Frets on Fire with the Wii Les Paul
If you can get Frets on Fire working on Mac OS X through some voodoo, here’s a tip on how to play with your Guitar Hero III Les Paul controller for Wii:
Grab the latest revision of DarwiinRemote, which lets you map the Wiimote’s buttons to key combos. You’ll want to grab WiiRemote.framework from the same repository. It’s not too hard to get it built yourself, but I have a download link at the bottom of this post.
As it turns out, the Les Paul is essentially a Classic Controller, and DarwiinRemote will let us assign key combos to that, too. Here are the mappings (FoF column is my recommendation):
| Les Paul | Classic Controller | Frets on Fire |
|---|---|---|
| Green | a | 1 |
| Red | b | 2 |
| Yellow | x | 3 |
| Blue | y | 4 |
| Orange | ZL | 5 |
| Strum up | Up | Return |
| Strum down | Down | Return |
| - | - | Up |
| + | + | Down |
You can set up the controller in the Preferences window for DarwiinRemote (like this). Unfortunately, it seems like DarwiinRemote can’t properly trigger function key presses, so I wouldn’t try.
Download my DarwiinRemote binary if you so desire. This version uses code that isn’t in the repository; I had trouble getting my blue fret to work and after monkeying around with the source a little it kicked in. If you’re having the same issue when compiling from source, let me know and I’ll send my patch to the maintainer.
Update: Oops, my problem with the blue fret was fixed by reseating the neck. The code changes I made likely do nothing, so I recommend building from source to get the latest and greatest features.
Update Feb 16 ‘08: At the request of a reader, I’ve uploaded a screenshot of my settings for DarwiinRemote.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Any chance of a screen grab of your darwin remote key mappings preferences window? I’m a little confused :/
February 16th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Hi cinemec,
The chart can be read like this: the first fret on the Les Paul is the green button. This corresponds with the “a” button on the Classic Controller. In DarwiinRemote, set the key for “a” to “1″. In Frets on Fire, set the key for the first fret to “1″.
Now when you press the green button, the Les Paul sends the signal for “a” to the Wiimote, which is picked up by DarwiinRemote and converted to “1″, which Frets on Fire picks up as the first fret.
As requested, here are my DarwiinRemote settings. Hope this helps to clarify.
February 17th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Awesome. Thanks for the help.. with your input I was up and running in minutes. Frets on Fire Mac edition with the Wii guitar is now going to ruin my life! sob (as if guitar hero hadn’t already!). Note: for some reason the version of darwin remote I downloaded wouldn’t pick up the classic controller (aka guitar) for me but the one posted above seems to do the trick.
my working setup: MBP C2D Leopard 10.5.2 Guitar Hero III Wii guitar + Nintendo Wiimote Frets on Fire 1.2.451 DarwinRemote
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 am
hey, everything works execpt for the fret buttons, FoF isn’t recognizing them help plese.
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
If you get DarwiinRemote and then open up TextEdit and start mashing buttons on the guitar, do numbers appear in the document? If not, your DarwiinRemote isn’t set up correctly.
If you do get numbers, you need to edit your Frets on Fire key settings so that it knows which key corresponds to which fret.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Great post buddy, I just bought GHIII for the Wii a day or so ago and I’ve already got the axe working with my Macbook thanks to your post.
March 9th, 2008 at 3:17 am
Awesome post! I’d never heard of this game until I read your post. I just got my classic controller working for my SNES emulator, and I’m going to mess with my Wii Guitar tomorrow. Thanks for sharing the info!
@cinemec DarwiinRemote wasn’t picking up my classic controller either. I uninstalled/deleted Darwiin Remote, reinstalled it, attached my classic controller, THEN activated/searched for my Wii Remote. Worked perfectly after that. Hopefully that helps you out.
March 15th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I have the same problem as reilly: the fret buttons don’t work. When I press them in the Darwiin-remote interface i can see that the program recognizes the buttons (in the little window to the right). I then assigned the buttons just like in your screenshot but when trying it out in TextEdit.app nothing happens. The other buttons like fret and plus and minus works perfectly. Any ideas anyone?
March 15th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I found out that it wasn’t a problem with the frets. It’s a problem with Darwiin-remote. I just can’t choose to have a custom key but if I instead choose the preselected ones like tab, page down etc it works just fine.
March 23rd, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Hello -
I was able to get my Wii Guitar Hero to work with Frets of Fire. However, after I quit out of the game and get back in, I cannot use the Wii Guitar. When I go to the Prefs of WiiRemote, the Classic Controller still has the right config. However, when I toggle the Expansion Port, I don’t see the classic controller picture anymore.
Is there a way I can retain the configuration so that when I quit out of the game, it will remain.
Currently, I would have to re-install your binary file to fix the issue.
Thanks.
-Dinah
May 1st, 2008 at 6:48 pm
here’s my experience: - no voodoo needed to get fof on os x, just get it from here instead: http://tgaragemedia.com/downloads/ - use darwiinremote from this site - can’t use normal keys, have to use tab, backspace…
did all this and found out in the end that my 1.5ghz ppc mini isn’t able to keep up to the game, so no guitar playing for me. hope this helps somebody… g’day!
May 21st, 2008 at 3:01 am
[...] Frets on Fire with the Wii Les Paul at rgov.org - [...]
June 1st, 2008 at 6:10 pm
[...] de titres !! Ca tombe bien, ta super guitare en matière plastique PEUT AUSSI se connecter sur ton Mac ou ton PC et comme il existe ce superbe logiciel nommé Frets on Fire, quelques téléchargements [...]
August 29th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
OMFG YOU ARE A F*CKING GENIUS! IM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW I SPENT THE WHOLE DAY DOING THIS AND FINALLY YOU SAVED ME THANK YOU SO MUCH!