The Rock Band Drum controller is a straight USB device, so it's quite easy to interface to it. The script below will play a set of wav files associated with each pad on the controller. Change the path to the wav's in the %SOUNDS hash as necessary.

I've only tested this with the Playstation 3 controller. Experiances/patches from XBox360 owners welcome.

You'll also need the SDL and Linux::Input modules.

Start it up with: rock_band_drums.pl /dev/input/event[x], where "x" is some number that corresponds to right USB device.

You can get some wav drum samples at http://www.users.bigpond.com/prodigalson/drum.htm

#!/usr/bin/perl
# Rock Band Drum Controller Player
# Copyright (C) 2008  Timm Murray
#
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>
+.
#
use strict;
use warnings;
use Linux::Input;
use IO::Select;
use SDL;
use SDL::Sound;
use SDL::Mixer;

use constant DEBUG => 0;

my $DEV = shift;
die "Need a device\n" unless $DEV;

my %SOUNDS = (
    snare   => 'rock_band_drums/snare.wav',
    drum    => 'rock_band_drums/drum.wav',
    hi_hat  => 'rock_band_drums/hi_hat.wav',
    smash   => 'rock_band_drums/crash.wav',
    bass    => 'rock_band_drums/bass.wav',
);
my %EVENTS = (
    308 => $SOUNDS{bass},    # Foot
    306 => $SOUNDS{snare},   # Red
    307 => $SOUNDS{hi_hat},  # Yellow
    304 => $SOUNDS{drum},    # Blue
    305 => $SOUNDS{smash},   # Green
);

{
    my $ret = SDL::MixOpenAudio( 44100, AUDIO_S16, 2, 4096 );
    die "Can't open audio: " . SDL_GetError() . "\n" if 0 > $ret;
}


sub debug
{
    my (@in) = @_;
    return unless DEBUG;
    print @in, "\n";
}
sub do_event
{
    my ($event) = @_;
    my $code   = $$event{code};
    my $value  = $$event{value};
    debug( "Code [$code], value [$value]" );
    return 0 if ! exists $EVENTS{$code};
    return 0 if $value == 0;

    my $file = $EVENTS{$code};
    my $sound = SDL::MixLoadWAV( $file );
    SDL::MixPlayChannel( -1, $sound, 0 );

    return 1;
}


{
    my $js1 = Linux::Input->new( $DEV );
    my $selector = IO::Select->new;
    $selector->add( $js1->fh );

    while( my $fh = $selector->can_read ) {
        my @events = $js1->poll;
        foreach (@events) {
            next unless $$_{type} == 1;
            do_event( $_ );
        }
    }
}
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