MATERIALS

Computer running Windows XP, Vista, or Mac OS X

Internal or external sound card for audio output

Guitar Hero controllers ( 1 or 2) Most models work.

Wii controllers have potential to make music, but Fretbuzz software doesn’t support them yet. Also, PlayStation 2 or wireless controllers will need an adapter to connect them to a computer via USB. Visit theguitarzeros.com/zero_guide for more information.

Fretbuzz software free from theguitarzeros.com/download_fretbuzz.php

1. Connect your controller and computer. A Windows PC or Mac will work, but these first few steps outline the process using a PC laptop running Windows XP.

1a. Connect the Guitar Hero controller to your computer. A controller with a USB connector is easiest — no adapter necessary (Figure A, next page). Otherwise, see our website for a list of adapters available for $10 to $20.

1b. Your computer may automatically detect the new USB device and download the necessary driver from the internet. Alternatively, your adapter may have come with its own driver. To be sure the controller is properly connected to your computer, go to Settings ⇒ Control Panel ⇒ Game Controllers. You should see your game controller devices listed (Figure B).

1c. Double-click the appropriate entry in the list, and you’ll probably see a joystick calibration menu, much like the one in Figure C. You might not need to calibrate your Guitar Hero controller here, but you’ll want to test all the inputs and watch the indicators light up as you press the buttons and flip the strum bar. If you’re using a PlayStation 2 controller, the whammy bar may or may not be detected by your computer, depending on your adapter. Don’t be discouraged — whammy bars are just for show-offs anyway, right?

2. Download Fretbuzz software. Download the software that makes your controller and computer sing. All the components you need, and installation instructions, are free at our site.

After downloading and installing Fretbuzz, you’re ready to make some noise. Turn the audio on and rock out! There are a bunch of different sounds: some modeled after real guitars, some more bass-like, and some more synthesizery. There’s even a mode that sounds like the Star Wars lightsaber. Look out, Darth Vader.

Read the instructions within the software to change sound modes and learn how to use them.

SHOUT OUT: Fretbuzz was written within a unique programming environment called Max/MSP. I have to give big thanks to the makers of Max/MSP because without it, I wouldn’t have known where to begin!

3. Explore the musical possibilities. The Guitar Hero controller has 5 fret buttons, a strum bar that can be pressed up or down, start/ select buttons, and the Star Power tilt sensor inside the controller. I wanted to push the musical possibilities to the max. After months of trial and error, I developed and refined Fretbuzz. Here’s a brief explanation of how it works.

Fret buttons Do 5 buttons mean you can only make 5 notes? Hardly. There are 32 different combinations of those 5 buttons, which could theoretically be assigned to 32 different notes! However, holding down all 5 at once is almost impossible to do with

4 fingers, and some combinations would require you to stretch your hand to press both the first and last buttons. Tricky.

Thus, I chose to use only the first 4 buttons for selecting notes, saving the last (orange) button for special purposes. Figure D shows all the different combinations of the first 4 buttons and how I assigned them to chords within a key.

Notice that chords are assigned in a binary progression? Pretty geeky, but it works! There are 16 different combinations, spanning 2 octaves. That’s just enough of a range to work with, in my opinion.

Strum bar The strum bar is naturally used to trigger notes. Lucky for us, the bar can be pressed either up or down, enabling 2 different potential results. With the power chord guitar sound, for example,

I wanted a down-strum motion to produce a palm-muted effect, while the up-strum would let the chord ring out. And if you flip the strum bar up and down rapidly, then all the chords are palm-muted.

On the other hand, with most of the bass sounds,

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