Klaimer

The name is meant to combine the words "Kramer" and "Claim", as in "Claim(ing)" FCs that would otherwise be difficult on standard hardware.

Kramer, of course, is short for Kramer Striker, the guitar that shipped with PS2 copies of Guitar Hero III.

I've seen lots of top players using the Kramer Striker as their guitar of choice, so I sniped an eBay auction in 2022 for one at around $14, and then started modding it.

Modified motherboard

I nabbed some cheap Chinese knockoff Arduino Pro Micro boards back in 2021, so I decided to use one of those to send inputs to a computer. It is absolutely capable of sending hundred of inputs per second, so it is nice and overkill. I began by soldering wires to all of the buttons on the controller, and then soldering those wires to the Arduino, and then configuring the digital pins as pullups, to sense whenever a button is pressed. I then use those button presses completely raw, to send HID inputs to the computer. This does lead to a huge amount of chattering, but I am using this guitar for top-level play, where sometimes that is neccessary.

Modified neck

The neck connection now uses dupont jumper wires instead of the included pogo pin connector. The pogo pin connecter constantly made poor connection, and would disconnect certain frets if I held the neck in a specific manner. The current solution I have right now is jank, but will work until I add a more robust connector.

Modified strummer

Most importantly of all, this guitar has user-customizable rakestrumming, which can be read about in much more detail here.