Rock Band drums, quite possibly the most awesome gaming peripheral ever. Sadly they have a very annoying flaw in the form of a crappy plastic bass pedal. If you haven't already, you most certainly will break the pedal at some point. And if you're like me, you've managed to break 3 of them in the 4 months that the game has been out.





Now you could just fill out a form with EA and have them replace it for free, but I wanted a permanent solution since I'm sure at some point they'll say I've broken too many pedals and make me start paying. So I did some thinking and made this beast of a pedal:







In case anyone out there feels like splurging to support their Rock Band habit, here's how I did it:
Bought a Pearl bass pedal and the only bass pedal practice pad that was being sold at Guitar Center.



Then I came home and had to gut the broken pedal. First, take the piece of the pedal with all the orange bits, look for some screws, and unscrew them. You'll see this:




The pink arrow is pointing to where there will be a magnet. You'll have to get it out somehow. I used a small flat-head screwdriver and dug/pried until the magnet popped out.


Next, flip over the other part of the pedal and you should find a couple screws in those loop things that keep the pedal attached to the rest of the drums while you play. Unscrew them so you can open this little panel:





Once that's open you can pull out the piece that sends the signal to the game when you press the pedal. Now you can throw that useless plastic pedal to the side and bring in the real pedal.






Put the magnet on the underside of the pedal, use whatever methods you deem necessary to keep it from falling off. Then put the other piece under it, just like it was in the plastic pedal. It'll take some experimenting, but once you get everything positioned correctly the game will register bass hits whenever your real bass pedal hits the practice pad.



Now I can rock the fuck out without fear of snapping a piece of plastic. And my leg no longer gets tired after 5 songs