Frets on Fire, Keyboard Guitar
In 2006 there was Guitar Hero II on the PlayStation 2. It was the first time I played a game from this series, since I don´t have part 1.
I thought that the game was awsome and I wanted to put my own songs into the game, but I couldn´t. By 2007 I found the PC game Frets on Fire.
It was the same principle as Guitar Hero but then using your keyboard. Although using my keyboard was al lot less fun, now I could enter my own songs to the game.
This was the point when I came up with the idea of converting a keyboard into a guitar that could be used for this computer version of Guitar Hero.
And so I did. The result can be seen at YouTube. The music I used for this video is one of my own songs, called Hierarchy.
This song is for download on this website, it´s free.
YouTube: Homemade "Frets on Fire" guitar
Hierarchy
I did get a lot of responses. People who did like it and people who didn´t believe me. Also a lot of people asked me how it works and if there is a tutorial online I used.
Then I promised some of you that I would make a tutorial myself. But one year later I still hadn´t produced one.
Not much later I realised that I should be honored that I got al these question. So I decided to do it for real now, straight away.
So I´m very sorry you had to wait so long. But here he finally is!
The keyboard
The first thing that you have to do is find an old keyboard. One you could brake, set on fire or dump into the canal without that it will be missed.
But make sure that it is still working though. When you are sure about all those things, the next step is to open it up.
Unfasten the screws on the back of the keyboard so that you can open it. Once opened you´ll see various components, but we will only use one very small piece of it.
Before we will get that piece out we´ll have to gather some vital information.
- A opened keyboard. You can clearly see its chip and sheets.
- One of the two matrix sheets. On the right top of the sheets are the connection points to the chip.
On the right top of your keyboard you´ll probably see a little chip. All the keys on your keyboard are connected to that chip through the matrix sheets. All the paths on the matrix sheets are little circuits between the keys and the chip. By pressing a key you will close a circuit and connect two different points of the chip with eachother. The chip notices it and will process it to send it to your computer. The chip knows which key is pressed because every key connects different ports on the chip with eachother. It can be hard to understand, but below you´ll see a simplified explanation of the principle.
- Every key has its own unique combination of ports on the chip. The red lines represent sheet 1 and the blue lines represent sheet 2.
- A keyboard chip, those black bars on top are the connection points. On most chips they are more silver like.
On the example shown above on the right the A-key connects point 1 and 3 while the B-key connects point 2 and 3.
The matrix sheets are for the connections between the points. What you´ll have to do is follow the lines on both sheets to see which points on the chip are connected by which key.
The keys I used for my guitar were Escape, F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, Enter, Arrow up and Arrow down.
Which keys you´ll need depents on what the purpose of your guitar is or which music program you use.
Once you decided which keys to use and how they are wired, so which points they will connect on the chip. You can take the chip out.
The chip and its wire is the only thing we´ll need from the keyboard. Before we start wiring, it is very import that we have a body.
The guitar
To make the body of the guitar first is so important because once you have the body, and you have an idea of where to put al the buttons, the chip and the strumbar,
you could work out which length you should make your wires.
You can use all kinds of material for your guitar. Wood or plastic for example, or a combination of the two.
You could also give your guitar all the shapes you want, and the size you want. Duplicate your favorite famous guitar, or design your own.
Basicly you can do everything with your guitar, your ideas and your creativity. It is important though not to finish him off yet.
Leave open spaces so that you can insert the electronics. And do not paint it yet. You could damage your beautiful paintings during the ensembly of the electronics.
The electrical circuits
Now you only have to connect the right connection points with eachother and put a push button in between to make your guitar work.
So that when the button is being pushed, the right ports will be connected with eachother, and the chip will send a signal to your computer.
It sounds easy but it can get difficult with al those wires. Especially when you have to connect several wires to one port on the chip.
A good advise is to label your wires or use different color wires.
The wired chip and the wired buttons. (it´s an other chip than on the picture above)
Make sure that your wires do not become too long or too short. Before you start wiring, you already should have a body.
And you should also already have thought of where to put the chip on your guitar and where to put all those buttons and the strumbar.
When you know all this, you know which length your cables should be.
This is a picture of the back of my guitar once it was finished. As you can see the wires are running pritty thigth. The wires run through a special channel I made.
This way they won´t lay on top of the wood and will not create a bumpy surface. You can see the purple wires run from the buttons on the neck to the chip in the body.
Some other purple wires run from the chip to the left, to the strumbar. The black wire running from the chip out of the guitar and out of the screen is the USB cable.
This cable connects your guitar to your computer. I closed the entire white space off with tape, to prevent the wires from falling out.
I also used tape on the back of the neck to keep the wires inside there as well.
The strumbar
I really got lots of questions of how I managed to make the strumbar strum up and down. It were so many questions that I decided to dedicate an entire paragraph to this.
It really isn´t that hard to make a strumbar. You should only see that the bar itself isn´t a button at all, but that is pushes two buttons inside the guitar.
One button is for strumming up, the other for strumming down.
With a little knowledge of electrical circuits you then should be able to think of a way to wire those two buttons inside the guitar to the same ports on the chip.
So that when one of them is being pushed, the right two ports will be connected to eachother on the chip. Note that the two buttons can´t be pushed at the same time.
For those who do not know what I am talking about I will explain it again, slowly and with images.
See this image and imagine that the left side is the ouside of the guitar en the right side is the inside of the guitar. The thick black vertical lines are the surface of the guitar,
with the strumbar sticking out to the left in this case. Inside the guitar you´ll see two little boxes. Those are buttons. The two dots on the buttons will be connected to eachother when the button
is pushed. The buttons are not pressed so the dots are not connected at this time. The black lines are the wires how they´re supposed to be wired.
The incoming and outgoing wires should be connected with the chip at the right ports.
Using this sort of wiring gives the result that when one of the buttons is pushed,
the circuit will be closed. That means the right ports on the chip will be connected en send the signal of the strum-key to the computer.
The images underneath will give you strum-examples and tell you what is supposed to be happening inside of the guitar during a strum.
During a strum down, the lower button will be pushed. This connects the two dots. A circuit is being formed and the chip will send a signal to the computer.
See blue line for current.
During a strum up will happen about the same. Now the upper button will be pushed which connects the wires to form a circuit with the correct ports on the chip.
See blue line.
I hope you understand what I tried to explain to you. This is one of the hardest things of the entire project. But once you achieved this, you are pretty much done.
It was the final big step in the process. The only thing left to do is finishing it off.
Finish it off
Your guitar is already playable. That is also the thing I recommend to do first. Because if you find out that it doesn´t work, you will have to open it up again.
So better test it before finishing it for real. Once tested, it will be playable but not showable yet. You have to make it look nice.
Sandpaper the wood, paint it or add graphics to it so that you can really show off with your friends or post it on the internet. I would love to see your productions.
So send me your pictures or add a video comment to my YouTube video where you show your guitar.
I really hope that this tutorial helped you out and you can start your own project now. If you have any question, comments or you want to show me your own guitar you can contact me.
See the contact page for contact information.