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Create a full MIDI Drumset with Guitar Hero and Rock Band Drums

Posted on Friday 6 November 2009

Here is a demonstration of using both the Guitar Hero World Tour Drums for Wii and the Rock Band Drums for Wii to create a full MIDI Drumset:

Camille, the programmer of OSCulator, got his program working with the Velocity-sensitive Guitar Hero drums. Download OSCulator here:
http://www.osculator.net/wp/

I’m still using JunXion to receive MIDI from the Rock Band Drums. Check out my other tutorial for setting JunXion up.

I created a Logic environment with a switch that is triggered by the MIDI note that the Rock Band pedal is sending via JunXion. It transforms the closed high hat to the open one when the pedal is released. I’m also using another transformer to amplify the velocity of the MIDI drums by 30, because the GH drums are pretty quiet otherwise.

Download the Osculator file, the JunXion file, and the Logic file here: gh_rb_setup.zip

Props to Camille for his help, Maeve for me stealing back a loop from her song, and Samantha and Fred Tesche for Dark Matter.


37 Comments for 'Create a full MIDI Drumset with Guitar Hero and Rock Band Drums'

  1.  
    November 6, 2009 | 10:13 pm
     

    […] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Tagged with: drum    drum kit    engadget    gaming    holidays    japanese    midi    music    Phones    Politics    Sport […]

  2.  
    Pablo
    November 6, 2009 | 10:21 pm
     

    Fantastic set man, you can play. Like the tech setup, great job.

  3.  
    November 6, 2009 | 10:25 pm
     

    […] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments none Leave a comment […]

  4.  
    November 6, 2009 | 11:02 pm
     

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  5.  
    November 6, 2009 | 11:08 pm
     

    […] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Loading… @import url("http://www.google.com/uds/css/gsearch.css"); window._uds_vbw_donotrepair = true; @import url("http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/videobar/gsvideobar.css"); .playerInnerBox_gsvb .player_gsvb { width : 320px; height : 260px; } function LoadVideoBar() { var videoBar; var options = { largeResultSet : !true, horizontal : true, autoExecuteList : { cycleTime : GSvideoBar.CYCLE_TIME_MEDIUM, cycleMode : GSvideoBar.CYCLE_MODE_LINEAR, executeList : ["ytchannel:theworacle","ytchannel:luckymauro","ytchannel:mttdx"] } } videoBar = new GSvideoBar(document.getElementById("videoBar-bar"), GSvideoBar.PLAYER_ROOT_FLOATING, options); } // arrange for this function to be called during body.onload // event processing GSearch.setOnLoadCallback(LoadVideoBar); Filed under: Engadget No Comments Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) ( subscribe to comments on this post ) […]

  6.  
    Stephen
    November 6, 2009 | 11:26 pm
     

    Just wanted to let you know I followed the link from Engadget to your site – the video was neat, but what really hooked me was the music which started playing.

    Vine & Ring Themes sounds influenced by the Dark Knight soundtrack (Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard)… everything I’ve listened to so far sounds excellent – I’ve downloaded all you had available on your homepage for further listening, later.

    Great work & thanks for sharing! 🙂

  7.  
    drew
    November 7, 2009 | 12:54 am
     

    I tried this with two drumkits from guitar hero/rock band with apple garageband and it was laggy, did you experience any lag?

  8.  
    November 7, 2009 | 2:02 am
     

    […] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments […]

  9.  
    November 7, 2009 | 2:59 am
     

    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dan Dumouchel and EasyGuitarRiff, Syd Guitar. Syd Guitar said: My fourth descent into ADD » Create a full MIDI Drumset with … http://bit.ly/2uEASA […]

  10.  
    November 7, 2009 | 10:37 am
     

    thank you

  11.  
    Ben
    November 7, 2009 | 2:18 pm
     

    Nice idea.
    It’s a good thing logic has the ability to quantize, though =P

  12.  
    November 7, 2009 | 2:43 pm
     

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by dandumouchel: This shit is badass! Create a full MIDI Drumset with Guitar Hero and Rock Band Drums. http://bit.ly/18PPHm

  13.  
    VInce
    November 7, 2009 | 2:47 pm
     

    Awesome!

  14.  
    Tim
    November 7, 2009 | 3:06 pm
     

    Hi Jordan,

    Also found this through Engadget. nice setup!
    I also think your scores that are autoplaying are pretty good as well.
    I’m a sound engineer and producer in South Australia. Have you ever composed any jingles?

  15.  
    Derick
    November 7, 2009 | 6:48 pm
     

    Really nice work! Awesome music too.

  16.  
    November 8, 2009 | 8:19 am
     

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  17.  
    November 8, 2009 | 12:32 pm
     

    […] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Subscribe to comments Both comments and pings are currently closed. | Post Tags: […]

  18.  
    November 8, 2009 | 12:32 pm
     

    […] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Subscribe to comments Both comments and pings are currently closed. | Post Tags: […]

  19.  
    November 8, 2009 | 12:48 pm
     

    Hey there! This is beyond awesome and I was wondering if this software would work with the Xbox World Tour drums.

