I thought it would be easier to build a home-brew controller that worked with both PS2/Xbox360 as well as the PC. Of course there is no product offering of Guitar Hero for PC, so in that situation it would be used with the open source equivalient, Frets-of-Fire.Frets of fire can import the songs and tabulator meta-data from the PS2 Guitar Hero II DVD to suppliment the few songs it 'ships' with.
The first step was to develop the basic chassis shape for the guitar. I took the exceptional easy way out and used my bass guitar body as a template. I then redesigned the neck to be shorter with a large head shaped to received the large lever-action switches I purchased.
The material is 3/4" MDF board. It is easy to work with and relatively light weight.
I'm pleased enough with the shape that I will end up using the same template mesh for future guitars (Becca wants one and I'll likely make a couple more to play with different input technologies).
Here the Guitar head was cut to recieve the lever switches. It took some experimentation the desired spacing and depth.
The switches are modular and fit into a groove cut into the Guitar chassis. As you can see here the common-wire is inserted through the hole of the male-terminal which is then pressed into the narrow groove (tight enough to hold the wire in good fashion).
The switch-output wires are crimped with female terminal plugs.
The fascia plate-thingy (anyone know what this is called?) was cut free-hand and will contain all the controllers (power/volume/wammy) as well as the usb/ps2 plug and struming-device.
I was planning on embedding the cord-switch buttons into the back of the neck, but while I was building the guitar it occured to me that they should be run down the front like strings of a real guitar.
All the wires (strings) have been run
Here I am cuting the grooves in the back of the guitar for various wires. The square by the next is were the micro-controller +usb controller mounts.
More to come...
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