We were recently sent an interesting email by one of our visitors telling us how to record your favorite Guitar Hero tracks for playing along with your real instruments, what better way to show the effect Guitar Hero is having in turning fans of music games into real musicians!

Before we get started we should point out this is not a tutorial on unlawfully coping music for distribution in any way, this is another way fans of the game who own their own copy can use the content on that disk to play the game in a different way. To use this for any other purpose would be unlawful and we do not do not condone it.

What you will need before we start:

• Tv, console and Guitar Hero game disc (works with Rock Band also)
• The instrument you wish to have DEDUCTED from the final track (i.e. if you want to record drumless tracks for playing with your real drumkit, as we will here, then you will need the Guitar Hero drumkit controller)
• PC with a audio input port (see below for more details)
• 3.5 mm audio cable (go to Amazon store)
• Copy of the free audio editing programme Audacity

Setup your equipment as you usually would but plug the 3.5mm cable from the headphone socket on your TV into the line in on your PC (a great visual tutorial for setting up your PC to record from an external input can be found on the Audacity Tutorial pages) and set Audacity up to record from that input.

Start the game and go into the practise mode (so you don't get the crowd noises) choose the song you want and start it up. When the song is about to start pause the game, start Audacity recording and then unpause the game and leave it. If you do not hit any of the notes what you will be recording is the original track without the drum track on it, allowing you to play the drum part on your kit in the garage or wherever it is. This works perfectly well if you are a bassist, guitarist or singer that would like to practise your favourite songs from the game on your real instruments!

To clean up the audio you record have a look at some of the Other Audacity Tutorials for improving your recordings.

GH gamers love their guitars. They also fall into two categories, those that kept them pristine, wrapper fresh and those that covered them with those lovely Activision stickers. To set your guitar apart from the crowd you should look into designing your own Guitar Hero Custom Vinyl Skin.What you have on yours is only limited by your own imagination, you favourite band, your holiday photos, pictures of your dog, anything is possible and this is how easy it is.

Head over to Unique Skins and choose what device you want to design a skin for, they can do it all - Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, games consoles, mobile phones, laptops you name it and they can do it!

Use their excellent online design software to create your ideal custom skin. You can use any selection of text, images and backgrounds from their extensive library and even upload images from your own computer to design exactly what you want.

Once you have played about with your design and got it to you liking just press the add to cart button, enter your payment and shipping details and then couple of days later your personally designed skin will land on your doorstep.

Installation is simple and thanks to some high tech vinyls from 3M, bubbles under the vinyl are a thing of the past. The backing of the vinyl features very clever air channels that push even the smallest pockets of air out with no fuss. They will last a lifetime with no wear of fade and can even be removed leaving no sticky residue if required, and the latest tech they have in now allows you to specify gel filled vinyls if you want a more tactile feel. For only $17 we cannot think of a better way to customise your guitars.

If you get one we would love to see what you have made so send in your pictures, if they are good we will even offer up a 15% discount for you to use on anything else we sell from our repair parts section.

We wrote an article a while ago with a great deal of help from one of our visitors showing you how you can use your e-drums as a Guitar Hero Game Controller. This was a very popular article with lots of interest.

Now the cleaver guys over at pctutorialsonline.net have written the software and created some great tutorial videos showing how to connect your Guitar Hero World Tour drums to the PC and use them like a real professional e-drum kit. So now we have the best of both worlds, whatever skins you own can be used for gaming and creating music!

I mentioned a while ago that I would create a how to video on using your Guitar Hero World Tour Drum kit on your PC. Thanks to Magnus’ PS360MIDI Drummer software, the ability to use the GH:WT drum kit on PC became possible. To think that you could turn a gaming controller into a high quality midi controller is amazing. Something like a Yamaha DTXpress costs $800 AU + .

