The Fate of Tyrlon and other Dubious Things

I came up with a really easy temporary fix to use with my broken Rock Band Drum Pedal while I wait for a replacement to be shipped out to me from Electronic Arts.

Items you will need: Phillips Screwdriver, a small magnet of some sort (nametag magnet is what I used - there is the magnet in the pedal you can use, read on for more info), and Duct Tape!

Any project that you get to use duct tape on is a great project in my opinion. This is something that could be added into the 1001 uses for Duct Tape book. Maybe somewhere around 962 or so. Ok, so here are the steps. First you need to take your poor broken drum pedal and put it up on a flat surface. (Click on any of the pictures below to expand them)

Next, you need to remove the pedal part from the base. This is pretty easy to do, just press in toward the top of the pedal (the higher up on the ramp part) and then slide the pedal toward where the cable connects to it. This will slide out the orange piece where it slots into the base. After you have done that flip it over and it will look like below.

You can see from where mine is broken at that the metal fixes people do won’t work since it is broken so near the pivot point at the bottom. I also tried the butter knife or metal piece duct taped around it but that wouldn’t hold well enough. The next step is to remove the 4 screws holding the orange piece to the back of the pedal. After you do that you will see this:

If you notice the little silver piece at the top, all that is is a small magnet! The way that the Rock Band Drum Pedal works is that when the magnet touches the base it “closes” a circuit and registers a “hit” to the game. You can of course leave the pedal depressed and the circuit is closed until you lift and then press back down. Now that you have this opened, you can pry out that magnet if you don’t have a suitable magnet laying around somewhere. The little magnet is just glued in lightly and can be pried out with a little bit of force. Be careful not to damage the surrounding area though as you can void your warranty if your pedal looks like it has been tampered with. In order to avoid that, I located a magnetic name tag that I had laying around and used the clip that you stick inside your shirt. Small magnets are found in all kinds of things so just be creative and you’re sure to have something suitable laying around.

Once you have your magnet in hand, you can test to see how well it will work by plugging back up the base and then just putting the magnet against the area shown in the picture below. While the game is running a song, every time you touch the magnet to the base it should register a “hit” for the bass drum in the game.

Now, you can take the duct tape and tape the magnet to the bottom of your shoe, your bare foot or even your toe. Wherever it will be comfortable, I recommend a shoe though so that if your feet sweat the duct tape doesn’t lose stickiness. Also, removing duct tape from leg hair = pain. With the magnet duct taped to your shoe, you can just tap your foot just like there was a pedal there and it will work great! You can even turn the base of the pedal around backwards and duct tape the magnet to the heel of your shoe if you prefer to drum with your heel and achieve good results that way.

That’s all there is to it! A simple quick and dirty fix so that you can keep on jamming while you wait for your new pedal to show up. Alternatively you can also order a Woodrock Pedal which is what i’m going to put into the new base that EA sends me later this week. That should be a lot more durable and heck, it is only $14 with shipping! Also, another alternative is what one guy did, take it apart like I did above and keep the base handy. Attach a magnet to the end of a real drum pedal’s swinging arm (the part that actually hits the bass drum in real life to make noise) and then match it up so that it hits the right spot on the Rock Band Drum Pedal to register a hit. Voila, a real drum pedal that works as a controller!

Edit: accidentally wiped out one of my photos for a while from a later post, so I just re-uploaded it and all should be well now!

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