Can confirm my DDR pad had some Rust on it

Ngl this was incredibly well made dude, I was expecting a meme video but this was a nice surprise!

i must say that those bilibili pads, while of course unknown, have a very cool concept of flipping over a 4 panel to reveal a 5 panel. if I had the time rn I could attempt to create my own pads kinda like those lol

L-tek apparently ships their newer pads with a 1000mhz polling arduino controller these days

So basically the options are use a soft pad, have one shipped from fucking Poland, become an electrical engineer, pay $800+ dollars, or don’t play at all. Cool.

Thanks for this, I've been peripherally watching your progress over the past few years with your machine / streaming setup / diversity of content and absolutely love what you're putting out there. Once it started hitting peak leg-cam and "where else can I put a bar", I was sold for life. Keep it up! I've been slowly chipping away at my basement arcade project for years but haven't made 1/10th the progress you have, cheers!

23:40 WTF is that picture LUL. Very informative video by the way. Thanks for the video.

"you can probably go find one in a dumpster for free" the way i just CACKLED.

amazing video that covers a lot of questions i had about different dance pads, but in a cleanly put together, organized, and thorough way. :) trying to read through and search for stuff on my own with my adhd hell brain has been a mess, so this is a great resource and is very accessible + helpful. im pretty late to the online ddr community and pad DIY, so this broad covering of options etc was so incredibly wonderful to see in 2020. tysm !! :D

Three years late, but SUPER informative video! You introduced me to travel pads, so I must dedicate myself into getting two now! Yay!

Thank you so much for making this video. This is exactly the breakdown I needed to make a decision on whether to buy or make a controller.

thank you so much for making this detailed video, I learned alot about ddr pads option. After almost 20 years Id like to get back in the game and your video helps alot in educating myself on current pad market

Very well-made video. I was curious about Baila-Tech as well and wondered if I was just overlooking any reviews of it. You kind of reignited my desire to make a travel pad.

Great video, man. Definitely gonna be linking this a lot.

Grief and Malice during the ITG Cab segment was perfect lmao. Really informational video but also really entertaining! Will be a great resource to link people to :)

"You can probably go find one in the dumpster right now for free :v" Best comment ever XD

Great round up of information here. Thanks for putting this out and helping other users.

Some soft pads are kinda slept on honestly. I use the Wii/GC official pad and I love it. It has a material on the bottom that mostly sticks to wood floors and hasn't worn out in 2 years, and the sensors are really reliable. My only complaint is it doesn't immediately release so you get hit by some tricky mines immediately after arrows -- but almost no songs have that problem.

Extremely useful video! Thank you for making this

Just to let you know, the current L-TEK pads have 1 ms 1000 hz polling rates now. I would say the performance is leveled up to B+ compared to the ITG pads.

Somehow this makes IIDX seem easy to get into, thank god for Dj Dao. Glad I was huge into DDR when it was at every arcade on the planet.

"Congratulations! You made it through 25 minutes of Dominick's opinions. No doubt I've made some mistakes, left stuff out, or had some bad takes. Feel free to just fuck my shit up in the comments." 💛 Thanks so much for this video! The time and effort you put in to make it is appreciated. It's a very helpful summary resource, and I'll definitely link people to it in the future.

Really awesome video man

I see my Baila Tech review vid made it in here. I'm going to update the description there too, but another owner of the pad who also owned an l-tek got in contact with me, and he reported his scores were much higher on l-teks than Bailas. We both played a particular song and got 95.x% on it on our Baila pads, and on the same setup with an L-tek, he got 99.36. He opened the USB converter of the Baila pad, and revealed the PCB was seemingly some sort of USB controller with wires soldered to it, as opposed to something like an Arduino. He replaced the PCB with an Arduino and is now getting 99.x% scores on charts he was previously getting 94-95% on, which indicates Baila Tech's PCBs have some sort of polling-rate deficiency. Baila Tech's default PCB incurs higher mean timing error values. On top of the inconveniences mentioned in my video, this pretty much confirms that Baila tech cannot be recommended right now. Buyers should not have to go through the trouble of replacing the PCB. If you can get a Baila for a good price used as I did, and you have time to put in work to fix the issues that may occur, go for it. I play casually, don't care enough about the timing issue to replace the PCB with an Arduino, and I've gotten used to my pad. I play up to ITG 12s on it and it works *okay*, but it is definitely a project pad and I spent a lot of time trying different mods to make it to work properly. If you're looking for a pad to buy new and are paying the full price, stay away from Baila.

