About a week ago, I bought a Guitar Hero World Tour controller from the Deseret Industries thrift store here in Rexburg for four dollars. Upon returning home, I found out that the downward strumming wasn’t working. I decided to tear the guitar apart to see what the problem was.

Apparently, this is a very common issue with the World Tour controllers. I found this out upon doing a web search and perusing through several forums. The down switch seemed to be faulty and prone to early failure.

Unfortunately, I was too excited to dig into this project that I didn’t make a guide. What was I thinking?! However, I decided to post the resources I used here so that others can follow the process that I did. I was able to replace the switch and now it works like new. The guitar and the replacement switch together only cost me about ten bucks, less than a third of the price of a new controller.

Side note: My guitar is for the Wii, but this process is basically identical across all platforms (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii) of the World Tour guitar controller.

Resources I used:

  • Strummer switches (GHWT) - $7.95 at guitarherorepair.com or eBay
  • Soldering iron - Amazon has a decent basic kit for cheap
  • A repair video can also be found on guitarherorepair.com on the product page

Have fun with this project and let me know in the comments if you have questions!