I played the hell out of the original 3 Rock Band games for PS3. What I ran into trouble with was really fast songs that were demanding on the kick pedal. The spring in the stock RB pedals didn't have enough action and I wound up working WAY too hard for beats I could hammer away at on a real acoustic kit. What I found recently was a kick trigger pad from Yamaha that can be hooked up to the stock Rock Band drum set or the Ion Rocker set. There are other brands of kick trigger that will work as well. I already had a pedal for my drum set and any standard pedal will clamp on to the Yamaha KP-65. They are available to purchase all over the place for about $70.
However in order to get it to work with your Rock Band Drum set or Ion Rocker set you need something to convert the signal. If you have any electronics know how it is not too difficult. There used to be a KickBox, a VTI Trigger Box or a Kickwire available from online retailers to do this signal conversion for you. However - since Rock Band's popularity waned after the market was saturated these products dried up.
Here is a schematic that will give you what you need if you want to build one yourself.
Also - here is a parts list with Radio Shack part numbers:
- 555 IC (2761723)
- 386 IC (2761731)
- 100K resistor (2711347)
- 10K potentiometer or 5K resistor (controls pulse width of 555 output)
- 2N3904 NPN (2762016)
- 0.1uF cap (55047626)
- 10uF cap
- 1/8" male mono phono plug (we hard-wired this output to the box)
- 1/4" female mono phone plug (for the drum trigger input)
For those of you like me - who have been getting ready for the release of RB4 - this information should help. I've seen a fair amount of posts recently from people looking for a Kickwire or TriggerBox.
~eMpyre ramireX *IS* sAMPLE tHE mARTIAN
