A couple of guys on the Guitar Hero 2 forums have come up with at least two ways of fixing the whammy bar on your guitar (if it is having issues).
Here are the two alternatives:
First of all I'd like to apologize to everybody for "spamming" the link to another forum where I posted this information. I was unaware that you had to be a member of that forum to view the tread. That being said, here's what I posted there and I will be adding clearer high res pics later on this afternoon after work since I left my real digital camera at work yesterday and had to use the camera on my cell phone.
Alright, so after owning this for about an hour and discovering I had one of the "defective" guitars I decided to at least make an attempt to fix the whammy bar problem. I had noticed that if you gently pull the whammy bar back towards the rear of the guitar before actually performing the whammy function it would work fine. If you don't, it rarely seemed to work. I ripped apart the guitar and pulled out the spring loaded mechanism. *NOTE* If you do this, be careful as you could be like me with all of the pieces scattered across the floor and having to figure out how to reattach the spring and misc. components. Also beware that the three wires attached the the POT are VERY thin and all of them broke off on me and I had to re-solder them in place. Lucky for me I know how to solder and have an iron on hand. In any case after about 45 minutes of wishing I'd never ripped it apart I got it back together and realized that there are two set screws that hold the POT to a piece of plastic... and they are adjustable. After a couple of trial and error tweaks I figured out which way the POT needed to be rotated and BINGO! Fully functional whammy bar now. I took a couple of pics with my camera phone and will post them shortly. I wish I had my normal digital camera, but left it at work. I may update with higher res pics if there's enough demand. Just figured I'd post this in case any of you are interested to fix it yourself. That being said, I'm not responsible if you jack your guitar!
The first pic just shows the inside of the guitar with the whammy device in the bottom right. I had a piece of masking tape over the top after piecing it back together to make sure it didn't come apart on me again by accident (removed when finished install)
This picture shows the adjustment screws for the POT device. Sorry for the bad pic, but it's the best my cell could do with limited lighting. You basically just loosen the screws just slightly and turn the unit clockwise a hair. You may need to do a little fine tuning to get it how you want, but moving it about 1/16" probably should do the job. If you have a thin tipped marker or pencil to mark around the screw heads in their original position to mark as a reference it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to do that... I did.
Also, as if we didn't know a pedal hookup would be possible here's more fuel for the fire:
AN ALTERNATIVE FIX:
Or instead of completely voiding your warranty and possibly messing up your guitar, go buy a $0.59 pack of rubber bands from someplace, get one of the thicker ones, like the 1/4 inch ones, and stretch it between the whammy bar and the guitar strap post on the back of the guitar. My whammy bar works fine after doing that, the rubber band always resets the bar back to where the sensor wants it to be.
Takes all of two seconds.
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If you having issues, check out the original thread
HERE as it has some follow up information and other threads and some better photos, like these:
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Ok everybody, here are the new photos. When inside the guitar I didn't see any accelerometer inside the neck of the guitar. There was only a circuitboard with contact points for the buttons and that's it.
Step 1:
Remove the back of the guitar by removing all 11 screws holding the white plastic piece in place. A standard phillips screwdriver is needed.
Step 2:
Locate the whammy bar mechanism in the lower right corner of the guitar. *NOTE* It is not necessary to pull this assembly out from the guitar. If you do, you may unintentionally break the three attached wires from their solder joints (I know from experience).
Step 3a:
Locate the two set screws that hold the potentiometer in place. Take note of their original position. Use a thin tip permanent marker or pencil to mark around the screwheads in order to have a reference of the original position when you begin to turn the potentiometer.
Step 3b:
Loosen the two set screws and carefully rotate the potentiometer clockwise very slightly. Rotating the potentiometer roughly 1/16" should be enough. Be sure that when you move the potentiometer that the guitar isn't resting on the whammy bar. This will give the potentiometer a false "zero" point and when the spring goes back to its normal resting position the game will think the whammy bar is in a completely different spot. Your best bet is to prop the guitar up on something when you do this.
Before
After
Step 4:
Tuck away all wires and be sure not to crush any wires when placing the back of the guitar in place. Fasten the 11 screws removed earlier back in place.
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Good luck to anyone having issues.
Yeah. Good luck with that Dmill... I'm 38, and my parents are still trying.
that's what you say now...
Linear Mode
