We (the boys in the family) got the new Guitar Hero World Tour box set with the guitar, drum kit and microphone for Christmas.
I hooked it up to the Xbox 360 and my 17 year old nephew jumped on the drums and started pumping hell out of the pedal and smashing the drum pads to death.
After a while he reported that the bass pedal was not working - and had never worked!
I checked the connections - all ok. Checked the set up and tested it in the "create your own band" area of the game - still no joy.
So had it ever worked? Who knows! I could play the set without the bass pedal working, but I want that 100% rating on Hotel California damn it!
I did some web searching (via the iPhone) and found various people complaining about the drum kit not working properly and the sensitivity of certain pads not being right, but only a few complaints about the bass pedal not working.
Seeing as I had recycled the packaging and my kids had stuck stickers all over the kit, I was not in a good position to take the stuff back to where I purchased it from so I undertook the repair of the item myself!
- Turn the pedal upside down.
- Pull off the grey sticky pad near the front of the pedal (where the wire comes out).
- Unscrew the 2 screws hidden behind it.
- Remove the circular part of the pedal where the pedal comes down to meet the base.
- Inside you will find a small receiver with 2 wires attached. One wire will be attached to the outside ring and one to the inside. The actual connections will be covered with glue.
- Scrape off the glue with a small screwdriver or childs finger and pull the wires off (remember which one was which).
- Remove all of the glue that is left.
- I held the wires in place on the connectors with some brown tape whilst I tested the pedal and found that one of the connections must have not been made correctly.
- Either solder the wires on (requires advanced skills of Zen patience) or bind them in place with some strong sellotape.
- Screw it all back together.
- Replace the sticky pad (should still be sticky!).
- Drum!
I might post some pics of the repair job I did if anyone is interested in seeing how it was done.
You can also buy replacement guitar hero drum pedals on eBay.
{ 54 comments… read them below or add one }
i seem to have snapped the little plug off the back of the kit, (the purple one) any help?
It’s just a simple audio jack so you should be able to buy just that part from Maplin or Radioshack and then solder the end back on.
mate thank you very much i had the exact same deal as you, you are a bloody legend.
No worries people!
All in a days work!
i still cant bloody sort this purple bloody plug thing out? the two wires that are here, i have tried countless times to just touch them on the back of the two terminals of my new plug, and yes you’ve guessed it. NOTHING happens. its doing my head in as i just advanced to hard level. PLEASE HELP SOME MORE ANYONE?
Excellent content here and a nice writing style too – keep up the great work!
I have the exact same problem as Jud. Is there a trick to connecting the new audio jack?
Our plug didn’t make it till boxing day and the drums had very little use, they are not up to the job. But thanks for the advice we are going to give soldering a go.
my son twisted the yellow symbol(?) until the wire ripped out. what is the best way to repair this, or can it be replaced? i have not yet troubleshooted the other end of the wire. can only imagine where it connects to.
@jud @kevin
You can just try it and see. I guess you might need 2 people to help hold the wires in place while you test.
@scotty “Cymbal!” I guess this one might be a little harder to repair – you will have to take the bit apart to see where the wires connect. It is just an audio lead, so there is probably only 2 wires in there.
I have not looked to see how hard it is to take them apart though.
Good luck! Let us know how it goes.
I’m havng real trouble with mine at the moment…. It’s ULTRA sensitive.
I generally play resting my foot on it but when I lift my leg it counts it as a hit. So every time I release the pedal it says i’ve hit it….
Anyone else having that problem or know what’s causing it/how to fix it????
@hartski – I have heard of that before!
I think taking the pedal apart and making sure that the wires are secure will be good for this too. Also make sure that there are no breaks or issues with the wire and plug.
My son also spun the yellow cymbal around and ripped the wire out of the connector. I followed the wire to the bottom and it connects to a PCB. The connector can be unplugged very easy.
However, I don’t know where to get a replacement for the wire.
Do you have any ideas were to replace the wire.
@don
Only if you make one yourself.
Maplin, RadioShack and places like that will be a good shop to buy the wire from.