I really appreciate the info, particularly about the different types of sensors used in a couple of the pads I'd been looking to buy.

Cool video. I bought a jcab DDR extreme cab back at the start of covid and it’s the best thing I’ve ever bought lol.

I'd possibly group cobalt fluxes away from legacy hard pads. The build quality is actually really durable and most old ones are still working flawless today. The penny mod on them actually doesn't really eat away at the metal unlike lteks too

You got insight. I hope the community in Australia will see this.

I've had two DanceFit PIU pads for about a year that I've been using fairly regularly. I suspect the 4-panel versions to be similar, so I guess I can do a review. Note: I play no-bar and only up to S16/D15, so I can't say how well they'd work for higher levels. The layout for each panel is: - metal plate spanning the entire panel, - 2-3mm high weather-strip around the edges, - panel-sized curved metal plate, - ~3mm polycarb/lexan/whatev cover. They feel more grippy than arcade panels. - They're sunken by about ~3mm. The sensor is metal-on-metal contact, but unlike other contact pads the plates span the whole sensor so there's much more surface area. Since they're not just comb print-board & aluminum foil (hi, Mayflash pads), I don't think these will ever break. The wooden base is solid and doesn't creak at all. The whole thing is on rubber doorstoppers and doesn't slide at all on a hardwood floor. You do get rubber stains though. I'd say some modding is required to get the most out of them, but it's pretty easy. The biggest problem is the strip keeping the plates separate. It runs all around the panel and ruins sensitivity at the all-important edges, so my performance was terrible in the beginning. But you can easily remove part of it and could get pinky-activated sensors if you wanted. Tweaking the sensitivity can be done by adding/removing some more tape or tightening the screws. I also added a layer of foam between the top plate and the cover to make the pad more level: you don't want them to be too sunken. The panels are secured by screws with a small flange at their bottom, which kind of sucks because they stick out a bit and you don't want to move your feet over them. I just covered them off with tape, but there might be better options. In terms of maintenance: after I got the sensitivity the way I wanted, I barely needed to do any. Maybe adding a bit more tape after a few months when a panel got a little too sensitive (activating when I stomped on the parts beside the panel). It is a metal pad, so you do need to be careful about rust. At present, I'm really happy with them. I get comparable or better results with them than in the arcade, though I haven't been in the arcade this past year for obvious reasons. Quite often I've been left wondering "wait, how did I hit that? I could have sworn I missed that note". Bracketing is also quite easy, although I don't need it much at my level of play. They are _much_ better than my old Mayflash & JustDDR 4-panel pads, which creak, slide around and have small metal sensors in the center that can experience hairline fractures and need soldering to fix them. I'd probably would get 4-panel replacements from Dancefit if shipping wasn't so ridiculously expensive ... and if I didn't want learn how to make my own once this Rona business is over :)

Excellent video

the yoda clip made me laugh out loud. great video!

Nice video Dom!!

I appreciated Igorrr's Humous intro song part during the start of the LTEK overview.

40k views! Congrats!!

I had the idea of building myself a FSR based pad like the Re:Flex Dance one you've shown here.. omg, my idea was stolen! but I guess he had the idea before me :D that will be a fun project! thanks for the comparison of the pads! at start I've had the softpads but the ghost-steps were annoying. then got a hard-foam one, replaced foam with wood, made a semi-hardpad which worked about 3 years! been playing DDR/ITG for a few years in some major cities for fun.. now it's time to build a real one myself!

Great Video.

This was a great roundup! I just recently rediscovered my love for DDR and want to get my hands on one of the SMX pads, but I know that's going to be a challenge. So I'm looking for something "decent" to hold me over until I can get one. Probably one of the DDR Energy metal pads. I know they have mixed reviews, but it seems like anything that's widely accepted as good is nearly impossible to find, and those are probably the best pad I can just go out and order easily without having to go on an epic journey. And if I'm already trying to get the SMX, I don't think I want to have to work hard just to find an "interim" pad.

I have the dancefit pad for DDR (they also make it 5 pannels) and it is great. It works with 2 metal sheets sensor, something more or less l-tek like but I recently modded it to FSR.

Nice video. I'm gonna go with a plastic one as I'm just trying to get some exercise lol.

