller might need a bigger drum stand to match.

1000 dollars, new.

TD-6SW – Product Details

No advantage over the TD-3 in terms of pads…a standard mesh snare and rubber everywhere else.  The main upgrades are the drum brain and a bigger stand than the TD-3SW, which is nice.

1500 dollars, new.

TD-6SXT – Product Details

Same as the TD-6SW, but with mesh pads.

2000 dollars, new.

TD-9S – Product Details or TD-9SX – Product Details

Slightly better hi-hat and cymbals, and a better drum stand.  The TD-9SX is the mesh head variant of the TD-9S.  The drum brain is better than the TD-6 series, obviously, but this has no impact on Rock Band.  Just released in the US.

TD-12S – Product Details

Hi hat on its own stand.  One mesh drum for the snare and 3 mesh pads for the toms.  2 cymbals and a mesh kick pad.

3000-3200.

TD-20S – Product Details

If you have way too much money and a good amount of room somewhere near your TV, go ahead and get a Roland TD-20 kit.  This is the top of the line and you *cannot* do any bet
ter.  One look at this thing, and you can feel the rock and roll emanating from it.

The hi hat is on its own stand, and you have 5 large mesh drums along with 3 cymbals and a kick.  No fooling around here….this is the real deal.

5500 new.

Who you are

If you're on a super tight budget, you might be able to save some money by going with a really cheap ION audio kit.  I think this is a pretty poor middle ground, however, and I've never investigated this option seriously

If you're like me and want to get into this in an affordable fashion without buying total crap, then look for a Roland TD-3 or TD-6 kit used off of Craigslist.  This should run you anywhere from 600 to 1000 dollars.  The nice thing is that it will be very simple to upgrade parts on the kit in a piecemeal fashion as you become more experienced.

If you're made of money and just want a really good setup with a minimum of fuss, then make sure to buy one of the kits with all mesh heads.  Consider the TD-20S if you want to awe house guests.

Conclusion

Hopefully all of the above has given you a much better feel for what kind of drum kit will be best for you and your Rock Band drumming experience.  Happy hunting!

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Rock Band drumming vs real drumming

Posted on 2008/04/12 by richardykuo

Overview

This is part 2 of the Using an electronic drum kit with Rock Band FAQ.

While playing the drums in Rock Band is undoubtedly closer to the real thing than the guitar, it still isn't exactly the same.  So are you really going to learn some useful things about drumming from Rock Band, or are you just fooling yourself?

First, the good news.  You definitely learn a lot of useful things about real drumming from drumming in Rock Band.  Here's a list of different things to be aware of as you play the game so you know what you're missing out on … and what you aren't.

Things you won't learn from playing Rock Band

As a note, the list of things you don't learn is actually more of a list of things that Rock Band doesn't explicitly teach you.  In nearly all of the cases below, being exposed more thoroughly to music via Rock Band is still far superior for your skill set than having no exposure whatsoever.

1. How to memorize a song and play it blind … and how to read tablature.  Obiviously, you need to memorize songs if you want to play music with other people in a band.  Then again, this is true of reading from anything, so it's hard to call this a minus.   What might be a minus would be if you use the visual cues on the screen exclusively instead of feeling the beat by playing to the audio and just using the tablature on the screen as a cue to guide your hits.

If you're really serious, however, you can try to play the song without looking at the screen…and this would arguably be an extremely effective way of memorizing a song and training yourself to feel the rhythm yourself rather than relying on the game.

2. Controlling the velocity and character of your hits.  Obviously, Rock Band teaches timing, but controlling the velocity and where you hit instruments is also important in getting the sound right when you play real music.

3. How to play with more than four pads and a pedal.  Real drum kits have more percussion choices than that…typically 7-9 at a minimum, and we're not counting rim shots where you hit the edges of a particular instrument.  This is speculation, but it's not hard to imagine the reduction in game was done out of a desire to produce a palatable experience for all kinds of game players, as well as practical limitations surrounding a drum controller that needs to be affordable for use with a game.

The way Rock Band works around this incongruency is by charting multiple instruments into the same lane.  If you're interested in translating some of the Rock Band experience into practical drumming experience, this is the most difficult difference to work around .  Fortunately, in most cases, the drum charts have been designed so that at least the same instruments are consistently mapped into the same lanes across all songs.  So it's simply up to you to make sure that you hit the correct instrument  for any particular note that comes at you.  Run through a song a few times, and when you're ready, you should have a feel for what instrument is being hit at the appropriate times.

4. How to freestyle or play great fills.  If you want to lay down a funky groove with the drums by yourself, you probably aren't going to get a great sense of this from Rock Band alone. 

5. How to sett the tempo for the rest of the band.  The drummer is like the metronome for the rest of the band, so it's important that you be able to set the beat consistently yourself, not follow one that's been laid out for you.  In Rock Band, the song plays along and basically cues you to the timing of the music.

