*disclaimer* OF COURSE this will void your warranty, but hey if the only thing you are having probems with on the guitar is the strum bar, this will fix it
*note* there’s seem to be plenty of different guitar designs so open yours up and check out what you’re working with and what the best way to go about it on your particular guitar would be. This is what worked for me. I play expert.
Hey all just wanted to share a guitar mod of mine that works great.
The unfortunate fact is the switches for the strum bar are less than ideal. So, I took mine out and lit them on fire.
Then I hot glued two momentary Push Button N.O.(important that it’s momentary and n.o.) switches on a piece of prepared circuit board to create a switch unit I could install in the guitar.
Switches and board
*update* the buttons have a nut on them that I unscrewed, then I put them on the board and tightened the nut so that the button was held onto the board before I hot glued them together, also make sure you don’t get hot glue where it will interfere with the buttons.
Diagram of cut circuit board and switches screwed on
Then I glued this down onto the raised screws by the strum bar so the buttons and strum bar lined up.
Solder the wires on the new switches(on opposite sides because the up and down strum It’s reading is switched)and voila! way better strum bar! The switches I used don’t even click.
*update*before you close the guitar, you’ll want to glue down a piece of board on one of the black pegs near where you put the strum assembly. This forces the guitar case apart more when it’s closed so that the switches have more room inside the guitar. Sorry I don’t have any pics of this yet, but I circled a possible peg on the pic below, I used one closer to the strum. There’s basically plastic poles molded into the guitar case that you’re extending with a bit of board glued down, so that when you close the guitar it’s braced a little to give the strum room.
cost of parts- $7.
I’m interested in more details about your mod. What did you use to cut out the sections in the PC board?
The problem I’m having the ends of the push switches are so high I can’t close the guitar
Other problems …the underside of my strum bar has two posts at each end. The problem is at each end one is long and the other is short. That means I’ll have to cut it down to make sure there will be even contact with the switches. Plus the screws you glued the circuit board onto has their own small, very tall post in the center… I’ll have to cutit off so the switches will fit when I close my guitar (mine is the PS3 version BTW)
Also can u take more pics right next to where you glued the board onto the guitar , at eye level so I can see how exactly you put it onÉ
My circuit board broke apart into small pieces extremely easily when tried to saw and cut it …any suggestions?
More stuff..the long posts under the strum bar seem to be metal in the center?! How am I supposed to sand them down?
Hey. I’ll try to answer as many of your questions as I can.
The circuit board I ended up breaking along the lines with a pair of needlenose pliers.
I pretty much just hot glued my assembly down into place where it lined up with buttons and I guess got lucky. I didn’t have any issues, just glued it down and it fit.
I’m gonna open it up again sometime this weekend to switch the high and low frets so I can solo on the normal fret buttons, I’ll definitely try and take some better pics, these were taken while I was busy trying to figure everything out.
My guitar also closes fine. The buttons I used ended up being just the right size
o and by sanding down I just meant a little of the white strum bar plastic where it would touch the button.
thats the thing…the white strum bar plastic where it would touch the switches seems different in my PS3 Rock Band Guitar. One of the plastic bits on either end seem to be taller than the one across from it and seem to have a metal core.
yeah from what i’m hearing from others there are a bunch of variations of guitar parts inside. Weird.
I tried your mod out today, and it works! I didn’t do it correctly, as I forgot to use the PC board for the mounting. I’m going to redo it tomorrow, but this mod really works, and well.
I did your mod yesterday, I got the same exact switchs you used but instead of using pc board I used a piece of thick plastic, but so far so good it all works great, thanks for the mod man.
Glad it helps!
lol my strum is so tight I love it
Sometimes it pays to be a handy.. i dont understand a singal thing up there, lol how about i just pay one of you handymen to set my strum bar on fire and replace it :P