The "Official" Pop'n Music Thread

ch · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 4:57 am Post subject:

well

now that i am back in the states (but not yet back in the money) i am more than willing to now make a homemade pop'n ASC. thanks to tomoko in #keymania and some previous posts, i have come up with a very short parts list, a very short list of instructions, and a very long wait time for this thing, because of the button shipping.

i know some of you might need/want/love to have a popn asc so ill document my progress (if any) in here.

note, i havent done any of this yet and probably will not for a while. i just have done a lot of thinking.

first, the parts. pretty simple, just 9 big buttons, and 2 pushbuttons from radioshack:

http://www.happcontrols.com/pushbuttons/954002xxxxz.htm

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F011%5F002%5F015%5F002&product%5Fid=275%2D1549

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-c1qSxr5lyOe/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=741&I=027808

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&product%5Fid=276-1381

next, the tools.

make a box out of plywood, at least 33 inches across and 10 inches top to bottom, and i suppose as deep as you like. the buttons will go on this 33x10 plane. i say at least because this is about the minimum, unless you want your buttons right up against the edge. dont screw it shut yet, you need to get in there later.

make an equilateral triangle out of paper thats 5.5 inches on a side. this will have required getting a failing grade or higher in geometry. you will use this paper to make the centers of the buttons on the plywood surface.

Line up the paper nicely in the center of your plywood so the point is down, and all the edges are evenly spaced away from the edges of the plywood. mark the corners with x's. Now flip the template so the point is up and line it up with two of the x's you just made. mark the next corner. do this 5 more times, so you have nine x's marked; four in a row along the top and five along the bottom.

check to make sure all the x's are lined up well with the straightedge. if theyre not, then remeasure with the paper template or use more geometry to get them straight. all the centers should be 5.5 inches apart from each other, and the top and bottom lines should be ~4.76 inches apart. and of course, the whole array should be centered in your plywood surface.

now get that compass. if you dont have one, then get one, theyre like 50 cents and you needed one for geometry class anyways. use your ruler to get a radius of 1.75 going, to make a circle of 3.5 inches. make these circles around all the x's you made. now it kinda looks like a popn controller, doesnt it?

you will now need your 3.5" hole saw or jigsaw. hole saw is of course easier, but if you need to use a jigsaw and cant, what are you doing with a jigsaw you fool. and use a table jigsaw, not a hand one, you dont want messy circles. also make two 1/4" holes off to the side somewhere (probably evenly spaced vertically off to the left) for the two small pushbuttons (soon to be start and select)

plop the buttons in the holes you just cut. secure as per instructions and a wrench.

all done, right? WAIT NO WIREZ. this gets to be the hardest part of the whole bit. everyone had the same trouble with their ddr pads. you will need to take apart the controller with a teeny screwdriver to get at the yummy morsels within. why no dualshocks? because theyre hard to solder to. the cheap offbrands have lots of copper space to get at. now, under where the buttons were, you will need to solder wires to. if you dont know how to solder, google, i dont want to explain more than i have to.

tracing the light copper on the board, several of these leads join together. this is the ground circuit. the other halves of the buttons are the controller circuits. solder one 2 foot wire to each of the controller circuits for up, x, square, triangle, o, start, select, and the shoulder buttons. There are actually wires leading off the shoulder buttons that should be marked, you could twist wires into those. use electrical tape. then, solder 11 wires coming off the ground section. i would solder one wire, then tap that off into 11 other wires somewhere else down the line.

to get the controller to register as a popn controller, you have to solder shut left, down, and right. so just put solder across these pads. ez, huh? (thx tomoko)

now solder the other ends of these wires to their respective buttons. you may need to run the game with the controller and its bare wires plugged in to find out which button does what by hotwiring it. then connect these to the "normally open" and the "ground" on the buttons. the buttons should either be labeled or come with documentation to help with this, too.

and youre basically done. use the standoffs to secure the controller board to the inside of your box, make a hole for the cord to come out, put in stuffing to make it not so noisy, put stickers on it, whatever you like. lighting is another story, and ill have to experiment with it, ill let you know tho.

if someone wants to try building it before i do, have fun. i probably wont get to it for a while, i need money first T_T
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CStarFlare wrote:

I approve of the direction this thread is going

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090310025322668

MDR · Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 12:06 am Post subject:

I'd say they should go for it if BMUSA does well. Though if they go the anime route just like in Japan, we will probably see I Ran (Okay, how does I Ran go with an anime featuring 12 knights fighting each other in a tornament?!). Though they should also try to go with some cartoon licenses. Cool Kids Club (based off of Kids Next Door I think) and Club Kung-Fu sounds like Poppable songs to me. Hell, I would like to see Mimi and Nyami dressed up like Numbah 3 and Numbah 5, respectively.

I did get a used Ransai from Bemani Style before the crash for the price of a Rathasc controller.. It does work great, although there are a couple of chips in the box and the buttons are a bit stubborn (also my left white has a couple of scuff marks on it). Oh and I need to resolder my select button. And replacing switches will be so much fun (if your sarcasm detector didn't just go off turn it up). I am going to repaint it Red with my popper name in english and my first full name in Katakana and Kanji (Matsufubu) in black. I will contact Ransai about getting one of their stickers as I will be painting over their logo in the process.

I've also noticed that it helped me a bit in IIDX with certain chords (I can 1 hand practically anything now except for any combination with 1+7) and raised my speed mod tolerance (HS3 until about 190 for me).

