The Definitive 'Guitar Hero controller modding for GF' thread [Tutorial & Discussion]

[Wompa164]

Hi everyone,

After lots of searching, I have yet to find any definitive threads or tutorials on modding a Guitar Hero controller to work with GuitarFreaks.

My interested in GuitarFreaks was revived this weekend seemingly at random, so I started trying to figure out how to modify the Guitar Hero controller into a 100% perfect PS2 GuitarFreaks controller.

Through some research and lots of trial/tribulation, I discovered some important points of interest and trouble areas:

1) The first and the most obvious of the problems: The left button on the Guitar Hero controller is permanently stuck down. The Guitar Hero controller does this to identify itself as an official Guitar Hero controller to the game. Unfortunately, this makes it more or less impossible to navigate any of the menus in GuitarFreaks and select a song/option with any degree of accuracy.

2) The second problem (I haven't been able to test this yet) is that older versions of GuitarFreaks (GF&DM V and earlier) only accept 'Up' as a valid picking button. This is not a problem in later versions (Masterpiece Gold/V2/V3) because you can manually configure each button.

3) Apparently 'real' GuitarFreaks controllers perform a self-identification routine similar to the Guitar Hero controller, except it holds down both the left and the right buttons. Ultimately this is one of the bigger problems, because the Guitar Hero controller circuit board is completely missing any kind of connection for right directional input (more on this later).

So obviously #1 is where I began my exploration into modifying the controller.

After some visual inspection and testing, I pretty much figured out the layout of the circuit board on the Guitar Hero controller. (This image was borrowed from Srayer.com because I didn't feel like taking a picture of my board and relabeling it):



First order of business was finding why the hell the left directional was being held stuck down. After following all of the traces and leads, I found out that it was because the trace for the left directional button was connected to it's neighboring trace (which just so happened to be a ground) by a small bead of solder. Since the two were directly connected by the solder, the circuit was permanently closed and thus the left directional registering constantly. Basically, this connection is what causes the left button to appear constantly held down.



After desoldering the connection and removing all of the residual solder from the two traces, I tested out the controller. Great news, the controller no longer was holding down the left directional. I decided to get a little fancy and modify the controller further. I disconnected the wire for the orange button on the guitar (effectively the 'square' button) and soldered a wire connecting it to the left directional trace that I just desoldered. I'm now able to navigate all of the menus in Gold/V2/V3 pretty effectively and I don't have to fuck with unplugging the guitar and plugging in the controller every time I want to select a song. I can move Up/Down through the menus, and I can use the orange key to go left.

Next order of business is #2, alt-strumming. I haven't moved ahead on this because I'm currently missing my old versions of GF&DM to test with, but it shouldn't be a big deal either. The strumming is controlled by two microswitches mounted onto the other side of the PCB, one for up... and you guessed it... one for down. Since the old versions of GuitarFreaks only accept up-picks, the obvious solution would be to desolder the positive lead of 'down' microswitch and connect it to the 'up' microswitch. That way no matter how you strum, it will correctly register the strum as an up-pick and everything will be fine and dandy again.

My buddy JW2 (of Guitar Hero/GuitarFreaks infamy) has an official Konami GF ASC, so hopefully when I return home for winter break I'll have a chance to do a little playing/testing with his controller and figure out exactly how the ASC registers it's button inputs.

So that's basically where I am right now. Now that I've figured out the entire circuit and how to modify it, I should be able to customize it however I see fit. I've removed the whammy bar on my controller (it's annoying and interferes with my playing style) and there's a small space to add in a button/switch/whatever I want. Or if I wanted to leave the controller perfectly intact, you could drill a small hole in the controller and surface mount a button/buttons.

I've written a lot tonight so I'm going to stop here, but I'll be updating this post tomorrow with more information and ideas. I just wanted to post this while everything was fresh in my head and while I felt like being productive.

[Wompa164]

Placeholder post for future tutorial and explanation.

[Alex]

But you don't want to deactivate Left. You want to activate Right as well as Left. That way the controller mappings will work arcade style. However, I will say that your method is tons easier.

However when Left and Right are both held down, the controller registers as arcade style, and you can navigate the menus with Red and Blue.

Though uh... it seems that Right is the only input that isn't mapped on that PCB. Ain't that a bitch.

[Wompa164]

Yep, that's basically the first thing I discovered when I looked at the PCB. Since there's no actual right directional input, it makes things a lot more complicated.

One idea would be to gut an old PSX (or PS2) controller and custom-wire the circuit board from that. Ideally I don't think it would be too difficult and it would provide all of the necessary connections. Unfortunately, mounting the board inside the controller and routing all of the wiring is a different story.

