The Aspyr’s Guitar Hero 3 Autopsy

November 12, 2008

 

 

Ever wonder what’s inside your Aspyr’s Guitar Hero 3 looks like? Or wonder how its plastic parts translate to onscreen shredding? Never take a chance on disassembling your own Aspyr just to see what it looks like inside and how it works, because your Mom might bash it on your head for the good of it…(-grin-) On this topic I have a disassembled Aspyr’s Guitar Hero 3 and I’ll autopsy it for you.

 

1.  Frets – The frets is made up of five colors, pressing the button of one of the Aspyr’s five colored frets simultaneously presses in the rubber molding.  The two dots found on the underside of the molding hit two actuators on a main board, which registers on the toggled fret.

 

2. Strummer – Pushing guitar’s strummer elevates one of the plastic edges located on the underside of the mechanism.  This, in turn, hits one of the two switches, which registers as a played note in the game.  A small strip of folded metal is responsible for that clicking noise you hear that accompanies your every strum.

 

3. Mainboard – It is the circuit board which serves as the hub for the guitar’s connection options.  It processes the instructions from the buttons and directional pad on the front of the guitar.  The board is where you can locate the accelerometer.  Accelerometer is a chip that measures the guitar’s increase in speed along three axes in order to trigger your rock-out star power bonus in the game. 

4. Whammy Bar – The guitar’s one-way whammy bar uses a spring to create tension when you slam down the handle. The motion is transferred through the axle to the potentiometer, which converts mechanical movement of the whammy bar into an electrical signal that the controller passes on to your game.

5. RJ-11 Jack – It is a phone cord jack that attaches effects pedals to the guitar. 

 

So now, you know how your guitar works.  I hope this will help for more to rockin’ and rollin’ in your Guitar Hero 3 saga.