This helped me a lot. There is so much misinformation around DDR pads, and your info regarding sensors used in each DDR pad really made me desire to either mod an old pad or build my own. Never even heard of the Stamina playstyle before, seems like a super passionate group of DDR fans!

best video on pads i've ever seen thank you for making this. I've had an l tek and gotta say they suck ass, got one in may 2019 when they started becoming popular and the sensors in it hit the shitter after 4 months. I now use homemade velostat sensors in which are also kinda a pain but there much better then the L teks metal contacts.

Today I ordered my DDR arcade pad, im going nuts haha

My Ddr game pad is pretty good! I foiled modded mine and put cardboard under the arrows to ride the arrows up.

Thank u so much

Great video. My only complaint/criticism is I would have put the cobaltflux and blueshark a tier above the pads such as DDRgame because they are definitely way way better.

Very informative, I'm considering an SMX pad!

Love my blueshark ^_^

Any thoughts on the red octane ignition pad? Its sort of a middle ground between soft pad and Legacy Hard Pad with a foam insert. Hard to get now but its at least a better option than the Soft Pad for a beginner I think.

I'm not a high-level player (yet; working on stamina 14s) but my PDP has worked well for the 5 years I've owned it. I bought it second-hand for cheap and it came with inserts to make the top completely flat, as opposed to the 0.5cm recess that (I think) comes standard due to the velcro panel lining. These are necessary, as the cheap, thin acrylic top covering will stress and probably crack over time otherwise. The USB controller is good but has to be protected, since it's literally just wires coming from the top of the pad into a tiny plastic box. Build quality is the major complaint with these, but if you take a little bit of time to DIY a solid base and a heavy steel bar, it performs quite well with Decents and Way-offs turned off. The wires for each panel run under the Velcro lining, so you DO NOT want these to be cut or torn off, and unfortunately it's a little difficult to remove the acrylic top without damaging the Velcro, so the lifespan of this pad kinda depends on how many times you fuck with it. I doubt that it would be good for stamina play in the long term as the sensitivity is pretty fixed, but I'm able to get consistent scores and no stuck/mis/double fires, which is pretty much the bare minimum requirements for a good pad anyway. I'm not sure I can recommend buying them new because PDP has a bit of a track record, but if you get one in good shape, it can be a quality intermediate level pad with some work. My guide for building a base+bar setup (excuse the formatting): docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSfp7vPnKMDZb9Z1wjl7L5tOIbpQXqs_uLa_u7mWNlSxMMCtVlmXGOCJ41LPsVMBs-jz5GWBgnrziOZ/pub

i still have a soft pad, been wanting to upgrade but am not sure what to go with. Thank you for this video. i've been using the soft pad with the gaming controller as one of the arrows stopped working at one point

Would you happen to know where to find the bypass for the changing calibration in StepmaniaX Stage? I've tried searching around but I'm a bit new to the community and not sure where to look heavily.

Just found this video.. very informative pad information. Still doing homework on a great home pad . I wonder if Lara mentioned in the video was the same Lara that was on an ep of shipping wars involving a dance cab. If soo small.. world I met her a few times back in the day from playing ddr n pui

Where can I find the player at 7:21? I think Dom say niddys??? But don't know the channel name and ita my first time hearing of them

great vid

On the DDR SOLO cab pads, for the extremely handy, isn't there a (fairly old) reddit thread that discussed modding these pads to use 4 sensors/arrow?

maybe 2020 was the good time to create this video since there's a list of pads compared to over the years. thanks for explaining because I just give up explaining to other players 😅

I use Precision Dance Pad and is still alive even when I play hard & freestyle. I purchased it many years ago and it still works (and I hope that they keep working), I wish they don't fail because I live far from the US and shipping costs me dearly. About StepmaniaX, still sold out. 😕

For anyone who can't wait to get the smx pad or has failed everytime I reserved a pad and monitor bundle but of course it'll cost more but it's worth it

Not all Legacy Hard Pads are alike. There's a reason Cobalt Flux resell for the same price they were originally sold at. Also they last damn near forever with barely any maintenance. CF are still better than any other pad in that price range. To that end, the blue shark seems like a very different pad

L Tek has released new pads that apparently fix the polling issues - any thoughts on those?