  20.  
    November 8, 2009 | 2:43 pm
     

    […] My fourth descent into ADD » Create a full MIDI Drumset with … […]

  21.  
    November 8, 2009 | 8:33 pm
     

    Thanks for the comments everyone, especially on the site music! At this time I do not know of a way to hook the Xbox. Do they use bluetooth?

  22.  
    Adeline
    November 10, 2009 | 9:42 am
     

    Just here to say, THANK YOU SO MUCH ! i downloaded your vibrate ringtone for my iphone and it really works! IT’S GONNA HELP ME OUT ALOT. Thank you so much for sharing all these things with us 🙂 Really appreciate it! Thanks 🙂

  23.  
    R00st3r
    November 10, 2009 | 7:55 pm
     

    You can hook up the xbox drums by following this tutorial here. I have already done some home recordings with the set, albeit limited until I can get two sets hooked up together.

    http://pctutorialsonline.net/index.php/guitar-hero-world-tour-drums-on-pc.html

  24.  
    November 11, 2009 | 2:20 pm
     

    Thanks, R00st3r! A lot of people on youtube have been asking for that, I added the link to the youtube description.

  25.  
    November 13, 2009 | 4:56 pm
     

    […] Create a full MIDI Drumset with Guitar Hero and Rock Band Drums […]

  26.  
    dimi
    December 6, 2009 | 6:53 pm
     

    Hello , i have a question!
    I can now play the ghwt drum (wii) on mac (with double bass) . But I will extend this. Here in Germany i can only buy xbox 360 rockband drums. There are also programs. My Question now is, if i can also use the xbox 360 or ps3 rock band 2 drums . Important is, that i can use the rockband pedal for open hi-hat. Is that to manage?
    I hope you will answer fast.
    Thanks and sorry for my english^^

  27.  
    December 13, 2009 | 6:15 pm
     

    […] Check out my velocity sensitive full MIDI drumset with the guitar hero set and the rockband […]

  28.  
    February 26, 2010 | 1:04 pm
     

    Can you hook up xbox to it?

  29.  
    João
    March 2, 2010 | 2:37 pm
     

    Hello Jordan, I saw your video and really liked it. Congratulations. Actually I have the battery band hero and I want to play with her without being just with the game. I am not very knowledgeable in this area, but I would like you to help me. Is possible? What I have to do to get the final result equal to yours?

    Best regards, João

  30.  
    Fonz
    April 28, 2010 | 4:14 pm
     

    Hey Jordan,

    Now i’m jalous!!!!!…i’m looking a way to run my Logitech Wii GH premium drumkit on my Win7 PC, ( sorry) is there a possebillity to get it run it like yours on a PC??

    now i’m trying it with Glovepie, Midi-OX en ZynAddSubFX…but no results 🙁

    maybe you are smart to get it running…..

    thanks in advance

    Fonz
    The Netherlands

  31.  
    May 9, 2010 | 2:41 pm
     

    Like many others I was looking for an easy “how to” about hooking up a Wii GHWT drum kit to MIDI, I couldn’t find it so with the help of

    Fonz I wrote my own. Check my website:
    http://www.winko-erades.nl/

    Regards,

    Winko

  32.  
    June 19, 2010 | 6:53 pm
     

    cool,im a drummer turned guitarist

  33.  
    August 18, 2010 | 6:44 am
     

    the pitch of music from the drum set is so clear and loud that it enhances the quality of music and the track

  34.  
    Alan
    September 21, 2010 | 4:45 am
     

    The ps3 band hero drum kits , which is esentially the newer guitar hero kit as far as i know, come with midi ports on them. Should make this easier. I picked up a set 2nd hand this week and just plugged a usb to midi converter into the midi ports on the bottom of the controller and away it went, I’m using ableton and BFD2. Still haven’t figured out how to use another pedal to do the hihat open though. I have a rock band kick pedal. It triggers an E3 note when it is opened but rather than changing the existing hihat sound that just triggers whatever instrument has been assigned to that key.
    Great video.

  35.  
    September 21, 2010 | 8:58 am
     

    Alan: No way! That’s great news, on all the other sets they have had a MIDI in port only. How’s the lag?
    If you use Logic, I made an environment that triggers the open and closed high hat from a MIDI note. Download gh_rb_setup.zip from the post.

  36.  
    February 19, 2011 | 12:11 pm
     

    Found your site from engadget. Awesome music. Going to use on my new I-phone.
    Thanks

  37.  
    Emil
    January 20, 2017 | 11:54 pm
     

    When I plug my Xbox 360 drum set into my Macbook the green light lights up for a couple of seconds then just shuts off. Can anyone help here?

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