easy-taiko-no-tatsujin-drum-mod/README.md

This is a guide that will allow you to effectively apply a sensitivity mod to your Taiko no Tatsujin drum using only household materials.

Most guides out there require rubber sheets and cork or wood while this guide will only require common household items.

Results

The drum is now sensitive enough that you can just touch the face of the drum to register a don while kas just need a tap.

Here's a video of it -> https://youtu.be/R7-cOTQOhUM

Inspiration

I just got my tatacon delivered but sensitivity sucked big time. You had to hit the dons and kas with force just to make sure your hits get registered.

This, apparently, is known among Hori tatacon owners, despite it being the authentic controller- it still wasn't good enough for normal players.

So off I went looking for modding instructions.

All the guides I found required the modder to obtain items such as rubber sheets and cork or wood boards.

These were things that I'd had to procure- so I started thinking why do I need these specific items? is it to add hardness to the material? is it to raise a bump and make it easier to trigger?

Whatever it is, me and my baseless-confidence™ believed that I could imitate their results using different materials.

Luckily, I'm part of a team that does hardware R&D so we have this workbench in the office with materials and tools already setup so off I went to scan the bench for materials I could use.

I saw an electrical tape and thought that it could substitute the rubber sheet material if I just keep adding layers of it to something like paper. Also, cork? wood?.... isn't paper made of wood? Yeah. That should work.

And that was it. I decided to open up my drum and see how I'd go about doing things.

Note

The drum used in this mod guide is the original Hori Taiko no Tatsujin switch drum but as long as the mechanism is the same- other drums should be moddable the same way.

I wasn't planning on documenting this until I joked to a friend that I'd do. The pictures here were all taken post mod implementation.

Also, the workmanship of the mod show in the pics is horrible. The tapes were cut as if I only had access to a piece of rock and not some refined steel scissor. I only planned on doing this temporarily but it worked so well that I guess this would be permanent instead.

Also, the drum was in pristine condition prior to me modding it. It started getting scratches because I dragged it around while opening-closing, testing, and fine-tuning my modifications.

Please take care of your takacon, I wish I'd at least wrapped the surface of mine prior to modding but oh well.

Instructions

Requirements:

• 2 sheets of paper
• electrical tape
• Phillips screwdriver to remove 5 of the drum's outer screws
• pliers (completely optional if you're fine with hurting your hands)
• scissors (not pictured)

I also used the following but these are all totally unnecessary

• Masking tape, because I ran out of electrical tape and was too lazy to get a new one from the cabinet
• precision tweezer, you most likely won't need this
• mini grinder with a bit that can be used to poke holes into the paper, you can use scissors- I just happen to have one already set-up in the vicinity

Step 1 - Open up the drum

There are 5 screws at the back of the drum, use a Phillips scredriver to remove them.

Step 2 - Unplug the don and ka connectors

Step 3 - Undo the rubber knots(? not sure what to call these)

These rubber knots are the ones that are keeping the top part of the drum attached to the sensors inside.

Use your pliers here, pull a knot up and guide it to the opening of the slot to free it.

Once you've done this to all the knots, you can now slowly separate the top layer of the drum which should reveal the sensors.

Step 4 - Add a layer to the thick base foam

By now, you'd see a piece of foam attached to a solid plate. Lift that solid plate up and you should see a thick black foam underneath it.

In most guides, they replace this foam with a 1cm thick cork or wood. I assume they just want to make the material less shock absorbent so my take was to add a layer of tape to each side of piece of paper to harden it then make a cut-out to match the original foam's shape and place it on top of the original foam.

Flip the solid board back to its original position.

Step 4 - Replace the foam that is somewhat attached to the solid board

After flipping back the solid board, you should notice a piece of foam with multiple holes in it. Slowly peel that foam away from the board.

In most guides, they replace this foam with 1mm rubber sheet. We'll replace ours with electrical tape on top of paper. Trace the outline of the foam on top of a paper and make sure to mark the 4 holes that we'd later need to puncture.

Add a layer of electrical tape to the untraced side of the paper and cut-out the shape you've traced. Make the 4 holes and make sure to remove some materical from the center, vertically. You should end up with the following.

After doing so, on the side of the paper that does not have electrical tape, add another layer of tape. I used masking tape because I ran out of electrical tape and then ended up adding another layer of masking tape to it to make the result thicker and add a bit more cushioning to the impact of the drum sticks.

After doing so, you can get rid of the original foam and replace it with the one you've made.

Step 5 - Add layers to the ka sensors

This was the most trial-and-error inducing part for me Cut of strips of tape to cover the ka sensors. I mostly cut strips enough to cover at least two ka sensors at a time.

I did around 5 layers over-all. If you're getting false-positives then you should strip some off. If you want more sensitivity then just add more layers.

Also, don't placec that much layer on the vertical wall. I made that mistake and had to trim my layer down that was making the wall thicker.

Step 6 - DONE!

Test your drum out and rinse and repeat by adding more layers or remove layers from your modification till you're satisfied.