Rock Band 2 drum pad repair

If you are like me when it comes to playing the drums on Rockband, then you are probably hitting them too hard. I love playing the drums on RB and I get really into it. Sometimes maybe a bit too much. In doing so, the green rubber pad came off of my drum set.

At first I just slid it back on and it would work for a couple of songs, but it would eventually fall out again. FAIL. I needed to find a way to fix the pad without going insane and I didn't want to RMA my set since I'm an inpatient bastard. I decided to use rubber cement on the pad to stick it in place. So far it has held up pretty good. The following are detailed instructions on what I did to fix my loose/broken drum pad.

Materials Required:

- mini phillips screwdriver
- rubber cement
- dashing good looks and charm

Step 1: The obvious

The first step is the most obvious and is mainly for a precaution, turn off the unit. In case you've never had to replace your batteries and your unit came from the factory switched on, the switch is located on the bottom of the pads. You'll also want to remove the pads from the stand to make this repair easier.


Step 2: Take off the pad

In order to get the outer plastic rim off, you will need to take off the entire pad of the broken drum pad. You can do this by simply placing your fingers underneath the plastic rim and pulling up in each location of the rubber pegs below the drum pad. Be careful not to rip it off as I have heard of people permanently cracking their set.


Step 3: Unscrew the outer rim

Use the mini phillips to unscrew all of the tiny machine screws holding the plastic outer rim in place. This is so we can lay the pad down after we glue it and apply a decent amount of pressure. Be sure not to lose any of the screws as you will need them when we put the rim back on. (Do I really need to be telling you this?)


Step 4: Apply the rubber cement

Grab a used towel and place it down onto the floor. Place the top rubber pad upside down onto the towel and start to apply the rubber cement to the cloth/velcro tracks that circle the pad. Also apply the same amount of rubber cement to the pad attached to the drum set, running along the same tracks. Make sure you do this quickly and neatly as you will want to apply the two pads together as soon as you can to start the drying process.


Step 5: Apply pressure and let dry

Now that you have the two pieces glued together with the rubber cement, apply pressure to the pads. I set the pad upside down in order to apply the most pressure. You should let this dry for a good 30 minutes to 1 hour if you are using the standard elmers/ross office rubber cement.


Step 6: Reconstruct the drum pads

Now that you are confident that the rubber cement has dried, flip the pad right side up and begin screwing the machine screws back into the outer rim with the mini phillips. Once you have the outer rim on, press the pad gently to the drum set until you have popped the rubber pegs back into the holes. Be careful not to bend/crimp the sensor wire when placing the pad back together.

Step 7: Rock On!

You should now have a fully functional RB drum set again. This may not be a permanent fix, but it should last a lot longer than just sliding the pads in. There are several other how tos, mods, and replacements for the drums out on the internets that you can find, which I may end up doing myself. But for now...

ROCK ON!!!