Stepmania Online

1st I know most of you play on keyboard, you can ignore this and move on.

About me: Been playing Stepmania regularly for over a decade on pad and I absolutely love it. I'm not some bot posting junk for sale, just wanted to let anyone who may be in the market for good dance pads that these are available for sale.

If you're still reading and you've been looking for an amazing dance pad, I designed a super sweet pad and it's for sale at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Omega-GX-Single-P ... dance+pads

I am just getting started, I've sold about 25 pads so far, reviews have been extremely positive. I have a website: http://precisiondancepads.webs.com/

Also lots of videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOMDK_hD ... 7g&index=6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLXoCWw6 ... 7g&index=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dszdki_0 ... 7g&index=3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJIZaikL ... g&index=11

So far we've been backlogged on getting these built by about 2 weeks, someday I'd like to have an inventory and do this part time but right now we've been working hard at getting orders filled. Pretty soon the store on our website will be shut down and all orders will be processed through Amazon for better inventory control. Otherwise if you have questions or requests let me know. The Amazon site will be updated to add real photos and more details, the website will remain as it's full of useful information and our product manual.

- HellRazoR

I won a couple of SMO Pad tournaments many years ago, if there are any more I'd like to join them, especially now that I have a way better dance pad than I used to. If anyone wants to get together and play SMOnline with me, I'm down just PM me.

I have been following this pad for about a month on teh main stepmania website and i have to say, every video i see posted the more interested i get.

This pad seems very strange to me. I don't particularly understand how it can cost 300 dollars for a 1 cm thick pad. What is it made out of and how does it work?

Either way I'd rather play on a more arcade like pad. If there was a way to have an itg cabinet pad with usb that would be amazing.

I remember you from SMO.eu I believe. Nice to see your business is kicking off, I'll check out those videos a little later. Looks promising.

I was thinking something like this over the non-arrow portions of the pad.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... EwBQ&dur=8

this would give a recessed button feel.

Pretty cool.

I am more into the Arcade feel which is why I dumped so much money into making my ASC almost identical to ITG. (with usb of course). If I would have seen this before I started working on my cab I probably would have just put in a couple orders

Yeah, I have built three/four now. I scrapped all the other pad designs, and started from scratch. I went through three different sensor designs until I came up with the one in the video. It's completely adjustable and such a simple design. Now I just need to finish it...

I think it really cool what you are doing, but I need the arcade style feel

NOW AVAILABLE the OMEGA PX dance pad by Precision Dance Pads.





Will be on Amazon as well very soon.

This will serve as a truthful, critical, and in-depth review of the OmegaGX by HellRazor.

This review will be broken down into various categories in no particular order or precedence.

CUSTOMER SERVICE:

First and foremost I feel the most important aspect of any business model is to adequately and effectively communicate with customers in a way that both makes them feel valued as well as sought after, HellRazor (who i will now refer to as HR) is a professional and passionate individual. He was willing to answer my many questions and discuss ad nauseum his design implementations, materials used and other various characteristics of the Omega GX (now refereed to as the GX). His promptness in messages (the majority of which were via Facebook, which may or may not be his preferred method of communication) was very impressive as were is obvious dedication and enthusiasm regarding his product. First and foremost PR is a consumer of his product. He owns and plays every day on the ORIGINAL GX. The pad arrived in a Home Depot shipping box with a fair amount of box tape sealing the edges of the box. (the box was laid flat so the tape served as weather proofing as well as security. Shipping took about 4 days and arrived undamaged and ready to play.

PAD BUILD QUALITY:
This is certainly the most impressive aspect of the pad. The pad is constructed from a 35X35 inch piece of 1/4inch thick hardboard attached to a sheet of lexan. This material is optimal for a dance surface as it is highly impact resistant, flexible, and extremely durable with respects to abrasions and wear. A full surface image is under the lexan where the sensors rest sandwiched between the two main surfaces. The border of each pad is attached internally without screws and the pad is completely sealed from moisture and foreign debris entering the pad.
I honestly can not think of a way in which this pad would become damaged unless the user intentionally attempted to damage the pad in some way with either a sharp object or by putting the pad on its side and bending the pad until it snapped. The pad certainly has a homemade quality to it, but i am confident that it will stand up to the rigors of normal play and would experience no degradation from normal wear.

Aesthetics:
This is one aspect where the pad suffers slightly. This is partly a function of cost as well as not having access to a fabrication process for the pad. The images do not entirely line up, and the use of a home printer on what appears to be normal bond copy grade paper. There are instances of banding in the printed image especially in the black none arrow sections. The lexan is sealed around the edges which what appears to be black duct tape, but this only serves to seal the pad and is not the primary method of attachment and structure for the pad. This seal serves to eliminate the possibility of material becoming lodged inside the pad as well as maintaining a moisture barrier. Additionally where the image has been adhered to the lexan surface there are places where inconsistent amounts of spray adhesive was applied then appears to be wiped away. This in NO WAY affects the performance of the pad, and i believe can be fixed by raising the temperature of the adhesive (inside the can) by way of submersion in hot water (bath temp) before application. The overall different in appearance from the source images is best described as being less saturated and a bit inconsistent from the printing process. Again, these aspects are entirely cosmetic and will not have any material effect on game play


*The moment you have all been waiting for*

Performance.

For the sake of full disclosure, while I do play the majority of my songs on EXPERT, I am not an "expert" player. I am slowly AAing every song 9foot and below on ITG and working on my perfect attack (two aspects of my game that have increased since receiving this pad)

AMAZING!
I could simply end the review at this point and it would be entirely accurate, but this would not due the product justice. Some people are use to a raise or even recessed pad design and this pad is neither. The pad surface is entirely flat, but as opposed to a COBALT FLUX pad you can tell at ALL times where you are stepping due to the way the lexan is attached to the hardboard. Due to the full sized 11 inch sensors there are ZERO dead areas on the pad and only about 3.5 lbs of pressure are needed to activate the sensor. Passages where multiple steps occur in a row should pose no difficultly and the player should only be limited by his or her own skill level. I must say that at first the pad took a bit to get used to but the learning curve was almost nonexistent. I initially thought it would take a week to adjust, but within about 30 minutes i was passing songs i had not passed before, and scoring new personal bests. I struggled at first because using a soft pad i noticed that instead of a consistent pad surface there are places of extreme sensitivity and insensitivity. I felt as if it took a bit more to activate the sensors, but i later realized that this was only because i was not now playing with shoes and i was relying on the weight of the shoe rather than my own body weight and pressure to activate the sensors.

While my skill level is in no way representative of this pads ability i would like to however link to HR YouTube channel where you can find various videos featuring the GX as well as a bit of an insight to the style, and character of the creator.

http://www.youtube.com/user/hellrazor35?feature=watch

This is a test that i asked HR to perform on MY pad before it shipped. The pad shown is the first of the newly redesigned image.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRtzHr9eqv4

I will be starting an accomplishment thread so that if you want to track my progress as I develop my skill you can.

Also, if anyone has any questions that are not covered in this review, or if you reside in the Hampton Roads, VA area and would like to demo this pad i would be more than willing to allow you to try it out.