Electric Drum Kit with Guitar Hero/Rock Band
Now if you’ve been living in a box for the past couple of years you’ve probably missed the huge boom in so called music games. The basic idea is you a scrolling bar with “notes” that you are required to hit in time to the music with your silly plastic guitar.
Things got a little more interesting with the latest series when Rock Band allowed the use of an additional drum controller so now you could play as a whole band whilst enjoying a few cold ones from the fridge. The makers behind the Guitar Hero series quickly followed up with their own “Full Band” version and released their own drum controller.
I started drumming with an Alesis DM5 electric kit a fair few years ago and since I bought my acoustic kit it’s been sat their gathering dust, and I always wished there was a way to connect this up to my Xbox 360 so that the whole experience would be a little more true to life.
Now with the Guitar Hero World Tour drum controller this can become a reality, all that’s required is a simple MIDI cable and a little knowledge on how to set your drum brain up correctly.
The midi notes are as listed below:
Rockband / Rockband 2
- RED - MIDI Note 38 - (Snare Drum)
- YELLOW – MIDI Note 46 - (Closed Hi Hat, Hi Tom)
- BLUE – MIDI Note 48 - (Open Hi Hat, Mid Tom, Ride Cymbal)
- GREEN – MIDI Note 45 (Crash Cymbal, Low Tom)
- ORANGE – MIDI Note 36 (Kick Drum)
Guitar Hero
- RED - MIDI Note 38 (Snare Drum)
- YELLOW – MIDI Note 46 (Hi Hat, Crash 1)
- BLUE – MIDI Note 48 (Tom 1)
- GREEN – MIDI Note 45 (Tom 2)
- ORANGE – MIDI Note 49 (Ride, Crash 2)
- PURPLE – MIDI Note 36 (Kick Drum)
Now it took me a while to work out that you also need to make sure you set the MIDI channel to 10 otherwise none of this will work. As you can most likely tell from just looking at the list above, the Rockband configuration is alot more logical for playing on a real/electric drum kit.
With more and more people developing an interest in real drumming after playing these games it can only be a good thing that such things are possible. Whilst you still rely on the screen to provide you with what your playing and when your playing, you begin to develop muscle memory which you can take with you to the real kit.
I currently drum with Razor Pineapples (Entirely fictional Rock Band 2 band) and Happiness@Gunpoint (real life band) so if you’ve got any questions/comments leave a comment.
You my friend are a saviour,ive been reading all over the place about how you can use an e-drum kit with brain to replace your world tour kit,which i have now broken 3bass pedals and obliterated the snare,and have had no luck up until reading this. I can see why it took you a while to figure out you had to set the MIDI chanel 10 i dont think id of ever come across that had i not read this. The only thing i think you should add is the fact that when pressing the “MIDI” button and scrolling through the pages is you also need to set Local to “OFF” ,or atleast i had to any.Thanks a ton!
June 23, 2009 at 9:07 pm
How do you set up the DM5 to work? The manual is useless to me as I don’t understand any of it. I have everything connected and have no idea how to program this thing. Any chance of some directions?
June 27, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I’ll see if I can do a more detailed guide on how to set it up for you.
It can be a little frustrating and it took me a little while to get it all running.
June 30, 2009 at 8:15 am
http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137461
go there and then go to the last post or use the Ext Trig button and the first set of numbers is what you change good luck
December 12, 2009 at 8:40 pm
A great post, thanks for putting it up! I’ve been learning drum set now for possibly only two years. It truly is just a wonderful instrument to have fun and is enjoyable. I’ve got a pdp drum kit along with various dream works crash cymbals that I purchased extremely cheap, just adore them! Nevertheless, awaiting your next post.
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December 17, 2011 at 7:02 pm