I realize you can’t compare the GT:WT drum kit to fully decked electronic drum kit, but for less than $150 , the Guitar Hero World Tour Drum Kit does a pretty awesome job. Watch the videos below on how to setup your Guitar Hero World Tour Drum Kit on PC

I encourage you all to pop over and have a look at what they have created, it is quite amazing!
Link to original article

Did you know you can connect your e-drums up to your console and use them to play Guitar Hero with? Well one of our lovely site visitors has done you a nice easy to follow guide to help you on your way!

This example is for the Xbox 360 but it should work just the same on any console.

To get your e-drum working with Guitar Hero on the Xbox 360 you need a least the following six things:

- an e-drum with a MIDI Output, e.g. Roland TD-12,
- the Xbox 360 Controller Box from the Guitar Hero drum kit,
- the Drum Brain from the Guitar Hero drum kit (it's called "DRUM SYNTH V2R00" on the circuit board),
- the MIDI Input from the Guitar Hero drum kit,
- a MIDI cable,
- a Guitar Hero game which supports drums (all versions including World Tour and up should work).

You can get all of these parts (except the MIDI cable) from the guitar hero spare parts store for a very reasonable price. Of course you can get a Guitar Hero Drum Kit and use this as your MIDI connector to the Xbox, but that might take up a little bit too much space in your living room.

click to enlarge

Now to the setup:
1) Connect the Drum Brain to the Xbox Controller. Make sure that the red cable is connected to the pin marked "CK".
2) Connect the MIDI Input to the Drum Brain. The red cable must align with the "Kick" pin.
3) Connect your e-drum's MIDI Output with the MIDI cable to the Guitar Hero's MIDI Input.
4) Put some batteries in the Xbox Controller, turn on your e-drum and the Xbox Controller and start Guitar Hero (at least World Tour, Guitar Hero III doesn't support drums). Make sure, the Xbox Controller is paired and works (i.e. you can navigate the menus).
5) If your e-drum sends the standard MIDI notes for the different pads on the standard MIDI channel for drums, you should be set and ready to go. Just choose Drums as your instrument and give it a try.

That was easy, wasn't it?! For a little more tweaking, just read on.

Hm, what to do, if the e-drum doesn't use the correct MIDI channel or notes? That involves a little bit more of work, but no magic at all.

Go to your devices MIDI setup (check with your manual on how to get
there) and set your e-drum's transmit channel to 10. This setting is usually buried somewhere in the global settings.

Now the only thing left to do is to set the pads to send the correct MIDI notes for Guitar Hero. This setting is usually done in the pad's settings section. You need to setup them up like this:

Red Pad: Note 38,
Yellow Pad: Note 46,
Blue Pad: Note 48,
Green Pad: Note 45,
Orange Pad: Note 49,
Purple Pad (Kick Pedal): Note 36.

The Red pad is usually a Snare Drum sound, so it's a good idea to map your SD pad to note 38. Blue and Green are Tom Sounds, Yellow and Orange are Hi Hat resp. Cymbal. Purple is the Kick Pedal (Bass Drum).

If that didn't work, first try the other MIDI connector on your e-drum.
Sometimes the MIDI connectors are labeled weird regarding Input/Output.

If you have got multi-zone pads that send different notes when being hit in different zones, make sure to map them to the same note. E.g., a Snare Drum pad is usually equipped with a rim and head sensor. You want Guitar Hero to recognize both sensors, so set both to Note 38. The same applies for multi-zone Cymbal Pads and so on.

Of course you can map your pads to your liking. I have my Ride pad and the Hi Hat mapped to the same note and both the Crash pads mapped to the other colour, so that you are free to play the rhythm stuff on the HH or Ride to your liking (or whatever the sounds in Guitar Hero are like ...;-) ).

Hope you enjoy it. If you have any problems, just drop a note in the comments.

Many thanks to our reader for that nice tutorial.

We couldn't stop without having a little play ourselves and have come up with a nice little mod to this guide, allowing you to enclose all the parts in the original controller box. The mod is quite simple all you need to do it to cut the GHWT midi port out and replce it with a slick looking surface mounted one which will cost pennies.