The website I borrowed the image from (Srayer.com) has his own idea of how to accomplish the Left+Right thing. It basically involves mad neckbeardage and circuitry. Here's a link to his tutorial:

Srayer.com - etc

Anyways, I'd love everyone's input/ideas/suggestions on how to proceed from here.

[Wompa164]

Yep, that's basically the first thing I discovered when I looked at the PCB. Since there's no actual right directional input on the board, it makes things a lot more complicated.

One idea would be to gut an old PSX (or PS2) controller and custom-wire the circuit board from that. Ideally I don't think it would be too difficult and it would provide all of the necessary connections. Unfortunately, mounting the board inside the controller and routing all of the wiring is a different story.

The website I borrowed the image from (Srayer.com) has his own idea of how to accomplish the Left+Right thing. It basically involves mad neckbeardage and circuitry. Here's a link to his tutorial:

Anyways, I'd love everyone's input/ideas/suggestions on how to proceed from here.

[AdamW]

"One idea would be to gut an old PSX (or PS2) controller and custom-wire the circuit board from that."

That's how most people who've done this so far did it, IIRC.

[DizzyBum]

Originally Posted by Wompa164

Yep, that's basically the first thing I discovered when I looked at the PCB. Since there's no actual right directional input on the board, it makes things a lot more complicated.

One idea would be to gut an old PSX (or PS2) controller and custom-wire the circuit board from that. Ideally I don't think it would be too difficult and it would provide all of the necessary connections. Unfortunately, mounting the board inside the controller and routing all of the wiring is a different story.

The website I borrowed the image from (Srayer.com) has his own idea of how to accomplish the Left+Right thing. It basically involves mad neckbeardage and circuitry. Here's a link to his tutorial:

Anyways, I'd love everyone's input/ideas/suggestions on how to proceed from here.

It's doable. I gutted a PSX DualShock and built a Guitar Freaks controller out of friggin' K'Nex. What you're basically trying to do is make one controller that can be switched to map two ways. That's a challenge, but theoretically possible.

I would have made a nice tutorial and taken more pictures of my K'Nex guitar, but I am just appalled by how much my phone's camera sucks. If I didn't have to work Black Friday I would have stood in line for a cheap good-quality digital camera. I'll get around to it eventually, and that may help you out.

Also, your tutorial link appears to be broken.

[Wompa164]

Thanks for the input, Dizzybum.

Over the last few days I decided to go about this project a different way. I ditched the GH PCB and now I'm using the PCB from an old PS1 digital controller. It made things a lot easier and now I'm just putting the final touches on.

Left and right are grounded out permanently and the controller registers as an official GuitarFreaks controller. I also made both of the strums (up and down) register to Up.

[DizzyBum]

Originally Posted by Wompa164

Thanks for the input, Dizzybum.

Over the last few days I decided to go about this project a different way. I ditched the GH PCB and now I'm using the PCB from an old PS1 digital controller. It made things a lot easier and now I'm just putting the final touches on.

Left and right are grounded out permanently and the controller registers as an official GuitarFreaks controller. I also made both of the strums (up and down) register to Up.

Funny enough, that's exactly what I did. But let us know if you get anywhere with making a "dual controller"!

[eldevine]

any updates on this? i have some guitar hero controllers i might wanna convert but my engineering skills are less than or equal to zero.

it also kinda means that i'd pay someone to do this for me...

[Wompa164]

ElDevine, send me a message on AIM and I'll help you out.

I would post an updated tutorial/guide on how I turned the controller into an actual GF ASC, but there wasn't very much interest or feedback from the original thread so I don't feel like putting in the effort.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Wompa164

Thanks for the input, Dizzybum.

Over the last few days I decided to go about this project a different way. I ditched the GH PCB and now I'm using the PCB from an old PS1 digital controller. It made things a lot easier and now I'm just putting the final touches on.

Left and right are grounded out permanently and the controller registers as an official GuitarFreaks controller. I also made both of the strums (up and down) register to Up.

That's what I did way back when.

The only thing I was thinking of implementing was a switch to alter the strum direction and deactivate Right, thus making it a GH controller, however you'd have to wire in the whammy bar too and I have NO idea how analogue wiring works.

[ChrisRX]

Is there any way to wire in a new board for guitar freaks but add a switch so that you can switch back to guitar hero mode?

[zodiacjay]

Originally Posted by ChrisRX

Is there any way to wire in a new board for guitar freaks but add a switch so that you can switch back to guitar hero mode?

I'm working on that right now. Using 2 controller PCB's and the secret ingredient.
It should work as a perfect GH controller in GH mode and a perfect GF controller in GF mode.

[djsensui]

does anyone tried wiring another ps1 controller inside the gh controller?
The end result is you will have 2 controller heads/output. one for GH and one for GF.