6. Good posture, relaxation, style, grip, etc.  Without someone looking over your shoulder, you might pick up some bad instinctual habits simply because you don't know any better.  Look for some drumming tutorials online so that you get off on the right foot.  Expert Village has some that can get you started.  Do this early on so that at least you know if you're doing something wrong and can steer yourself clear in the learning phases.

7. The hi-hat pedal and/or double kick technique.  Opening and closing the hi-hat with your other foot is important in drumming, and Rock Band doesn't really simulate this.  With the electronic kit modification, you can make an effort to play songs "correctly", but there is no way to do this if you just use the standard Rock Band kit.

Also, since the Rock Band kit only comes with one pedal, the game only charts songs to be played with a single kick pedal.

The above cons really fall into two categories … thinking you know something you don't, and habituating too far in the wrong directions early on without proper guidance.  But again, some exposure is still far better than none.

Things you WILL learn from playing Rock Band

With very few exceptions, playing on the drums on expert difficulty in Rock Band is identical in timing to the real drum track of the song.  This means you ARE learning the following.

1. Timing – The game obviously teaches you to hit notes on beat.  This is the first and foremost thing you do as a drummer, so this is a great starting point.

2. Hand/foot independence – If you have no training in this area, you're basically relying on a lifetime of learned and instinctual habits linking your hands and feet together that have to do with counterbalancing your movements as you walk or run.  Breaking these habits is HARD.  If you get better at Rock Band, you *will* be breaking those habits.  Also a very good thing.

For example, the offbeat sections of Here It Goes Again, Wave of Mutilation, and Reptilia used to give me tons of trouble.  I would zone out, my hands and feet would move together and I would fail or barely pass the section.  Just a few weeks later and I'm now at the point where I can see the beat coming and consciously react properly instead of losing control.

3. Speed – Without practice, you won't be able to hold fast rolls rhythmically and quickly, nor will you be able to do those quick hits with your foot on the kick pedal.  Instead you'll be spazzing out or just trying to hit notes without any precision or rhythm.  Rock Band gives you an excellent way to practice rolls as you play and gives you instant feedback when you do well.

In particular, certain songs like The Hand That Feeds, Orange Crush, Ballroom Blitz, and Run to the Hills consistently ramp up the speed and difficulty of rolls that you need to perform in order to pass these songs.  After a while, you'll start to instinctively know what an 8 note roll feels like and how to pull one off.

4. Muscle memory of many REAL drumming patterns – Rock Band gives you instant exposure to a wide variety of drumming patterns.  When you play these, you're really getting to play around with different styles of drumming.  With enough exposure, you'll be able to link new patterns that you see to ones that you've practiced before and be generally used to trying out new styles because you've been doing it all along in the game.

5. Endurance – Drumming isn't like running on a treadmill or anything, but it certainly is still a bit of a workout.  The foot pedal, in particular, can be tiring for newcomers.  Quick double or triple hits in an extended series will quickly wear you out.  Also, as your playing style loosens up, you'll be moving
your arms and body more by allowing your momentum and rhythm to carry you from hit to hit.  This actually conserves energy and is a good thing.  On the other hand, you can use that confidence and flow to become a showier drummer, which uses more energy.

Welcome Home, Paranoid, and Maps are examples of songs that I've come back to after a couple of weeks and breezed through because my foot wasn't giving out on me halfway into the song (along with other general skill improvements, of course).  I'm still a bit stiff on songs when I play, but as I advance skill levels, I find myself starting to loosen up on the easier tiers when I play.  I let the sticks bounce more instead of trying to control them all the way up and down each stroke.   Again, this is also a good thing.

The bottom line is that if you play enough, you'll eventually find yourself able to keep up with the faster and more punishing songs.  You also won't be as tense as you begin to commit some songs to memory.

6. Sticking.  Sticking is all about knowing which notes to hit with which hand.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you want to hit a series of notes and end the last note on a drum to your right, you probably want the note before that on another drum to be hit with your left hand so that your right hand can be in flight for a little more time.

Rock Band doesn't force you to learn this per se, but it quickly becomes apparent that you're never going to nail some of the patterns in the game if you don't figure this out on your own.  After a while, you'll start instinctually  recognizing how to stick certain patterns.

It's still important to read a bit about sticking because some sticking techniques are ones that you won't be likely to find on your own.  Here's a good post on sticking to get you started.

7. Most importantly, if you play Rock Band, with or without a real drum kit, you'll have a lot of fun doing it.  The instantaneous feedback you get from the game, as well as being able to see your scores, compare them with friends, and easily download new songs all add up to one thing … a desire to play more and do better.  You'll also begin to listen to and pick out the percussion parts in songs that you never paid attention to before.

Personally, I'm just not the type of guy that would enjoy sitting at a kit and practicing to a metronome for hours on end.  Playing along with Rock Band gives me:

  1. A very easy way of trying new songs every week via downloadable content.
  2. Instant feedback when I miss notes.
  3. A clear and direct way of measuring my improvement on each song via the scoring system.

Motivation and enjoyment are perhaps the most important qualities you'll need to learn faster and advance your drumming skills … and Rock Band provides that in spades.

