I originally published this guide on Angelfire in May 2004, under the name "PenguinLord". I moved it here in January 2025 for safekeeping. I've cleaned it up a little bit but, if you like, you can see the unedited original guide.
Why modify a soft pad? My primary reason is to make the pad more stable and easier to dance on. A modified pad slips less than just a regular pad, which gives you a huge edge in playing. No more crumpled up pads sliding around making you lose your place.
Here's what the finished product looks like:
You'll need:
The tools:
Test the soft pad to make sure it works properly! Once it's encapsulated, there's no going back.
The vinyl hardwood floor covering is used for two things: to cover the pad for protection and security, and raised "bumps" under the arrows that will help you to feel around the board when you're dancing.
If the kind you bought was anything like mine, it will be a little over two feet wide, which is not nearly enough to fully cover a DDR pad in either direction. So we're going to have to cut two lengths, which will be put across the board horizontally, and then taped together (this works surprisingly well).
The vinyl is probably rolled up and wants to stay that way, so roll it up backwards and hold it for a few seconds to get it to flatten out a bit, which makes it much easier to work with. Place it horizontally across the board and cut a length that has about two inches extra on either side of the board. Any more extra than this is a waste, because you're just going to cut it off. For reference, the strips I cut were 39 inches long (35 inch wide board + 2 inches extra on each side).
Measure and cut a second length of vinyl.
Set the two strips of vinyl horizontally across the board so that they overlap a bit in the middle. Personally, I don't like the feel of the overlap in the center of the board, but if you don't mind it, it makes things a lot easier. Just tape them together with clear packaging tape, making sure that you use one long piece across the top so that there are no corners to peel up while you dance on it. If you do mind the overlap, you're going to have to lay the two edges together and tape a bit more carefully. I recommend that you tape the bottom first, using short strips to tape vertically to hold it together, and then long pieces horizontally to finish the job. The top only needs a single long piece, because the bottom tape should hold it together well enough.
The tape pattern for the back of the vinyl, shown in red for visibility:
The tape pattern for the front of the vinyl:
Set all that aside for now.
With the remaining 3 1/2 feet of vinyl, you should be able to cut 8 squares that are 9 inches by 11 inches. Putting two of these together provides a subtle but helpful bump underneath each arrow. If you find that the bump is too subtle (and it may very well be), you can try three squares under each, but that would require more vinyl to begin with. Set the squares aside until after the next section.
Take the DDR pad out of the box, unfold it and flatten it out as best you can. It would be best if you could lay it out and put the board on top of it for a while, so that it will lie perfectly flat when you're building your pad. I highly recommend doing this, because you don't want your measurements to be off.
Remember to test your pad to make sure it's working correctly before you keep going!
Once you've got your pad all nice and flattened out, put it on top of the board, centered as much as possible on the board. When you get it aligned, use a pencil to trace lines around each corner, and also along the top of the control box, that way if the pad slips while you're building it, you can put it back right where it used to be.
Now here comes a somewhat difficult part. You need to get the bumps aligned underneath the arrows and attached to the board. The way I did it was to leave the pad on the board, and slide two vinyl squares underneath the arrow, and feel around until it's in the right place. Then lift the pad while being careful not to move the squares, and duct tape them down. If you have some old crappy duct tape somewhere around your house, use that, and save the nice colored duct tape for the outside, but you'll probably have enough either way, so it doesn't really matter.
When you're done taping the squares down, make sure you put the pad back down exactly where it was (use the guides you drew), so that the first arrow isn’t different when you put down the next one, and so on for all four arrows.
They don't look very straight in my picture, and I'm sure you can do a better job than I did, but in the end it doesn't really matter, as long as they're pretty close to the arrows, your feet won't really be able to tell the difference.
Now it's time to tape the pad down to the board. This is somewhat of an involved process. The thing to keep in mind while you do it is that you want the pad to be as stretched out as possible. In some pads, the bottom foam is a bit bigger than the top sheet, which means if you do it wrong, you'll have a big wrinkle underneath your pad when it's done, and it'll feel weird and annoying.
Start with the bottom arrow and work your way up, taping as you go. Put carpet tape down on the wood, around the arrow.
Once you tape the bottom edge down, do the center (I forgot to take a picture, but it's just four strips in the center, avoiding the very middle where you stand a lot), and then move to the top. Be sure to pull the pad and kind of "roll" it down onto the tape, instead of just putting it down flat, which will result in wrinkles.
When you've got it taped all the way down, walk on it a little bit just to make sure that the arrows still match up to the bumps and there's no annoying wrinkles in the bottom foam. The carpet tape is probably secure enough to let you play a song, just to give it a try (but be careful not to go crazy and rip the pad off the tape), because after the next step there's no going back without ruining your vinyl cover.
Now it's time to whip out the staple gun. This step is also a bit tricky, because if your vinyl is like mine, then it's pretty thick and difficult to manage, and still wants to curl up at the edges. While you're doing this, be sure not to tear the packaging tape that's holding the two pieces of vinyl together.
First cut up some little bits of duct tape to hold the vinyl to the wood while you staple it.
Set the board up on its edge, and drape the vinyl over the edge with just enough hanging over to staple it down. You want to staple to the side of the board, not the bottom, because there's no way the vinyl will folder over all the way underneath the pad. You don't have too much room to work with it, but the closer you get it to the edge, the less you'll have to cut off later.
Once it's secured well enough, you can start stapling it down every couple of inches. If they don't go in all the way, use a hammer to bang them in.
Flip the board over. Pull the vinyl as tight as you can and staple it down while holding it in place. Put a staple in the middle first, then near the edges, and then put some in the middle. Make sure that it's evenly taught in all places. It's difficult to work with the vinyl, and taping it down doesn't really work because when you pull it tight, the tape isn't strong enough to hold it and it will unstick. Just staple it while you're pulling it and it will hold.
Now trim the extra vinyl off the edge, getting it as close as you can. You don't want the vinyl to wrap all the way around the edge of the board, just down the side, so it looks like the first edge.
Cut small notches in the bottom corners of the vinyl so the bottom will fold over nicely, and then staple that down in the same fashion as you did the second side of the board, then trim the edge.
Move to the top of the board. Cut out a space for the blue control box at the top of the pad, and cut notches in the corners again, then fold over, staple and trim.
Current status:
Bust out your duct tape. Hopefully you got a nice color (mine is red). Cut lots of short little strips and tape down the bulges in the vinyl between the staples that appear along all four edges. Make sure that none of the strips go past the border of your pad in the front. Tear some small strips in half to tape down the corners, then tape longer strips down the sides, about half of the tape on each edge. Do your best to tape around the edge of the control box. Use clear packaging tape on the bottom of the control box if you want, or colored duct tape works just the same.
Flip the board over and put long strips of tape on all the bottom edges. Only use one long strip per edge, to minimize the number of places the tape can start coming up. Do the same to the front, so that the tape just covers the green border of the pad so you can’t see it anymore. As one final touch, tape the corners diagonally.
