Mat Choices (plz)

[slynky]

OK, two years now thinking about DDR since I saw it at the Anime Festival in Atlanta, GA.

Looked all around. Read for hours and hours! Cobalt Flux seems to have the best comments.

But, the DDR sources on Google have sites that mention other pads...like here and here:

www.ddraction.com/index.html

www.ddrstation.com/index.html

www.ddrdancing.com/index.asp

Looking for the top of the line (metal, I guess)

Or is Cobalt the best of the metal and I should forget the pads on the places I mentioned above?

Money not a big problem but I don't think for a second I'll spend the money to get commercial grade Cobalt (EEK!)

USE?

Daughter 12, son, 14, wife and me (yeah, we're old farts).

BTW, "DDR Butterfly" ROCKS! Played it now like, 50 times in 3 days.

Any help appreciated. This site looks to be the most active of the forums I checked out.

PS: Not that it matters a lot but do any of the metal pads light up as you touch the arrows?

[abrannan]

If you're looking for solid, known quality metal pads, you'll want to go with either the Cobalt Flux or the RedOctane Afterburner. Other than that, building your own is a good way to go (you get the features you want, you know how the pad works, so if there's a problem you know how to fix it, and you save a lot of money, unless you have to buy tools).

Anything else is a risk. There are a *lot* of places online (particularly Ebay) that just get some cheap bulk deal from China and write up some flashy ad copy and try to sell it as the next Cobalt Flux. I'm not saying all of the mats are necessarily bad, but it is very difficult to tell the bad from the good.

[xstatic]

Sooooo true. I just got rediculously lucky with my e-bay purchases. But for $15 a foam mat, I figured it was worth a shot.

Be very careful with no name companies.

[slynky]

Thanks, abrannan and Amano.

Building your own? Hehe... good reasons posted for it, but I'm afraid it would look (and perform) like crap. I mean, where the heck does one get all the stuff (controller, pressure sensors, metal or wooden sides, plexiglass...arghhhh!)

Thanks again for the reply!

[psisar]

Home Depot. I got everything I needed to build mine from there

[slynky]

Yeah, I just saw that other thread where the guy showed his off. Saw another one on Geek.

Awesome!

[abrannan]

slynky said:

Thanks, abrannan and Amano.

Building your own? Hehe... good reasons posted for it, but I'm afraid it would look (and perform) like crap. I mean, where the heck does one get all the stuff (controller, pressure sensors, metal or wooden sides, plexiglass...arghhhh!)

Thanks again for the reply!

Do a Google search for ddrhomepad, you'll see how it all comes together. Basically, you pull the controller board from an old soft mat, use sheet metal and weatherstripping for the pressure sensor, use MDF and flashing to create the "metal" panels, and self printed arrows under Plexiglas. It's really not as hard as it seems, and the results are quite nice (see psisar's pad elsewhere in this forum).

[slynky]

abrannan said:

slynky said:

Thanks, abrannan and Amano.

Building your own? Hehe... good reasons posted for it, but I'm afraid it would look (and perform) like crap. I mean, where the heck does one get all the stuff (controller, pressure sensors, metal or wooden sides, plexiglass...arghhhh!)

Thanks again for the reply!

Do a Google search for ddrhomepad, you'll see how it all comes together. Basically, you pull the controller board from an old soft mat, use sheet metal and weatherstripping for the pressure sensor, use MDF and flashing to create the "metal" panels, and self printed arrows under Plexiglas. It's really not as hard as it seems, and the results are quite nice (see psisar's pad elsewhere in this forum).

Thanks! Yeah, some REALLY good-looking pads out there that are home made! Lots with bunches of info

I don't think I'll go that route but those mats are really impressive and I read around for over an hour seeing how different people made theirs.

[abrannan]

It's useful reading in any case, regardless of what pad you end up getting. Just knowing how the internals of a mat work is *extremely* useful in troubleshooting your own pads.

[4am]

Cobalt Flux USED to be the best pad... But now many agree that nothing tops the BlueShark!

Oh, and - don't buy an afterburner or any TX pad. BNS are supposed to be bad too.

I know because I took a long time in making my dance pad choice. After reading all over the internet (especially ddrfreak.com forums) about various metal pads, I have no doubt that the BlueShark is the pad for me!

$450 though.... So be sure you wanna make that kind of investment first.

[abrannan]

Not to mention 95 lbs. Make sure you've got the space for it, too.