Guitar Hero World Tour Broken Strum Bar Repair Guide

Skill: Medium
Estimated time for repair: 60 minutes

Strumbar not registering upstrums, or overstrumming on its own?

Learn how to replace the unreliable switches inside with one that'll last 10,000,000 clicks!

Featuring large photos of the repairs!

By Josh Straub, ©2009-2010

Please post this website link on forums and share with anyone having strumbar issues!

Unfortunately, the Guitar Hero World Tour guitar has notoriously unreliable and failure-prone strumbar switches – sometimes failing right out of box!  I bought mine during the October 2008 midnight release and it lasted about 4 months before it started doublestrumming on its own.  At first I noticed the menu jumping two songs when I only clicked one, and shortly afterwards it ruined my gameplay.

Apparently there was a bad batch of strumbar switches, judging by the high amount of failure reports on Amazon Reviews for Guitar Hero World Tour Band Kit & websites everywhere.

Fortunately, Radio Shack sells a drop-in heavy duty replacement for the bad switches!  And it only costs $2.99.

Fixing your guitar is just a matter of replacing your bad switches with 2 of the Radio Shack units.

(Note: If your guitar strums when you aren't even touching the strumbar, it's more likely your Touch/Slider Strip is over sensitive.  You can test fixing this by disabling the Touch Strip in the Options menu.  If that fixes it – you're done!)

A Word About Warranty

Before we get to the fixes, you should know the official Activision/RedOctane policy is to visit http://www.activision.com/support and follow their RMA exchange process to get faulty/broken hardware replaced under warranty. The warranty is officially 90 days (although forum reports (March 2009) suggest that some customers have had no trouble getting their equipment replaced).

Obviously, opening your guitar and fixing/modifying it may not be warranty-friendly.  If you want your guitar fixed now and tweaked exactly the way you like it, and are comfortable taking matters into your own hands, then the fixes on this site are your solution.

I Will Save You $65.00 With This Guide – Will You Return the Favor?

When my guitar stopped strumming, I was frustrated to have it die so quickly.  Determined to repair it, I went about identifying the problem and researching a solution.  My controller was fixed.

I could have stopped there – but I didn't.  I thought it was a shame for everybody else in my situation to have to drop $65 on a new GHWT Guitar after just a few months.

So I stepped up and volunteered to help fix everyone's controllers, by investing dozens of hours of my time building these guides, snapping photos, and writing/operating this website.

I'm asking for a $5 donation if you fix your guitar with this guide.  It costs me hundreds of dollars per year out of my pocket, to fund this website with all its high quality photos and video downloads.  So I hope you will agree it's fair for me to recover some of these expenses.

Opening the Guitar

Tools Required:

• Long Torx T10 screwdriver – available at Sears $3.99 (tight fitting allen/hex wrench can substitute as a last resort if you're feeling gutsy.) I strongly recommend the Sears black/green one.  A small T10 bit probably won't be long enough to reach the deep recess of the screws; the Sears one works like a dream.
• Long Torx T6 screwdriver (only on some guitars! – my Wii GH3 and Wii GHWT guitars didn't need this) – available at Sears $3.99.
• Small Phillips screwdriver
• Soldering iron (~30W)
• Rosin-core electronics solder
• Desoldering wick (braided copper style), or good desoldering tool

Step 1 – Remove Neck and Faceplate

With the neck out of the way, you can reach into the neck's socket and gently pop the plastic faceplate off the guitar, revealing the screws.

Step 2 – Remove Screws

Make sure you use the correct, tight-fitting screwdrivers.  If your screwdriver has a sloppy fit, you can strip these little screws.

A closeup of the neck area:

Use a knife to gently lift the warranty sticker out of your way.  Use a magnet to lift the screws out of their recesses after you loosen each one.  (Don't just loosen them and tip the guitar over, you're likely to lose screws and they would be impossible to replace.)

Step 3 – Open Guitar by Splitting Case Halves Apart

With the screws all removed, now you can carefully split the case halves apart.  I like to open it a small amount first and shine a flashlight inside to make sure nothing is sticking to the bare case half (all wires and circuit boards should be on one half).  The neck connector circuit board sometimes sticks to the bare half, if so – use a flat blade screwdriver to gently pop it loose.  It should require almost no effort.

Tip: Watch for the black plastic Shoulder Strap Hooks to fall off, easiest to just remove these and set aside until you're ready to reassemble the guitar.

By the way, while your guitar is open, it would be a good time to Fix Your Loose/Sagging Whammy Bar.

Step 4 – Unscrew Switchbutton Circuit Board

Remove small Phillips screws
4 – securing circuit board (rectangle pattern)
3 – securing plastic wire guides (to gain access to flip circuit on its back, for soldering)

Now you should be able to flip the circuit board over, revealing the underside of the strumbar.  In the following image you can see the indentation where the strumbar contacts the switches' metal prongs.  Look at all the plastic dust, evidence of thousands of strums:

Step 5 – Desolder & Remove Old Switches

I used a cheap 30W Radio Shack pencil-tip soldering iron to do mine.  Make sure to let your iron warm up for a good 10 minutes; it took a while to soften the solder on mine. Be careful not to use too big a soldering iron (too much heat), you could melt the plastic switch housing. Try to remove the solder from each joint quickly.

You'll likely need a way to remove the excess solder blob.  I bought copper braided "Desoldering wick" (few dollars at Radio Shack or electronic supply) which worked very well at carefully removing the solder.

Once you get the solder removed (while it's still warm), you can gently pry under the switch from the flip side to lift it off the circuit board.  If you have to pry very hard, remove some more solder and try again.

Step 6 – Solder in New Switches

Now you can insert the new switch and solder it in.  However, you may not want to seat the new switch flush with the circuit board. If you do, you may notice the metal tabs protruding out the other side higher than the original switch.  Try to match the height of the originals. Just have the tabs protrude enough to get a good hold of them with solder.

The reason for this is, the higher your switches are, the tighter your strumbar response is going to be. At this point I would recommend you stop and read my Strumbar Tightening Guide to ensure the Radio Shack replacement switches function as good or better than the originals.

Repeat with the other switch to install both new switches.

Step 7 – Reassemble Guitar

Now reassemble the guitar, starting with the strum switch circuit board.  The strumbar's 2 gray springs fit over the black plastic posts on the circuit board.

Take your time putting it back together and be sure not to pinch any wires when lining up the case halves. The neck connector circuit board might need to be guided into it's "home", the matching slot on the bare half of the guitar case.  Don't forget to reinstall the shoulder strap hooks before you fasten all those little Torx screws!