You just need to be able to repair it or solder it back to the connectors.
has anybody managed to fix the cymbal yet, because i have the same problem!!!!! please help. also is there a way of doing it without soldering as i am hardly a “DIY” sort of person.
Thanks, Taoski! I followed your instructions to repair a loose connection in the foot pedal, using electrician’s tape to afix the two ends (white in the centre circle, red in the outer).
FYI – I have also had to fix the cymbal (orange) after it was twisted too far. I ended up buying a new connector from the local electronic components store and then taping the wires on.
Hi,
I am trying to fix the pedal plug (purple one). I haven’t cut the plug off yet but before I do, I am wondering if you folks can tell me which one of the wires is the “live” wire and which one is the ground. That way, I’ll make sure I solder it properly. Thanks.
Our drum pedal doesn’t work because some wires broke inside of the audio plug purple unit (it’s not just the jack but the circuit board). We had the pedal replaced under warranty and that’s how we realized that it wasn’t the pedal itself. We were planning to try soldering but because three of the wires are broken and it’s tough to match them up on the board, we wanted to know if there is a way to buy that chunk of it separately. Thanks in advance.
awesome this helped a lot. it works perfectly now!
I’m having the same problem as Carol. I went in and took the purple piece off but couldn’t get into it after removing it from the circuit board. Any suggestions?
So, resoldering the board in the audio purple piece was too ambitious for us. We resolved our problem by sending the whole unit back to Red Octane. They repaired it and it now works. We were just under the warranty period though so I’m not sure that will help you. Good luck.
My kick pedal wasn’t working, so I tried your way, but it only got worse! It you used to play sometimes, now…Never!
Any idea what might have went wrong?
i can get it to work but only while i hold the wires in place with my fingers.. as soon as i place the tape it wont work, and i made sure that the wires were still touching the plate and everything.. what should i do? what kind of tape do you recommend? .. should i rather use glue?
Oh nevermind, I found out that there was a lose connection in the wires, and we fixed it
My drum pedal is working because the wires got ripped out of the pedal, long story. But I’ve got it apart and I don’t know which wire goes to the outside solder point and which goes to the center. One wire is red, one is gold, which goes where?
I hope someone sees this, thank you ahead of time.
I meant to say not working. But anyways, I tested it and it’s red to outside and gold to inside. good luck
I need some help. I was having trouble with my pedal. I thought it was broken, so I just ordered a new one. Then I got the new one an plugged it in, and again the pedal didn’t work, turns out the purple plug is screwed up. Is there anyway this can be fixed so that I don’t have to buy another 90 dollar drum kit? Please let me know. Thanks.
I tried to repair the pedal wire connection by taping them with black electric tape, tried each wire on each outer/inner circle but still nothing works
I managed to get the sensor to work a couple of time by tapping it hard with a finger (from the inside of the device) but the pedal itself cannot activate the sensor. Since it did work 2 or 3 times, I’m guessing my connections are right, but could the problem originate from the sensor itself? I think I’ll try to get it replaced…
It could be the sensor I guess. It might be time to get a new one then…
The wire to my drum foot pedal got pulled out at the pedal itself. I’m not sure how well taping the wires to the connectors will work in the long run but after further inspection of the wire I noticed the rubber coating is deteriating and cracking. This probably added to reason why there are so many problems with this product. Are there any recalls that you know of for this problem. The system is only 1 year old, but the box and reciept have long been disposed of.
John,
There is no product recall for these items as far as I am aware.
The only thing you could do is take it back to the shop you bought it from, but without the receipt or box, you may be struggling.
You might be best to get a new one off eBay.
I was about to throw my pedal away and buy a new. I read this persons directions on how they repaired theirs and even though I’m not much an electrical person I was able to fix my pedal. Thank you so much, you saved me like twenty dollars. Anyone with pedal problems ought to try this, its very easy. I barely had a screwdriver that would fit the holes, only had scotch tape, and was able to weezer-rig this together in about 20 minutes.
My cat loves eating cables and wires. We got to play Guitar Hero World Tour a single time before the stupid cat ate the wire for the kick pedal.
