How to Build a Foot Pedal for a "Guitar Hero" Plastic Guitar
Although recent news has been that the crazy popularity of guitar video games, i.e. Guitar Hero and Rock Band may be on the wane, with the millions of guitar peripherals sold over the last few years, this unfortunate possibility that may have video game industry headliners like Activision and EA and Harmonix asking 'Where have all the good times gone?' opens the door to a quasi musical undertaking, right up the ally of rhythm gamers, plastic guitar modding.
Of course, rock and proto-rock aficionados have been modding guitars since before Les Paul stuck a pickup into a hollow body acoustic back in the 30s, creating the blueprint for the modern electric guitar we know today. Also, video game players have been modding consoles and controllers since the days of Pong. So, it would seem that we have a match made in heaven, or keeping with rock ethos, 'raising my right hand to shout at the devil,' perhaps hell. Regardless, check out the video below, taken from a posting today on Engadget. With just few tools and materials the guy in it has managed to build a wah-wah pedal that allows him to play what, looks like Rock Band (there is some peripheral compatibility between games), one-handed, using the pedal to mimic sounds normally created by the controller's strum and whammy bar. As a result, he is free to knock back a cold one and contemplate why the rest of his band sucks so much. Very nice, and more importantly oh so Rock n' Roll. Mod on!
--Tom Milnes
John on December 11, 2008 at 09:26 PM
simple DIY, nice share