Taiko drums (of the Taiko series) hardware questions

**non1** · 01-28-2013,12:50 PM

I would like to know information about how the drums used on the Taiko games work, from a hardware point of view.

If you own/owned/played with one of these, on the PS2, could you describe some detail I might not know from seeing youtube gameplay videos?

Does it do anything like Guitar Hero controlers (from the PS2 point of view), so the game knows when you have drums attached or just have the dual shock 2 controlers attached?

**squall23** · 01-28-2013,08:32 PM

The PS2 ones are actually pretty weirdly made. On the face of the drum are actually 2 buttons, a left half button and a right half button. What's stupid is that there's this centre part that separates the 2 buttons that doesn't register any hits! I have no idea why Namco made them like that. It's the same thing for the rims. 2 buttons, one for each side. I don't believe that the PS2 games knew whether you were using a gamepad or a drum.

The Wii drums are much better made (well they better be since they're newer). The face is one big button. The game registers whether you hit the left part of the button or the right part of the button. Same thing with the rims IIRC. One giant button. The Wii games do know whether you're using a Wiimote or a drum.

**non1** · 01-29-2013,11:29 AM

Originally Posted by squall23

The PS2 ones are actually pretty weirdly made. On the face of the drum are actually 2 buttons, a left half button and a right half button. What's stupid is that there's this centre part that separates the 2 buttons that doesn't register any hits! I have no idea why Namco made them like that. It's the same thing for the rims. 2 buttons, one for each side. I don't believe that the PS2 games knew whether you were using a gamepad or a drum.

:O Really?? Buttons? How? I mean... so this video ( http:||youtube|watch?v=aA_NFWNGhJM ) isn't showing the PS2 version of the drum?

(sorry for the funny link, vBulletin is being an ace with me)

So an emulator that wants to pretend that there is a drum just need to know wich buttons the drum uses for each action... are the drum buttons pressure sensitive, like in the controller?

Originally Posted by squall23

The Wii drums are much better made (well they better be since they're newer). The face is one big button. The game registers whether you hit the left part of the button or the right part of the button. Same thing with the rims IIRC. One giant button. The Wii games do know whether you're using a Wiimote or a drum.

Mmm... can we play with Wiimote?

**squall23** · 01-30-2013,08:07 AM

Oh, the buttons are underneath the surface of the face for the PS2 ones.

**shsan** · 02-23-2013,11:36 PM

Hi,

Actually I just bought an old Namco Taiko drum that I am intending to hack for the PS2 emulation.
Here are the photo of the inside of the beast.

Now I am pretty sure that the sensors are NOT buttons. They seem to be pressure sensors to me but I can be wrong.
I am going to unsolder the board next and take some measurement but the initial measure I had was a resistance at 23MOhm in the rest state with small variations on hit.
That is going to complicate my task since I was hoping (a bit foolishly) for a simple button type contact.

Edit: Ok my first measurement was probably bad. Now with everything unsoldered I can't see any resistance at all but swapping to capacitance measurement I can see variations.
It goes up to 2-10nF when hit depending on the force from 0.01nF.

Edit2: I played the game a bit with the normal controller and now I understand why you have 2 sensors per side. Hit one for small notes and two for the big ones... That's all there is to it.

So here you go, hope this helps.
shsan

**cubiclegnome** · 02-26-2013,02:18 PM

Thanks for the pics, shsan. My tatacon is on the way, and I'm considering the same project. I also may wire directly to a Wii classic controller's button pads for use with the Wii versions, along with a PS2 -> PC adapter. I'm curious to know if any of the left/right sides share a common ground anywhere. it seems like they would, but I can't tell from the pics. I'm surprised that they aren't functioning as simple on-off switches. Is it possible that the contact is happening too quickly for the meter to register? Maybe try applying some constant force to the drum head while measuring resistance?

**shsan** · 02-28-2013,08:51 AM

Well from what I can see of the circuit I unsoldered the sensors from the ground is common for all the 4 sensors.
And I can confirm that they are capacitive sensors not resistive sensors so don't expect anything with a meter in resistance mode.

I will be wiring it to an Arduino Uno this week-end. I have made a test run but I had to add an extra 10nF in parallel to the sensor I was measuring to be able to pick it up by the arduino capacitive sensing.
I am using UnoJoy to have it working on both PS3 and PC.
Without that extra capacitor, it is just too small. (Or I don't have the right resistor which is probably the case ) At the moment I am wiring it with a 4MOhm resistor and the extra 10nF, that gives me a reading time of around 40ms and it is quite stable. With a threshold at 11nF the UnoJoy test program signal the hit each time perfectly.
40ms x 4 sensors => 160 ms => up to 6 hit/second should be plenty enough

**cubiclegnome** · 02-28-2013,12:52 PM

Sounds awesome. So you running the sensors directly to the uno? That seems like the better route. There are arduino libraries out there for interfacing with the ps2 controller, but the videos I've seen make it look a bit laggy. I have an Uno sitting around that I want to put to work. If you feel like sharing any of your code or schematics, I'd love to give it a try. My email is my screen name at gmail dot com

**shsan** · 03-04-2013,09:03 AM

Yes, I am planning to use something like that ( google arduino Tutorial CapacitanceMeter)
But with an extra 10nF capacitor in parallel with the sensor for stability.

I am not sure yet if I will use 3 pin per sensor or if I can move to less (use a common charge pin for example, not sure about the common discharge).
Since the Arduino will not do anything else it doesn't really matter though. I don't mind sharing the code and schematics.

I will send you that once I am done. About the lag, yes I was wondering that too, well my previous post said that I would be able to detect five beat per second but that might be too low. I might try to decrease the resistance or sample all sensors in the same loop to reduce the latency. Ideally something like 10 to 15 times per second should be good. But that it in 66 to 100ms and might be a bit tricky to achieve with my current 40ms sampling time. I was able to reduce it to 20ms but it was way less stable. If I moved the threshold to 12nF (10nF for my additional capacitor plus 2nF from the sensor) then that means that you need to hit it harder for it to detect it and that is not ideal. I also need to read the Atmega documentation to get a good idea of the sampling latency to avoid trying something that cannot be done.

Yesterday I went to Akihabara and picked up a PS2 to PS3 adaptor and I was able to verify that the taiko was still working but one problem that I might have is that it seems that the right outside sensor is defective or has a bad connection. So I might need to do something about that too. It has a bit of tape on it that was probably an attempt to fix that.

User Tag List

Thread: Taiko drums (of the Taiko series) hardware questions

Tweet

LinkBack

Thread Tools

Display


	Would you like to get all the new info from PSX-Scene in your email each day? Subscribe to our Daily Digest! Want to learn more about the team keeping you up to date with the latest scene news? Read about them now! Check out our Developer bios, too!