Any updates to this after 2 years? If I want a heavy duty metal dance pad that works (I'm not a pro player just want to play with friends and family) are any of the metal pads still around?

imagine having built a 300eur wooden pad that works so great ;)

cheers mate thanks for that. I'll go see if I can snag the DDR cab from the local arcade that's on their last legs. no one come to my neighbourhood! :P

I've had or had experience with a few of the ones mentioned here. Feel free to reply to this comment thread if you have questions on stuff I mentioned (or even didn't mention) and I'll try to reply promptly. (oh wow this was a wall of text. enjoy, or just scroll past IDC) I had some softpads when I started playing and a foam pad I found new in box years later. The softpads were definitely low tier, but I got good use out of them. I taped them tightly across some plywood and that made them a bit more sensitive but also stopped them from bunching up or scooting around. The crinkly Konami ones are great, the no-names were usually awful (I think I had some Naki ones that quickly went to shit), the Mad Catz Beat Pad Pros were almost as good as Konami's but one died after about a year of nearly daily play even with the plywood mod. I didn't see foam pads mentioned here. They're mostly constructed like a softpad but have a dense foam insert. The "soft pad" part has a zipper to insert/remove the insert and can fold up, and the dense foam comes apart like a jigsaw puzzle, so if you can't store it intact as a whole pad you can pack it back into its box which wasn't too terribly big. I had a Red Octane Ignition 3.0, which had some nice features like native support for PC (USB)/OG Xbox/PS2/GCN/Wii, large sensor areas under the arrows, and what I liked best, some stiff material under each arrow which I felt improved sensor sensitivity and also let you feel where you were on the pad. A friend of mine mashed through the SP 18 of Elemental Creation on it before, using a couch as a bar, so I guess there's potential. I only had a few tens of hours of use on it before I gave it to a buddy of mine, so I can't speak to their longevity. If you can find an Ignition in good shape and it's cheap enough to your liking, I can definitely recommend it. Oh and one thing to note, unless you do some modding to cover the pad with some durable material, you cannot use shoes to play on a softpad or foam pad. (Continued...)

I BOUGHT THAT PAD LMAO it performs really well for my level of play 14:15, also great video!

5:50 “you could probably find one in a dumpster for free” Funny enough, i saw one out in the wild several weeks ago lmao, destroyed and really nasty.

Im in an condo. The building is concrete but I still want to try out a 'cheaper' pad before I get a hard pad. This would be for PC ITGmania. Manybe any suggestions for a foam insert pad

L-tek 2 now had 1khz and 32mb, and fsr installment is much easier and they have a wireless option now, and sell their bus and sensor seperately w custom prints. Take from it what you want

working on my own home-made pads to potentially commercialize... there's such a gap in the market for this kind of thing I find it insane

Imagine lumping Cobalt Flux in along with "DDR Game" pads...

That "DDR Game" pad you show at 5:55 looks the same as the TX pads (like the TX 6000)

In colombia have a guy who make a very quality ddr pad similar like dance cabinet. Simply amazing look so nice and i can play with shoes

7:49 Oh hey, my review is there! (I'm wrsw)

I was using a softpad for so many years which I got from Gamestop over a decade ago before I took a break. Am I insane?

Ayy, you used my penny mod video. I really need to make a better one sometime. Strangely enough, I find that those black marks are actually just...I dunno what it is, but I can wipe them off with a paper towel. I've had my L-TEK penny modded for 8 months now and it's not showing any signs of wear; haven't even opened up the panels in like 3 months now because it hasn't had any issues.

Guys where is the best place to get a dance pad in the UK? For a mac/ pc :) any help would be great :)

Could I get a link to the Facebook group? I’m looking to finally get a better pad and upgrade from my Red Octane foam pad.

fwiw, i bought a blueshark in 2006 brand new and have only had to change out about half the sensors once - it uses arcade sensors and isn't a simple contact deal like other hard pads. i haven't used it in a while but it still works amazingly and has held together well. for a long time i was playing ~13s on it almost every day. if you can find one of these at a good price (sadly unlikely) it's a no-brainer. they're in a league all their own without a doubt. cobalt fluxes are also pretty good, but i really don't like their overall feel and form factor. really solid video otherwise!

lmao that's me on the p2 side at 17:51

5:07 “you can find one in the dumbster for free” 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Love this. I own a KCab that I run ExPro on. Fucking love it, almost as much as I loved my PIU GX when I had it. Thing was caked in dust but after a nice puke, I was able to clean it out real good. The screws on the pad suck though. Strip city incoming. No matter what cab you go with, expect to mod it or do some work. Put love into it and you will surely get love out.

a friend of mine wants to get into pad i asked him what he wants to play and he said he wants to work up to stamina. what should he get?

spbre el tiempo de respuesta al apretar un boton se peude mejorar?