Open the back of the controller box by removing the four screws in the back

click to enlarge

Cut the circuit board off the end of the Guitar Hero midi port cable leaving you with as much of the ribbon cable attached as possible, You wil see that the ribbon cable is made up of 6 wires, we only need wires 3 and 4 (doesn't matter which way you look at it, it's the middle two!). You need to strip and solder these two wires onto your surface mounted midi port, attaching them to the same pins as they were attached to before (The red and yellow lines on the image show where they were attached, look at your own it will become clear, just make sure you have the midi port the right way up!)

click to enlarge

Drill a hole in the side for the port to go through and your done! You should have plenty of room to fit everything back inside the controller box, leaving you with one small neat box to connect up!

click to enlarge

If your one of your drum pads are broken you have a number of options, throw in the towel and get a new drum kit (...Whaaat! We are in a recession don't you know!), get one of our drum repair kits, or replace the whole drumpad (which you can get from our Guitar Hero parts store)

This is a short video we have produced to show you just how easy it is to do! All you need is a new pad, a screwdriver and 5 spare minutes take a look and tell us what you think. If you have any problems with this or any other Guitar Hero related problem take a look in our Guitar Hero repair forums

We had a few questions from visitors about their fret buttons not working. This is a troubleshooting guide to help you fix exactly that problem.

Obvious things first - make sure batteries are good and the controller is connected to your console!

Ideally you will have lots of friends who play Guitar Hero too ( if your friends do not play GH ditch them now and get some proper ones!), if this is the case you can borrow one of their guitars, swap the necks around and see if that makes the difference - This will confirm weather the issue is in the neck of guitar side of things.

If the different neck does not stop the problem then the first thing to do is check the connector inside the body of the guitar that the neck plugs into. This sits just inside the body of the guitar and should be well fixed into position and not full of dust - a tiny bit of movement is OK but if it is moving about a lot it is not making the connection to the neck properly and you are lucky if any of your buttons work! If this is fine then the problem either lies in the wiring inside the guitar or with the connection to your console - both of which are very difficult to fix so we shall leave there!

If the problem is in the neck of the guitar there are a few things you need to check see our troubleshooting video below

Download this video to watch later (wmv 6.5mb)

One thing to note with fret button problems is that they are not always traceable or fixable, due to the way the buttons work, if the board or connector is faulty then you really have no option but to buy another guitar as replacement of these parts if quite difficult.

If you have any questions about your fret button problems please post them here and we will try to help!

Well its not the most complicated repair in the Guitarherorepair arsenal but there is not much about it on the web so I thought we would go through it (oh yes and it happened to me, on my kit yesterday!)

Problem:

While drumming like a hairy neanderthal you manage to hit the cymbal so hard it physically breaks the plastic holding it together.

Solution

The fix here is superglue nice and simple, when joining hard plastics superglue joins pretty much as hard as the original bond, it is cheap, fast and simple (unless you end up gluing your fingers together!)

What you will need to do is:

• Take the cymbal off
• unscrew the back cover ( so it looks like the one in the picture above)
• remove the rubber covering ( it is only held in place by a couple of spots of glue)
• examine the extend of the crack so you know where to apply the glue
• TOP TIP - breath heavily on the area to be glued just before you glue - superglue reacts with moisture in the air to make it harden so this just helps the process
• hold it in position for a minute or two
• reassemble and play

There are also some things you can do to prevent this problem happening

• don't hit it too hard (duh!)
• swap your cymbals around occasionally so one is not taking more abuse than the other
• reinforce the area with strong glue before this happens (do not get any glue near the sensor, this will affect the sensitivity of the pads)

The only thing better than an excellent DIY repair is... well not having to perform an excellent DIY repair eh!

