How to use your Guitar Hero controller without Guitar Hero

Joystiq brings us a nice little mod (cleverly titled "Rock Star No More!") that lets you free your Guitar Hero-for-PS2 guitar from working only with the game, instead letting you map the buttons for use with a PC synthesizer application. Jason Cecil's simple tweak only requires a USB-to-PS2 controller adapter with two inputs, a PS2 controller itself, and a couple free programs. After connecting the guitar to a PC, even the Slashiest of thrashers will have a little trouble mastering the Guitar Hero, which uses fret buttons instead of string picks to produce tones and the analog stick on the PS2 controller as a makeshift foot pedal. As usual, we're having a super-special contest for the first Guitar Hero rendition of any Beastie Boys album that we receive; this time you're not just limited to Paul's Boutique.

[Via Joystiq]

[jbstingray @ Jan 24th 2006 12:52AM]

My baby cousin, who is 9, has this. I played it on the PS2 and it is pretty cool. What would even be the purpose of using it on a PC?

[Bob @ Jan 24th 2006 4:09AM]

So how does it actually work? Do you actually use the guitar as a Joystick. I can't see that working. I don't think I understand.

[Ed @ Jan 24th 2006 9:47AM]

Interestingly enough, the Beastie Boys forsaw this coming. Just play Hello Nasty backwards, all the instructions are there.

[Peter Kirn @ Jan 24th 2006 11:27AM]

Bome's stuff is great -- well worth downloading anyway. And, uh, no, it doesn't exactly work as a joystick, but you can map its inputs to joystick inputs . . . so you really have to then think of something you want to do with it!

The next frontier would be mapping to MIDI for use as a music controller (or video, or whatever). If you use Max/MSP, you can use the "hi" (human interface) object:

http://www.cycling74.com

. . . oh, wait, actually, if you don't know Max, you probably don't care.

But anyway, if someone sense me a controller, I'll write a free little program to convert to MIDI so you can, like, play GarageBand with it or something. ;-)

Peter

[Poncho @ May 1st 2008 6:24AM]

Hey man...
I've been looking for a way to map muy guitar hero controller so I can use it with ableton live or traktor 3... do you have any suggestions?
Cheers

[Melinda @ Feb 3rd 2006 2:25PM]

I would really like to try this. But I am a little confused of exactly how to hook it all up. What kind of software would you use? If you could e-mail me that would be great.

[e-mail]

Thank You
Melinda

[Si @ Apr 12th 2006 7:29AM]

Can this be used for someone to make a game on pc to take input from the guitar hero guitar and basically create an extension of Guitar Hero including their own custom tracks?!?

[Nick @ Apr 23rd 2006 7:09PM]

There will probably be guitar hero knock-offs in years to come. Just like StepMania for DDR.

[Loaf @ Jul 8th 2006 4:18AM]

Peter, you can buy just Guitar Hero guitars.
But yes, I totally had the idea of using one as a MIDI instrument. Yes, it'd be rather redundant as it has only a few controls on it (the 5 buttons, strum thing, whammy bar, and tilt sensor) but it'd be at least awesome for novelty value. I have synths for NES, Gameboy and Atari 2600 - and am currently trying to convert a NES track and feild pad to run the Atari synth controls, so yeah, being able to use the Guitar Hero guitar to run the NES synth would be yet another awesome touch.
Unfortunately I wouldn't know how to convert the guitar controller to a MIDI device myself.

[puggs @ Aug 9th 2006 9:31PM]

hey u wanna cuz i'm tryin to find it, the game rock star no more, and i just cant find it if i could get some help send the link to my email adress [e-mail]

[roskis @ Mar 27th 2007 12:36PM]

You can use your controller on PC and play Frets on Fire:

http://louhi.kempele.fi/~skyostil/uv/fretsonfire/

[Garrett Sparks @ Nov 6th 2007 12:05AM]

Hey, I couldn't open the whole article so i just wanted to clarify. Does this allow you to play the guitar hero controller like a regular guitar? I saw some guys on Youtube do it using Max/MSP and it looked really cool. Please email me at [e-mail] to help me. Thanks