I purchased a Rock Band pedal only to find it wasn’t compatible. It’s probably the type that uses a magnet rather than the piezo sensor.
Rather than throw more money at this stupid thing I followed the instructions provided here to tear the pedal apart. Once I had the pieces apart I was able to perform a simple fix.
To answer a number of the questions here, it doesn’t matter which cable is soldered to which contact point. It is a simple circuit that isn’t affected by polarity.
I used a cheap pair of headphones from the dollar store for my wire. Just chop off the wire right below the ear piece, strip it back and there you have it.
Soldering was a bit tricky because I’m also using a dollar store soldering iron but was able to layer on some new solder and embed the headphone cables in it. Now the drum pedal works as good as new.
I pulled off the gray thing but there is still some black thing and I can’t see the screw. can you help me ?
Thanks man my actual cable got ripped from the reciever. Anyway with your help m dad was able to open it up and solder and gaffer tape it back. I havnt tried I yet as my friends are play soul calibr three but thanks in advance.
you suck that didnt work at all
Worked GREAT!!! I took it apart and the red wire popped right off when I started scraping the glue off. I cleaned up the contact and soldered it back into place. The white (inside) wire seemed to be attached fine so I just soldered the remaining bare wire to the conductor, put it all back together and VOILA!!!!!
I ordered mine through Amazon and wasn’t about to ship back my ENTIRE set just for a kick pedal. And looking at how it was assembled, I probably would have had the same problem again….. Activison if your’e reading this…. switch to solder for your terminals please
Great write up!!
Thanks a bunch for this. I was needing to open my drum pedal to repair (it seems to have a short inside the sensor box) and wanted to see if someone else posted up a good description of how to open the darn thing up.
Again, thanks a bunch, now to fix my pedal ^_^
have you posted the pictures of this fix??? I have been recruited into fixing yet another gaming accessory ,which i have somewhat of a knack for although i’m sometimes not sure what it is that i did to fix it. anyways i have the same foot
pedal and i’m not sure where to start so any help would be appreciated…thank you
Thank you so much for the repair instructions. My two year old had pulled the wires out so instruction #6 ” remember which one (wire) was which” was a bit of a problem. But based on how the glue blobs looked relative to the wires and after discovering some red left on the outside glue blob, I proceeded successfully. So for our pedal at least:
RED wire connects to the outside ring
COPPER colored wire connects to the center ring
i keep calling to get a new foot pedal for my x box 360 cant get though on the phone you dont have a 1800 no. Please send me a new foot pedal 184 Sydenham St Brantford Ont. N3R 3Z3. I have called 10 times can never get through always on hold or it just cuts me off. If I have to call please foward me a 1800 no. Thank you
@Dan?
Who are you calling? Not me I hope…
how can you tell if it is the base pedal or the drum set that is broke—all other things work great.
walt wist, when fixing anything, start with the cheapest/easiet/fastest methods of repair. i.e. do the repair method for the pedal. if that doesn’t work then you at least know it wasn’t one of these two wires being loose thats causing your problem. Outside of that, goodluck.
I am not a techie/gamer/whatever. I’m a mom and I think the foot pedal for our Wii Band Hero is broken. The black disc under the pedal came off and I think the wires broke off in the process. How can I reaattach them to the metal disk? Is there a glue or tape I can use?
Thank you for some fabulous info, the medal pedal back working, and the girls and I rocked the band. Boo-yah!
So i opened up my pedal and peeled all the glue off and soldered the wires back on and it still did not work. (This was before reading this article) Now after that the plastic circle in the middle broke so I’m wondering if that was essential.
This is a great fix, took me 5 minutes. I had to go a bit McGyver as the only thing to hand was scotch tape, so not sure how long it will last, but now i know the problem its not a worry.
I got my set off ebay so returning it would have been a massive ball ache. The pedal had been glued so badly that they had overshot the contacts completely.
Thanks very much for the helpful post, you’ve saved me a lot of hassle.
The drum pedal has no sticky pad on the back of it ; ) !!!!!
Can you just order the purple ended cable wire for the Band Hero drum set? Our pet chewed ours in half and I would like to just buy a new one.
Jennifer <
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