I've got the master plan

I will, at some point, turn my already-warranty-voided Guitar Hero controller into the ultimate Guitar Hero controller.

(I'm pretty sure the solder fix voids the warranty, even though my warranty sticker is still intact. That point is actually moot because I've owned the controller longer than 60 days, and that's the length of the warranty.)

Step 1: Learn how to solder. Shouldn't be that hard, I've done it before (many, many years ago, one of those stupid "put it together yourself" phone kits) and my dad's an electrical engineer.

Step 2: Hardwire the neck of my controller to the body, removing the flaky connections entirely. This has the side effect of making the neck non-detachable. Boo fucking hoo. Maybe do something to the neck to prevent errant/mischievous detach attempts from fucking it up. The neck has two screws at the very end and I'll want to maintain their accessibility for further modding of the neck if I decide to do that.

Step 3: Make a star power pedal out of a cheap effects pedal and rig it up to the select button in the controller. Preferably rig it up with an 1/8" stereo jack/plug so it can be unplugged. Will need a cable long enough that it won't become unplugged while rocking out, a 5' cable should be plenty.

Step 4: See if I can't remove the tilt sensor and short the necessary parts of the circuit to make it think it's still attached, so the only way to trigger star power will be via select/my pedal.

Step 5: File off the damn ridge on the yellow fret button so my fingers won't wear out after a while.

Step 6: See if I can't somehow reduce the xbox hueg dead zone on the whammy bar. On the calibration screen it says it's in its resting position until I've pushed it down over halfway, which is fucking ridiculous. I'd like to be able to whammy short holds, dammit.

Step 7: Once I'm happy with all of that, get another Wireless Kramer controller and do the same stuff to it so I have two.

Most of this is surprisingly enough already documented somewhat well within the community. Everyone and their bastard son has had trouble with the detachable necks, and there's plenty of imaginative and enterprising GH players out there to take pictures and write up mod how-tos. I'll see if I can't take pictures as I go along and document the whole process as well.