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Advantages of an electronic drum kit over the standard Rock Band drums

Posted on 2008/04/12 by richardykuo

Overview 

This is part 1 of the Using an electronic drum kit with Rock Band FAQ.

An electronic drum kit has several major advantages over a standard Rock Band drum kit.  This shouldn't be surprising…after all, a drum kit made for seriously playing music costs several hundred dollars…on the low end!  In this case, you do get what you pay for…and what you get is listed point by point below.

Advantages

1. Quieter play. The plastic pads of the standard Rock Band drum kit are jarringly loud and somewhat unpleasant to strike.  They make exactly the type of sound you would expect to hear from hitting a large piece of plastic.  The shock from hitting hard plastic pads also transfers back to your hands through the drum sticks, which can make extended play painful after an hour or so.  It literally feels like carpal tunnel syndrome if you have sensitive hands.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSu-6rpvKJU and skip to 1:22 for an example of the sound made by the Rock Band drum kit when you hit it.

An electronic drum set will either make a lower rubbery thump sound or a quieter trampoliney type of sound, depending on the type of drum pads you get.  Both are vastly superior to the clacking noises produced by the Rock Band drum kit.

2. Authentic and durable kick pedal performance. The kick pedal included with Rock Band is prone to breaking and behaves significantly differently from a real kick pedal.

Real kick pedals are using the pedal to lever a beater over into a bass drum.  The Rock Band pedal, on the other hand, just has a spring in it.  This means the resistance on the pedal increases significantly as you press it down.  Pressing this repeatedly can grow tiring, especially if you use a heel down technique where you keep your foot flat against the pedal.

Second, the Rock Band pedal triggers in mid throw.  Obviously, a real bass drum "triggers" when the beater hits the drum and your foot stops as a result.  So playing on the Rock Band pedal is basically training you incorrectly in this respect.

Third, real kick pedals are made of metal and simply aren't going to break.  The Rock Band 1 pedal is made of plastic and has no support in the toe area of the pedal, meaning that part of the pedal is likely to snap off over time if you give it a good pounding.

See the following video for an example – "Rock Band Kick Pedal Breaks mid song".

3. Greatly superior durability. The Rock Band drum kit is less prone to breaking than the pedal itself, but can and does wear out or break over time if you are hard on the kit.  The plastic pads can cave in or the sensors can become unresponsive for a number of reasons.  Some of the top players have gone through at least 8 kits via warranty replacement and counting.

An electronic drum kit, on the other hand, is designed to take a pounding.  You can give the pads a good beating and not worry about it.  They've been designed to take hard hits.

4. Reliable hit detection.  The Rock Band drum kit itself simply drops hits.  Especially quick hits.  A defective hit makes playing songs with rolls impossible because the controller itself may end up dropping a good percentage of your hits and cause you to fail.  There are all sorts of creative mods that people have tried to implement to get their drums working properly.  Again, if you look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSu-6rpvKJU, a modification involving socks wrapped around the pads helps tighten up the sensitivity of the Rock Band drum kit so that it can be used on expert level songs.

Even a basic electronic drum kit isn't going to miss hits.  It's designed for playing real music.

The opposite problem can also occur…cross triggering between pads or erroneous double hits on a single pad are an issue with some Rock Band drum kits.  Electronic drums suffer from this problem less, and actually feature settings in the drum brain so that you can adjust the sensitivity of each pad and mask double hits on the same pad.

And…although this doesn't apply to most gamers, if you play Rock Band at a high level, dropped or double hits are a SERIOUS problem.  An electronic drum kit could raise the level of your game significantly and ensure that your scores are all about you and not how lucky you got with the cheap Rock Band drum kit that day.

See the following video for an example of missed hits on a Rock Band drum kit – "Faulty Rock Band drums, READ THE INFO PEOPLE"

5. Adjustable layout. A real drum kit is laid out more comfortably than the Rock Band drum kit.  It's pretty obvious that the Rock Band drum kit is an accessory for playing a game, not an actual product.  You can customize each of the pads on an electronic drum kit to the exact height and tilt that you want, and the stand will naturally surround you as opposed to being this tiny kit that sits in front of you.

Check out this high end setup … it speaks for itself – "Rockband using Roland TD-20 V-Drums".

6. Play real drums. You can play an electronic drum kit outside of Rock Band.  It's a real musical instrument.  No further explanation necessary!

Disadvantages

For the sake of completeness, we should also mention these. =)

1. Electronic drums cost more money.  A lot more.  Rock Band drums cost about 50 dollars standalone.  Expect a good low end electronic drum kit setup to cost around 1000 dollars when all is said and done.

2. Electronic drums aren't Rock Band drums.  You may get so used to playing on a nice drum kit that you won't be able to play so well as your friend's house on his standard Rock Band drum kit. Personally speaking, I'm light years beyond where I used to be in terms of raw skill due to enjoying playing on this modification so much.  If I go to a friend's house, I just don't worry about the score.

If, for some reason, you need to compete seriously on a standard Rock Band kit, then you might want to keep one around to practice on.

Hey, life could be worse, right?

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