Just out of curiosity why are red and white cabs not as good as black cabs. I personally can't play good on a black cab but I'm good at white and red cabs

ive been using a soft mat on plywood for 2 years now and i decided to try stamina for the first time and it is hard but im still playin it

My l-tek EX Pro 2 pads did not hold up. I have ghost hits when my foot leaves a panel on all 4 panels after about 4 months of use. Tried cleaning per manufacturer's instruction and no good. I don't do anything super crazy. A handful of pop songs that I may hit level 10 on but nothing insane.

hi... i m an old DDR player. i have an old Tx1000, can i upgrade it with frs sensor?

Does precision dance pads make pads anymore? I don't think so.

Welp, you just sold me on never buying consoles for a very long time

Review the Wooden DDR Pads by Andrew Buczko next please....they are definitely different looking....

What's the song in the itg pad transition? Very informative video; good work

Is there anywhere I can look for piu pads?

Thanks for posting this review. Leaning heavily on picking up a Pump it Up L-TEKish (maty-t) pad and be motivated to finally build a set up. Then if it works out, I will go from there whether to invest in AC pads, DDR Pads, etc as price and availability is still an issue... mostly availability.

Since the video didn't have a review on the DanceFit pads, I'll write up a short one about my experience with both DDR and PIU pads that I've owned in the past: *Availability:* A+ for people in South America, their website is 100% automated and will get you a brand new pad in a matter of weeks. C is reasonable for everyone else since shipping costs really doesn't make the product viable for its price. *Setup/Maintenance:* A, the pads have a built in USB board so everything is hassle free, it can run at 1khz if forced and I have many PFCs and FECs from using it. Maintenance is simple, requiring you to only clean the contact plates from black spots and any dust. The owner will also always assist you on issues, even if you bought the product many years ago. There are still pads working flawlessly to this day that were made nearly 7 years ago, including a Pump pad which I've owned earlier this year and passed onto a friend. *Performance:* B+ overall. I've climbed from low DDR levels (childhood skills) to ITG 13s and DDR 18s without having to mod the pad. I've been able to stage pass level 22s from Pump as well. Excellent for DDR, Pump, FA and low level stamina with shoes. I haven't seen anyone doing high level stamina on it and would honestly not recommend judging from the overall feel. *Sensor:* Large steel plates that covers the entire arrow panel, easily modifiable by sandwiching a layer of EVA foam (highly recommended!). Sensitivity gets really good and you are able to trigger it from everywhere. *Bar:* Extremely solid and with the perfect height! If it weren't for the thinness, I'd dare to say it's comparable to arcades bars in sturdiness and materials used. *Lights:* None at all, I've seen prototypes but they end up looking hideous. *Upgradability:* Enough room for FSR, velostat and possibly arcade sensors from Aliexpress. Wiring is very well done so controller board replacements are easy. If you want to, you can disassemble the entire pad as well. In all honesty, I genuinely wish I still had both of my previous pads after I moved to Canada, since their reliability and performance blows other legacy pads out of the water. I've also worked with DanceFit in the past to sell a few products, and it's fine to consider me biased towards their pads, but there are a few videos on my channel that demonstrates both DDR and PIU pads if you're curious.

DDR is played only in the middle of the pad now? Huh?

Found a precision dance pad for $60 used, I play ~11-13s on DDRA, is it worth picking up? I've been using a soft pad and I've gotten tired of it.

I know a local arcade that had their itg dedicab CRT shit out and they had to gut it out completely and replace it with a tacked on modern smart TV lmfao

Recently decided to get back into DDR/StepMania (as a hobbyist/beginner, not a high-level player) and I'm wondering which pad would be the best for my skill level and interest in the game. Clearly not any of the high-end/expensive options, just something better than my cheap 2010 DDRGame soft pad. What should I go with, especially with Christmas coming up?

**DID NOT EXPECT TO HEAR $UICIDEBOY$ IN THIS VIDEO

What was the name of the stamina player who plays on the modded Blueshark? I have a Blueshark myself and haven't seen another Blueshark player in over a decade. I'd love to check out his streams or videos.