Dance Dance Revolution Dance Pad
by DDR
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Our Price: $18.12 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $18.00 (click here) Category: Video Games See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Dance Dance Revolution Dance Pad
Customer Review: Excellent Dance Pads!!
Summary: 5 Stars
These pads are excellent! Super sensitive, very durable. An exceptional deal for two dance pads.Customer Review: great exercise
Summary: 5 Stars
My kids love this game and it's great exercise for the whole family!Customer Review: Great fun and excercise!
Summary: 5 Stars
Great for kids and adults. Makes dancing a fun way to exercise.Customer Review: Cheap, in more ways than one, yet great for modifying!
Summary: 4 Stars
The only wierd thing about these pads which I've never seen before is that the trapezoid light indicator box only indicates that a button is being pressed, not which button is being pressed. This might make it a little less helpful in diagnosing any problem the pad might be giving you later on in its lifetime.
I was also a little concerned about how they were packaged so tightly when they arrived. Retail pads come in packaging about the same size for just one pad as amazon.com sent me for two. Fortunately I was relieved to find that how tightly they were packed had no effect on how the pads worked. So if anyone else notices the same thing, don't worry about it.
I have some issues with how it's advertised. The technical details state, "Made of extra-thick padding." I suppose that's true if you consider paper thin to be thick... The product description says, "This is the least expensive pad of excellent quality out there." It's definately the least expensive pad out there... But I'd likely de-excellentify the 'excellent' quality in a round of just three songs. It also says, "A cushy carpet combined with the softness of the pad does NOT negatively affect the sensitivity of the controller." This is sooooooo true... unless you add the variable of people's feet stomping all over it. yeah... I guess they forgot about that part.
All that aside, you can make this product worth your money!
As previously mentioned, these pads will probably not work very well after enduring a few heavy songs. At least, not unless you dress them up appropriately. There are a few different methods to modifying your ddr pads, but I'd found one that particularlly intrigued me here:
http://www.krellan.com/ddrpad/
This mod is really great, and it's especially great for playing on double play (which is really quite fun once you get used to it!) The mod extends the life of your pads dramatically, just as explained on the above link (my friends and I constantly play on heavy/challange difficulty and I've used this mod for well over a year before having to replace any pads!) Also as the site mentions, it works almost as well as metal pads (I actually get a better response from this mod than I had from metal arcade pads!)
If you like this idea and you decide to do it, here is some advice I give from my personal experience:
I've had to replace both pads from this mod only 2 times, and out of the 4 pads I replaced, only 1 of them needed to be replaced because it was warn out. The problem that the other 3 pads had was that the wires had started to hear away from the light box. The inside wires were exposed and were even broken, causing the pad to not work at all. Trying to fix this can be extremely frustrating, and I don't know how to do it, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Don't store your pad in a place where the wires might get stepped on, and don't let anything pull at the wires (like a curious pet or child).
To avoid unwanted debris from getting in under the top covering, tape down all gaps between the covering and the pad (mainly the trapezoid cutaway, but I also covered the gaps exposed on the underside of my pad to be safe because I used a thick floor covering which left greater gaps along the bottom and rounded around the edges of the plywood rather than tightly pressing against them). Try using a strong tape, perhaps electric tape. This is the first time I've tried this, and I only modded the pads 2 days ago, so I hope this solution lasts.
An extra precautionary measure that I'd taken was to store the pad laying flat on the floor instead of leaning against a wall. It might not make any differance, but I suspect it might keep gravity from bunching up the pad inside it's covering. However, when I modded these pads I took the extra step and taped the pads down to the plywood, which isn't particularly suggested in the original mod instructions. Now I lean the pads against the wall with little worry. If you do decide to lay the pads flat on the floor like I did, make sure it's not in a spot where the wires could get stepped on or else the wires might break away from the pad, and that's just trouble for you.
In conclusion, these are the cheapest pads you can get. Put a little extra money, time, and perhaps sweat into them, and they are very well worth $13+shipping. If you're an expert, you'll appreciate the mod. If you're a beginner, you can advance without worrying about damaging the pads.
Customer Review: Great for Modding
Summary: 4 Stars
THE PROBLEM: EASILY WARPED FOAM
These were a great buy for us, the cheapest we could find on Amazon. However, after about 10 heavy uses, one of them started to become drastically less sensitive. The game became virtually unplayable with it because we felt we couldn't trust the pad.
After some searching on the Internet, we discovered what the problem probably was: the foam both on the inside and the bottom of the pad was becoming deformed because we were playing with them on the bare carpet. I discovered this by going to the first site returned by the google search "how to fix ddr pad". It explains the structure of the pad and what happens to the foam.
THE SOLUTION: MOD THE PAD
I wanted to salvage the pad so I looked up how to use the original pad to make my own, high quality, superior pad.
First, I had to fix the foam. I accessed the foame by cutting off the black borders on the left, bottom, and right sides of the pad as shown on the site above. I then straightened out the sensor layers and pulled the lumps out of the foam. The foam required backing tape to fix. I had to make folds and tape them. The important part was that I made sure the sensors didn't have bunched up lumps blocking the sensors (as shown in the site above).
Next, I had to keep this foam problem from happening again. I did this by sandwiching the pad in plywood as shown in the first site of the google search "halo 3 ddr pad". Basically, I needed each pad to have a thick base plywood for support on the bottom and a thin, more sensitive plywood for covering on the top. The bottom layer keeps the pad from getting squished around in the carpet. The top layer keeps your feet from scrunching the pad against the bottom layer.
I made my bottom layers out of two 37"x32" cuts of 1/2" plywood. I made the top layers out of two 31"x31" cuts of 1/8" plywood. The people at Home Depot made the cuts for me out of boards that costed $16 and $7, respectively.
After placing each pad on their bases, I discovered lumps in one of them. These lumps came from the black bottom foam of the pad. I cut the lumps out with scissors. This way the whole pad surface was level and smooth on the board. This is important because otherwise, when you step on the top layer, the step button with the lump under it will be pressed, causing annoying things like the up arrow constantly changing the selection on the main menu.
Once both pads were fixed (all sensor layers straightened, white middle foam straightened/taped, black bottom foam lumps cut out), I taped them to the thick bottom plywood with clear packing tape. Then, when we play, I throw the top, thin plywood on top of the square part of the pad. Since we play the game a lot, we know where the arrows are. However, I drew a circle in the middle so we can quickly reposition ourselves when we get off-center.
ADVICE: MOD BEFORE YOU USE THEM
I don't know for sure, but I probably could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had bought the plywood right away after receiving these in the mail. Those 10 heavy uses really seemed to have messed them up. If I'd modded them right away, I might not have had to cut them open and fix them. So I suggest trying that: just get the plywood and stick the pads on and under it. They might work and last without internal modification.
CONCLUSION
These pads are great. For about $20 plus some packing tape and about $23 for plywood, you can have two pads that probably rival the quality of metal pads (which cost a minimum of $150). You can even use your shoes on them since they will be protected by plywood (except for the start/select buttons, on which you would need to be careful). Since modding them, their sensitivity has been excellent.
But you have to mod them. They won't last nor be anywhere near as sensitive or durable if you use them on the carpet.