Following a marathon session on the drums you may find you have a screw loose, not through hours of pounding beats but more because, while you have been wailing on the pads, the tiny black screws that hold the frame together are undoubtedly coming loose. You will not know this until you go to pick up your drums and one of the legs falls off, and who keeps their rock room tidy enough to find a tiny black screw on the floor once it has fallen out? Not us that's for sure!

So todays top tip is:

• Check the screws holding your drums together from time to time - they could always do with a little tightening, or if you are a bit more of a perfectionist then get yourself some threadloc from a hardware store, this is basically glue that sits on the thread of the screw stopping those nasty vibrations loosening your screws (or nuts for that matter!).

Got any top tips of your own to share with the community? Post them below we'd love to know what works for you!

More and more people are reporting that their Guitar Hero World Tour (GH4) guitars are starting to miss strumming inputs (mainly downwards) causing them to miss notes which seriously affects their enjoyment of the game. This kit will fix that problem or improve responsiveness of a sluggish strummer.

Download this video to watch later (wmv 9.7mb)

This kit includes a replacement microswitch of superior quality and full, detailed, step by step instructions of how to fit it. This can be performed by someone with little or no previous soldering experience in about half an hour and is a very simple and effective way of permanently repairing a GH4 guitar for a fraction of the cost of a replacement (sorry no more news about GH3 guitars yet!).

The tools you will require if you do not already own them are:

• Soldering Iron (15 - 30 watts)
• Desoldering Pump (also known as a solder sucker)
• Torx Screwdrivers / bits (T6 &T10)

The solder sucker is optional but advised for those new to soldering.

All of these tools and more can be found at the lowest prices from our GHR Shop - check it out now!

The guitar is taken apart and a microswitch which is known to fail is replaced with one of higher quality. We have sold hundreds of these kits and the feedback is excellent from all over the world. The repair kit is compatible with Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 controllers. Replacement of this switch will ensure every note played is registered by the game and will also help to reduce the annoying clicking from the strummer.

The feedback we have received so far has been amazing:

switch works much better than orig - a must-have even if yours is working!!!

Life saver! Repair was simple with help from tutorial, now plays perfectly AA++

It was easy to install and a perfect fix for wireless guitar.

fast shipping, easy repair guide, A+++ seller!

PERFECT, u can c the quality dif between the 2 sw. Now I Can Rock again thx

Fast delivery. Comprehensive instructions.

Choose a Currency

You may choose a currency from those shown below, if you currency is not listed Paypal will automatically convert the payment for you. Worldwide shipping is included in the price you see - no extra charges.

GHWT Strummer Repair Kit USD 1 Strummer Switch $6.75 2 Strummer Switches $11.50 4 Strummer Switches $20.00

GHWT Strummer Repair Kit GBP 1 Strummer Switch £4.75 2 Strummer Switches £7.95 4 Strummer Switches £14.95

GHWT Strummer Repair Kit EURO 1 Strummer Switch €4.25 2 Strummer Switches €7.00 4 Strummer Switches €13.00

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If you have any questions please have a look at our FAQs or Contact Us

Strummer Switches FAQ's

• With this work on my guitar?

These switches are comaptible with the Guitar Hero World Tour guitar only (same type of guitar as shown in the video) We are working on versions for the GH3 and GH5 guitars but at the moment we do not have a solution for these guitars

• Do I get instructions with my order?

Yes, you will recieve instructions via email and along with the instructional video shown on this page fitting should be a breeze.

• Do I need any special skills to fit this item?

You will need to be able to use a soldering iron but it really is a simple job and quite managable for a first attempt at soldering

• What tools will I need?

• Soldering Iron (15 - 30 watts)
• Desoldering Pump (also known as a solder sucker)
• Torx Screwdrivers / bits (T6 &T10) *NEW* our 8 in 1 Torx screwdriver Sets

The solder sucker is optional but advised for those new to soldering.

All of these tools and more can be found at the lowest prices from our GHR Shop - check it out now!