Help me play Taiko without driving the neighbours to murder!

May 28, 2006 10:28 AM

Owners of the US version of Taiko Drum Master for the PS2 - how loud is the drum? More plastic-drum-related questions lurk within!

I just bought second-hand copies of Taiko no Tatsujin 6 (which, as I've just discovered in a fit of utter joy, has a cover of YMCA in Japanese on it!) and the anime special one, but I'll need to pick up a drum separately or stick with the joypad. I love Taiko games with all my heart, but I had to sell my old copy of Taiko 3 and my drum a year or so ago after discovering the ridiculously loud noise the drum peripheral makes when you hit it was reaching my neighbours' delicate ears.

So, my question is: if you've got the US version of Taiko, does the drum make a painfully loud tap/thump noise when you hit it? I'm hoping they put out a different version of the peripheral, which I'll gladly pick up if I know it's not as loud. Alternatively (and I know this is a long shot), does anyone know of a significantly quieter third-party drum that's compatible with the games? Play-Asia has a 'new version' official drum in stock, but I haven't been able to find anyone who's got one to ask.

Finally, an even longer shot - I've got some Donkey Konga bongos (which are certainly quiet enough), and I know there are Gamecube-to-PS2 controller adaptors out there, but I've heard bad things about them introducing some amount of control lag. Any experiences with that sort of thing would be really appreciated - the Taiko series are fairly precise music games, so obviously any lag whatsoever between striking the bongo and the game registering the hit would be a very bad thing indeed.

posted by terpsichoria to sports, hobbies, & recreation (5 comments total)

I have the US version of Taiko Drum Master.

The drum is loud as hell, almost as loud as if you're banging with sticks on a plastic bucket turned upside-down. Neighbors will definitely be annoyed. Due to the construction it also has a dead spot in the middle that can be felt (when you hit it) but not seen.

I don't think Donkey Konga drums would work--I'm having trouble seeing how they would. The taiko drum has four points at which it registers hits--left edge; right edge; left side of drumhead; right side of drumhead. The DK drums register hits in this way--left drum; right drum; both drums; and clapping (with the microphone embedded between them). I don't know how that would translate, or that the experience would be the same.
posted by Prospero at 12:02 PM on May 28, 2006

Ooh, that's a really good point, now that you mention it - I forgot about the big blue both-edges-at-once icons, which you definitely wouldn't be able to hit with the Konga bongos. I figured it'd be fun to try even if the bongos weren't particularly well-suited to Taiko, but having to ignore beats now and then would get annoying.

Thanks very much for the tip on the US drum, too - it sounds exactly the same as the Japanese one I had, which was ridiculously loud and had the hard plastic dead-spot in the middle (I wonder why the damn thing has to make so much noise, particularly originating as it does in heavily apartment-living Japan). Looks like it's the joypad for me for the time being, then...
posted by terpsichoria at 1:43 PM on May 28, 2006

Have you thought about putting some kind of dampening material inside the drum? Like a sweater or a pillow? I don't really know what this thing looks like or if there's a hollow bottom, but if there is, the loudness of that noise comes from the resonance of the hollow part, not from the impact itself. So... mute the drum.
posted by Embryo at 3:57 PM on May 28, 2006

Good idea, but I tried that with my previous drum (which looks like this, for interest's sake) - the drum itself is sort of a sealed unit, and I'm not sure the noise it makes is really a resonant thing (as in, it's not really a drum sound) so much as the impact of whatever plastic the sticks are made of with whatever the drum 'skin' (which is much thicker and less taut than an actual drumskin) is made of. It's sort of a loud, sharp tap - I remember noticing that hitting the thick, hard wooden tabletop I kept the drum on made almost exactly the same sound.

Thanks for the idea, though!
posted by terpsichoria at 4:34 PM on May 28, 2006

Actually, you know what? Just as I posted that last reply, I found exactly what I'm looking for! I know RedOctane well from the excellent Guitar Hero guitar peripherals, and they claim their Taiko drum "mute(s) the sounds of drumming; this cuts down significantly on unwanted noise". Perfect!
posted by terpsichoria at 4:37 PM on May 28, 2006