Guitar Hero World Tour Strum Bar Tightening Guide
Skill: Medium
Estimated time for repair: 30 minutes
You can tighten the slop/play in your strumbar to make it easier and more consistent for fast strumming.
Featuring large photos of the repairs!
By Josh Straub, ©2009
Please post this website link on forums and share with anyone having loose whammy issues!
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The Guitar Hero World Tour guitar has notoriously unreliable and failure-prone strumbar switches, and I show you how to replace them in my Guitar Hero World Tour Strumbar Switch Repair Guide.
However, after repairing my own strumbar switches, I noticed my strumbar now needed to swing further to "click" in both directions. I wasn't 100% happy with the way the strumbar felt after replacing the switches with the Radio Shack upgrades. By bending the metal lever on the switch, you can tighten up the "click point" of the strumbar, so you don't have to strum so far to register a click.
Here's a closeup look at the GHWT strumbar to illustrate the problem (orange), and the goal (green).
By tightening the click points, your fingers have to do less work; you can strum quicker and easier.
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 a guitar 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.
Opening the Guitar
Follow my Guitar Hero World Tour D.I.Y. Strumbar Repair Guide for photos & instructions on how to open the guitar for access to the strumbar switches.
After flipping the circuit board over to reveal the underside of the strumbar, you can see in the following image the indentation where the strumbar contacts the switches' metal prongs. We need to bring the metal prong closer to this area in order to tighten the strumming.
Bending the Switches' Prongs
Use 2 needle nose pliers to carefully bend the metal prong upwards. See the blue area in my diagram below for where the bend should be. Use one of the pliers to hold the prong still, and the other to bend it upwards.
Now for the most important part – testing the fix! Reinstall the switch circuit board and its 4 screws, and carefully give the strumbar a test on the bench (don't let parts fall out of the open guitar). Remember my orange/green "loose/tight" diagram at the top of this page? Does it feel like it's tightened up a lot? If not you may need to tweak the prong a little further until it meets your satisfaction.
Reassemble Guitar
Follow my Guitar Hero World Tour D.I.Y. Strumbar Repair Guide for photos & instructions on how to reassemble the guitar.
Did this guide help you or save you from having to buy new instruments?
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hey thanks dude!!!! great How-to!
I am looking for a replacement switch shown (the actual relay is really bad and causes double-strums or no strum). All I have off the module is that it's made in Japan and is a 3 amp 250 VAC hence the numbers on its side…
I bought replacement switches, but ended up never using them because I just did this on the stock switches — the button was fine; the metal leaves had just bent after use. Only thing was that I "over-tightened" and couldn't get the strum bar to return fast enough. Instead of lowering the leaves, I used a variant of the RB2 "rubber band" mod on my GHWT guitar — now I have a super-tight strum bar that returns very snappily. I love it!
can this help with the no strum / doublle strum issue
Thanks for the guide!
An alternative solution, and one which I think is much easier, is to just shim something between the strum bar and the switches. I cut a credit card into a rectangle that I just glued to the back of the strum bar where it contacts the switches, effectively "moving" the strumbar closer to the switches. This can be done without disassembling the circuit board with the six torx screws, and I think is easier to calibrate than doing the bending technique. Hope this helps!
you are awesome…
Thanks!
You can buy these switches in europe at Elfa. Artnr: 35-726-33
My guitar strum bar is a getting quite squeaky and loose. Would this fix help?
I just did this today and it was no sweat. While I was loosening the solder for the old switch, I got used to its properties. I have to say, inside of an hour (I did a lot checking, inspecting, fitting, and more checking) I was playing! I did the "lil bend" technique prior to installation just to be cautious. It's been so long that I don't remember if it felt tighter or not, but I'm happy I can strum down again. The switches were super cheap at Radio Shack, and I found the T6 (mine came this way versus the small phillips screws) bit for $1.99 at Ace Hardware (already had the T10). So, for the cost of driving 17 miles to borrow my dad's soldering tool, about $4 in switches and Torx bits, I saved almost $70, on the low side. The fellas at several GameStop stores tried to persuade me into getting the GH5 guitar and game since it was a "better buy". Well, not when the soldering solution fits the need. THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS FIX!