Guitar Hero Hacks: Star Power Pedal!

Don't let anything stand in your way of monster scores. Shred with ease with this simple and hella sweet looking Guitar Hero Hack.

It all starts with an audio extension cable from your local electronics store. It's really simple to wire this up to your controller, and then to a pedal. I used a trucker's horn, bought at Kragen, as the pedal.

For this you're gonna need:

• A pedal. Any kind of SPST switch will do. Make sure it'll stand up to repeated stomping. Consider this instructable: { https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Rat-Clone-Distortion-Guitar-Effect-Pedal---The/?ALLSTEPS }
• Soldering iron (remember to be safe)
• Small screwdriver
• Round file
• 4-8ft audio extension cable with m/f jacks
• A piece of the true cross, or alternatively the true microphone of Rick Astley
• Hot glue
• Scissors

No, I'm not talking about running your barge's anchor through the deep sea data lines, strangling a large portion of Europe's internet access, I'm talking about dismantling your audio cable in preparation for its mystical journey to the heart of nerds, rocking out in their basements.

Use your scissors to cut the housing off the female end of the cable. If your heart starts to flutter at the prospect of undressing this female, you seriously need to get out more, maybe get a haircut and start dressing in trendier clothes... seriously, it'll do you good. Anyway, cut this end off with about six inches of cable to spare. Strip the wires on the end and roll them together. Gather up all the insulation wires as well. Tin these two wires in preparation for the circuit board. Do the same for the other end of the wire.

Now it's time to pop open your controller and see what makes her tick. It's a mess of screws, so remember to keep track of them. Put them all in a bowl or something, because they will roll away on you. So, you'll see two contacts wired up to the select button, the one that activates star mode. All you need to do is solder on the wires that are connected on to the female cable end here. I put a daub of hot glue over them just to make sure they don't go anywhere.

Notice how I have a few inches of extra cable here? That's so if anything happens, and the cable pulls out, I won't have to go back and resolder everything, it will just pull out some of the spare chord. In a little while, you can just tape your little loop to the guitar body somewhere out of the way.

Take a marker, and draw around where the plug will fit. Try to estimate the exact size of the plug, and make sure to check your fit as you work on the hole. You'll want to take a round file and take away material to make a spot for the plug without going overkill. When everything fits smoothly, hot glue the sucker in place, and tape up the spare chord.

Now, all that's left is to stick everything back together and put the screws back in. You can easily wire up the trucker switch by screwing the wires in as pictured, and then hot gluing them down. That's it. Now you may rock. Seriously.

Rock on!