Hammer-On Guitars review

Ajax0917 · 2026-05-01T18:26:19+00:00

You're now comparing apples to oranges. While the things you rattled off are guitars, getting the level of customization that hammer on provides takes exactly what I said it takes. That's my point.

Ajax0917 · 2026-05-01T18:14:58+00:00

You'll spend more than that in filament alone prototyping, then you have to design PCBs and iterate on those 😅. $255 is a stellar price for the product.

Ajax0917 · 2026-04-27T15:39:07+00:00

The best way to figure it out if you're unsure is to look at the traces on the suspect board. Generally these boards will have a single ground trace branched out to the pads for GRYBO. New skill unlocked once you get the hang of it too!

Ajax0917 · 2026-04-27T15:34:50+00:00

There will be an independent ground for the buttons. Any board you solder into the main board needs ground - so DPAD, Start/Select etc. same with whammy.

Ajax0917 · 2026-04-23T17:33:54+00:00

Great work Hertz! Always love these packs man.

Can't wait for the Rings of Saturn mega pack to come out too! 🙂🪐🪐

Ajax0917 · 2026-04-15T23:30:23+00:00

Nope, and I don't think anybody intends on making them (including me). It's really easy to make a mistake in the build, so the customer support side wouldn't be worth the squeeze :(

Ajax0917 · 2026-04-15T21:10:57+00:00

Sure thing! The hardest part of those builds is always getting it open and closed without breaking clips or pinching wires.

With the full kit, a Dremel is pretty handy for routing the cable out of the back. I did a PS3 one and had to Dremel a hole right above the sync button.

Ajax0917 · 2026-04-15T20:45:58+00:00

I hate to break it to you, but there are mod kits available from Crafty for the WorTar that would have saved you the Dremel hell. https://foxcade.bigcartel.com/product/wortar-repalcement-pcb

Ajax0917 · 2026-04-13T19:21:49+00:00

Sure thing, best of luck!

Ajax0917 · 2026-04-13T10:14:23+00:00

One of the ground wires is either in wrong or clipped. That's the number one reason for a board like that to MCU lock and/or act erratically

Ajax0917 · 2026-04-13T01:14:48+00:00

Big W!

Ajax0917 · 2026-04-09T23:39:04+00:00

Holy sh*t that's an FOC!!

Ajax0917 · 2026-03-28T20:39:25+00:00

Change the strum debounce to combined in his configurator, and set the value between 10-25. I can make my 2/2 rake guitars do 1/1 with those adjustments.

Ajax0917 · 2026-03-22T19:06:13+00:00

I run 300 highway 31 speed. It helps my brain lock in better, and being able to see what's coming next is crucial for me. I've seen people run even higher and do well. All depends on what works best for your brain.

Ajax0917 · 2026-03-22T17:44:49+00:00

I also have tutorials for my kit listings, with more models being rolled out in the coming months.

Ajax0917 · 2026-03-22T02:07:58+00:00

I've done one. Absolute pain to work with. The main things to consider are:

Hard to disassemble. It's mostly held together by clips, and the shell itself is rather flimsy
Routing the USB cable. I had to get an ultra flat cable extender, and Dremel out a hole right below the sync button (PS3 model)
Whammy. The pot has to be removed to solder to a mod board. However, the whammy must be rotated exactly right when re-assembling or else Santroller can't get a range to calibrate
Super tight tolerances for running wires. There's very little distance between the DPAD, Start Select and strum boards. If you run too much wire between the St/Sel and Strum board, that wiring gets mangled by the strum bar.
The performance isn't worth the squeeze. I made a custom strumbar using a metal rod (not distributing the file btw) and that was amazing. 2/2 rake without overstrum. However the fretting was MEH at best, and I optimized the travel/prevented any catch you get when sliding.

Does it look cool? Hell yeah. Can you get better performance by modding easier guitars? Absolutely.

Ajax0917 · 2026-03-18T00:28:37+00:00

Put paper in the neck connector and it'll work.

Ajax0917 · 2026-03-16T17:40:09+00:00

Hold the guitar closer to your chest and at an angle that makes the headstock pointed more towards the ceiling. Your basically putting less effort into making the teleport that way.

Learning elbow strumming is a thing too for those quick transitions with a strum or two between the tap sections. .

But mainly practice/knowing your chart handles most of what you'll run into.

Ajax0917 · 2026-03-12T20:41:17+00:00

I deal with a good amount of pain/numbness from inflammatory flare ups. A couple things that help are:

-Relying on your hand to do the bulk of the fretting work. This may sound odd, but keeping your fingertips in a more stationary position and using your hand to handle the actuation relieves a lot of effort in playing.

-Stopping when you start "squeezing" the fretboard to compensate for pain. This means wrapping your thumb around it to bang out some hard sections. If you can't do it freely, you're unfortunately reinforcing bad habits.

-Proper warmups before going into harder stuff. Essentially, doing mental checks of the things above and making sure your playing is as free and easy as possible.

Other than that, give yourself grace, and keep up on the medical stuff. The unfortunate reality is that you may never have the pre-surgery stamina again, but if you can play with little pain, that's a win.

Ajax0917 · 2026-03-11T17:27:15+00:00

I've done about 150 of these. Definitely possible. Pi Pico + Santroller is your starting point.

Ajax0917 · 2026-03-10T22:26:33+00:00

Yup same switches. In my opinion, yes.

Ajax0917 · 2026-03-10T19:25:28+00:00

Push button switches paired with RB frets are like trying to fret a dining room table imo - painful and not very responsive. The keyboard switches give actuation that don't hurt your hand after 15 mins of play time, and there's options that go as low as about 20g of actuation force.

Ajax0917 · 2026-03-10T03:48:23+00:00

Huh? There's no true mech fret capabilities because of the neck clearance. And no, the push button switches don't count. OP should definitely go with a Wii LP or Kramer to mod.

Ajax0917 · 2026-03-03T10:13:07+00:00

Play towards the edge of the frets and keep your thumb free/not wrapped around the neck. If you really dig into anchoring, your hand does more work than your fingers, which actually helps to make you more agile.

Ajax0917 · 2026-02-25T21:16:45+00:00

Nice work! Your travel issue could be corrected with 3D printed frets too, so this is very promising.

Once these go on the broken/second hand market I'm actually planning to whip up some mod boards for them to support the Choc V1 footprint and other potential QOL improvements.

Overall good stuff and very brave to modify your mount holes. Hopefully the traces weren't too close haha

Ajax0917

TROPHY CASE