Fix Your Rock Band Drums!

I dont think the drum sensor ones look too bad. I went with the ones from www.rockingrepair.com though because they came with tape, and the wiring looked better. It was spun, not like the weird speaker wire stuff drum sensor has.

I bought the ones from drums sensor and they were pretty crappy. I bought better ones from www.rockingrepair.com and they worked a lot better. Even came with replacement protective tape !!

I have just installed the RadioShak $1.99 piezo 2-lead element. It is too large so it needs to be ground to size with a dremel. But I recommend not grinding where the wires are attached to the disc. Leave this area alone and you can form a nice little notch that will serve you well when placing the transducer in the drumpad. You have to be patient (I did most grinding at the Dremel's lowest rpm setting) but you can slowly take that outer brass edge down to size without having to remove or damage the two wires already soldered to the transducer. Then I just twist and soldered the the wires to the original wires leading to the plug (Red-Black and Black-Gray). I attached some band-aid to top and bottom. Tried to tuck the wires neatly as I popped the drumpad back in and it works great. An hour of your time and 2 bucks.

For those of you that are asking about the 4 rubber nubs on the bottom of your kit instead of the screws shown in the photos -- on later versions they changed where the press fit tabs are screwed in, from the back side of the kit to inside of the pad itself. The 4 rubber nubs are the ends of the press fit nubs. Pull away (gently) on the pad, and follow the rest of the article as he states.

I tried this route but the wires were still soldered on nicely(underneath all the epoxy on them). I did find on my set though they had installed it wrong. The piezo had been placed on an angle with one side on top of the plasic spaces that are in there. So when I took it out it had a nice bend on one side of it which I bent back but unfortunatly could not get to run again. So im waiting on my new set to get sent out. This way im still under warranty. But if this happens again I will just fix them on my own by replacing them like alot of u have.

Thanks btw!

All you have to do is firmly pull the pad off. Might take a bit of muscle, but the rubber things are just press fit. Btw, I noticed that www.drumsensor.com now has replacement sensors that don't void your warranty. Wish I would have waited for those. I have been super happy with the ones I got form them though.

My drums have rubber things on the bottom in those holes. How would i get my drums open to fix it? If anyone could help that would be great. Thanks

This mod is pretty cool also - http://www.drumpads4rockband.com

I ended up just buying a replacement sensor after I noticed a reduction in the hits being picked up. It was $8 which was worth trying. I have been really happy so far with the new one.
It was from www.drumsensor.com

I had the exact same problem... in fact, not only did we(there are 4 of us who take pretty regular turns at beating the snot out of the yellow pad)knock the wire loose, we managed to crack the plastic drum head too! I had an easier time reconnecting the wire. I was able to strip the casing away using my finger nails, laid the wire across the length of the metal disc and reapplied the band-aid looking-thingy(very techincal I know!)
I then reinforced the cracked drum head with some foam board and good old-fashioned duck tape, then tested my handy work with a rousing rendition of Run to the Hills. No smoldering required! (Except for my wife after 4 hours of listening to me sing foreplay/longtime)

the back of my drum kit looks different... i dont have accessable screws to unscrew... there are 4 rubber pads on the underneath side of each drum pad, only 3 on the middle two pads... how can i get inside of this rockband drum kit??

is the wire used, copper wire?? so, say i needed to replace one, or extend the wire, i could just use copper wire?

Using this guide I just fixed my green drum pad, thanks. This is my third set of drums and I'm not sure how many sets EA will actually send me for free. It's not hard at all, it actually took longer for my soldering iron to heat up then to do the repair.

I'm building my own e-drums, and it's nice to get a look into how harmonix went about making theirs. Exactly the same way I'm making mine... Now what happens to the signal after it leaves the piezo, I'm sure they're doing much more intelligent things than I am. :)


Thanks for the nice post! Hey, FYI, solder in the mouth is generally a bad idea. That _is_ lead in there. :) I realize the need for the 3rd hand when soldering.. but still...

-steve

For what its worth, there is somebody selling replacement sensors on ebay. They look the same. Seems easier then sending the whole kit back I guess.

when u unscrewed the drum set and saw the mother board what did u have to do after that

Thanks for posting this. I used the guide to repair my own yellow drum pad, worked out great.

Yes, it is a piezo transducer. Our drumset broke, we took it apart only to find that the plastic had actually cracked (on both our yellow and blue pads). I hopped into Radio Shack, and got part #273-073A (piezo transducer). When you take it out of its casing, it's very similar to the part in the game, only a bit bigger. We swapped it in, and it works, but we're still trying to figure out the best way to mount it. There's lots of DIY drum trigger tutorials out there on the web, and it looks like it might be worth it to try to make a trigger from an old Remo practice pad.

BUDDY, I LOVE YOU!!! My drums pad broke, I followed your guide and Now it works!!! THANK you!!!

It looks like a simple $1.99 RadioShack piezo you can extract from a buzzer. I have been making my own electonic drum kit triggers for years and I had a sneaking suspicion this kit used a similar method. Rock on kids!

Good article, I also encourage heavy footed drummers to reinforce the kick pedal with a piece of wood on top, like base board, and some hockey tape... Mine broke, but we fixed it up lickity split!

Seems like a lot of work? Hey, we didn't say it would be simple, we just said it worked for us. :)

hah spelled my name wrong

Yeah seems like alot of work

Hopefully this will help people fix their drums. Good guide! Will this be in a future issue of OXM?