rock band re post

content/blog/2024/01-03-wii-drum-controller/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+---
+title: Wii drum controller
+date: 2024-01-03
+tags:
+  - rockband
+---
+
+The Rock Band controllers (guitars and drum kit)
+are working very well on LEGO Rock Band and Clone Hero.
+But I'm a completionist,
+so I'm not resting yet:
+the cymbals don't work on Rock Band 3!
+
+Here's what I've found out so far about the Wii Rock Band drum kit.
+This is
+based on 
+the Clone Hero wiki,
+[a forums post](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/rockband-drums-joystick-as-a-drum-controller/2475/3),
+and the
+[rbdrum2midi](https://github.com/rbdrum2midi/rbdrum2midi/blob/master/src/rbkit.c)
+software.
+That last one was an exciting find:
+someone coded up how to read the controller.
+I may be able to use this program to test my controller code,
+instead of having to keep restarting games on the Wii!
+
+
+Rock Band 1 Drums
+-----------------
+
+VID: 0x1bad  
+PID: 0x0005
+
+This works very similarly to the guitar code.
+The pads work the same as the non-solo buttons,
+kick drum is the orange pad.
+d-pad is sent as axis 2.
+That's it!
+
+I have these working as I write this,
+2024-01-03.
+
+
+Rock Band 2/3 Drums
+-------------------
+
+VID: 0x1bad  
+PID: 0x3110?
+
+These are velocity-sensitive,
+but Amazon reviews claim they work with Rock Band 1.
+So either RB1 will recognize PID 0x3110 as a drum controller,
+the drums show up with two PIDs somehow,
+or I have bad information.
+
+rbdrum2midi makes it look like 
+both PIDs use the same interface.
+I think it may be likely that 0x0005 sends velocity information!
+
+It does specify bit 3 of byte 1 in the HID report
+is the cymbal flag,
+which lines up with what Clone Hero says (button 10),
+and is what I'm sending.
+The two kick drum bits rbdrum2midi reads
+also align with what I'm sending.
+But rbdrum2midi isn't going to read any of my pad hits,
+because it's looking for velocity values.
+
+Maybe RB3 needs velocity >0 for cymbal hits.
+
+I'll try sending 0x7f
+in the reserved bytes for pads.
+These bytes seem to be ordered differently than the bits.
+rbdrum2midi lists the order as:
+
+* byte 11: yellow
+* byte 12: red
+* byte 13: green
+* byte 14: blue