MDR!
Official Popper Name for MDR. I still need a camera for my unfreaking believeable crap (like my 2 100k's coming from a newbie) before I add my PNN graphic. And I still say that Pop N 10's unlock system easily beat's Exceed USA's system (unless if you turn of PNM 10's unlock system).
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http://popn.solidstatesquad.com/viewuser.php?user=74
Thanks to Memory Mani Scores updated once a week (if played).
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=lomdr
popnmusic Iroha - 4.9/5!

blacklung · Basic Member Joined: 06 Oct 2005

How do I get pop n 11 to save, do I need a memory card just for my japaneese games. Sorry new to the whole imports thing, tried searching for the info but couldn't find anything

MDR · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 12:13 pm Post subject:

An American Mem Card will work just fine with japanese games. No need for a special one. All of my PS2 Music games coexist peacefully on the same card. Although the icons for DDR EXUS and DDR EXJP are the same. So if you want to delete a specific one, I think the one that's bigger (as in file size) is DDR EXJP.

About what I said in my last post: I take that back. I think there is a bit bigger chance of failure for PNM in the states NOT because it's cutesy, but because you need a huge controller to play. And those cost at least 170 (going by orion's quoted price but I think it's CO only for the RathStar Controller). And that's if you don't want art on the box. Konami would be hard pressed too if they do want to bring ASCs to the states. I will still wait patiently until Konami decides to kill Bemani or until they announce Pop N Music USA.

MDR
I can clear (just now) Classic 9 Normal on HS2x. I mean that PNM10's unlock system's worse than Exceed's in my last afterpost ramble.
_________________

http://popn.solidstatesquad.com/viewuser.php?user=74
Thanks to Memory Mani Scores updated once a week (if played).
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=lomdr
popnmusic Iroha - 4.9/5!

blacklung · Basic Member Joined: 06 Oct 2005

Ok so it's my second day playing pop n 11 and I was wondering if there is any advice on when I should go from 5 to 9 button, I'm doing mostly 3 and 4 star songs on five buitton, but I've never played anything like this before.

So in short should I force myself to nine button and go back to the two star songs, or grow more familiar with the five buttons then add the other four. I know theres no real right answer but what do you think?

Superstar Player · Trick Member Joined: 24 Jan 2002 Location: Riverside, CA

TheWertle · Trick Member Joined: 09 Sep 2004

personally i think trying to force yourself into 9 line cant really hurt much, just stay towards the lower end of the songs until you get more comfortable. i also thnik you should stay away from judging things by how many stars they are. Popn has a 3 - 43 difficulty scale, you might as well use it...

in other news, anyone who has seen the "asianarcade" video onebaums of Robo (i think) playing Classic 4. I recently passed that song

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CatchyPhraseOwen · Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 6:21 pm Post subject:

I personally just stuck to 5 line until I was totally comfortable with it, and then I just moved up to 9. I think that's the best way to do it; I progressed up through 9 pretty evenly without any problems for quite a while.
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mod_soul · Basic Member Joined: 26 Nov 2005

guys need a little help finding out the name of a Pop'n music song

its in the film 'lost in translation' with bill murray and (sexy) scarlett johansenn.

in the arcade theres a kid playing pop'n music.i think they show two songs
i like the first one with has a kinda guitar riff intro. im not sure if the second scene is the same song coz it has lots of oriental kind of bell rings.
please help me out !

ch · Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 7:02 pm Post subject:

guitar riff? sounds like study...
bell rings might be nebuta or kangtong

but i havent seen the movie so

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CStarFlare wrote:

I approve of the direction this thread is going

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090310025322668

mod_soul · Basic Member Joined: 26 Nov 2005

any idea where to find and download pop'n music songs?
theyre scarce on limewire

Superstar Player · Trick Member Joined: 24 Jan 2002 Location: Riverside, CA

Superstar Player · Trick Member Joined: 24 Jan 2002 Location: Riverside, CA

BTW, for those that care, Konami recently decided to put up the offical sites again for the pop n games on PSX and other games recently.

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/pop/

It's about darn time, I thought they would be gone forever. It's good to see most of the characters that were exclusives again, since I couldn't remember them , and see the info on them and the songs, if someone is willing to translate them, since people on bemanistyle aren't doing a good job of updating the character info thread.

xxzeniusxx · Trick Member Joined: 06 Jun 2004 Location: El Paso

I plan on getting PNM 11 sometime in the future...but my question is:
Which controller should I get? Should I just stick with DS until I have enough for a Ransai?

Yes...noobish question.
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Pop'n Usagi! · Trick Member Joined: 17 Nov 2002 Location: Your mum

rmz · Trick Member Joined: 28 Jun 2003 Location: Tucson, AZ

ch · Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 11:02 pm Post subject:

small controller makes it easy imo
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CStarFlare wrote:

I approve of the direction this thread is going

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090310025322668

rmz · Trick Member Joined: 28 Jun 2003 Location: Tucson, AZ

Pop'n Usagi! · Trick Member Joined: 17 Nov 2002 Location: Your mum

ch · Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2005 6:17 am Post subject:

thats the wierd part, im like 6'4", and appendages to match (no pun intended). i guess im just too used to playing iidx, the small controller is more finger based. it allows you to hit combos you might never be able to on an asc, like white-blue or white-red with one hand.

i also used to play piano :/

but id rather play on the asc, it feels smooth like playing parapara
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http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/index.php?module=see&l=uk&code=36e44d4914f14070cc5b3d4c6bcd1042

CStarFlare wrote:

I approve of the direction this thread is going

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090310025322668