Be sure to tell your Drunk friends to be nice to the flimsy Strat and you will be rockin for a long time, permitted nobody spills beer or pukes on it.

static

We wanted to drop in and let every one know about our new strummer solution for the Rock Band Guitars. We have tried to make it as Installation friendly as possible. No wires need to be cut. Currently it is compatible with Generation 1, 3, and 3.1 Strum Bar Hardware. But Generation 2 and 4 are not far behind. See our site OR email us for questions regarding compatibility. Generation 1 is the one which everyone has been returning the most. Our solution clicks big and loud just like the old guitars because it uses the same switches. We think those little click switches have proven their endurance. Plus we believe Rock Band should be cranked to the point where you just hear a faint click anyway

The Kit is very non invasive and can be un-installed just as easy. With this upgrade ALL mush goes out the door and the Strum Bar returns to center just as good as the old guitars. Please give us a look.

[www.maxaxxe.com]

MaxAxxe

Here's the response I received from EA Support:
"I have checked the status of your replacement "Billing Info. Received" and it appears that it is still in the process. I apologize for the delay, and I assure you that we are doing everything we can to get replacement orders processed and shipped out as quickly as possible. Beyond that, we do not have the ability to provide any more detailed information with regards to the status of the shipping."

If you still have the box you're better off returning to the store for quick and immediate replacement!

qztwds

Very Disappointed

buckster

There is no charge involved -- but you will need to install the replacement yourself (takes about 30 minutes) and provide feedback to us.

BTW, by my calculations, the original switches in the guitar will typically fail after 50-100 songs ! (Depending on how hard you use it). Overall the guitar is pretty well designed and built, but the original strum bar switch is really sub-standard.

ByteArts

eynonbill

Lemanski

[www.rockbandsucks.com]

Let's have our concerns be heard.

petesfamily

Parrish

Parrish

pepperdog

yourused

But about Rock Band:
The Mic software is fine, but hard for people who can actually sing because well most of those people have their own singing voice which is the opposite of what you need for Rock Band, try singing like Ozzy not yourself :)

The Guitars:
My PS3 version works fine but my friend's stopped after the second day. Yeah EA is taking care of it, but honestly I'm at the point where I have to say F*ck EA. It's as if they want to rush as many products as they can with no quality control, what a shame.

The Drums:
BEST PART of the game. I dabble on a real set and I have to say, on expert, it feels about as real as you can get for a game. Great idea and nice feel.

duhduh

ilovemikey3

ilovemikey3

TehBoognish

Aybabtu

And yes, I had a Super Nintendo that plugged on for years, but my NES got a little touchy. It worked most of the time though.

So you have NO RIGHT to rail on people who are understandably upset when they shell out hundreds for something that is broken almost immediately!

youwantedahero

Of the three people I know who have Rock Band for the 360, all of the guitars stopped working within a week.

youwantedahero

but i am a terrrrrrrrrrrible singer and I can knock that shit out, 97 - 100% every time. are you paying attention to the pitch arrow? or maybe you're singing too late; some tv setups do create a lag. I played RB over at a friend's house and I literally had to sing a quarter of a second early - that's how long the lag was.

oh and p.s. - my strat broke the first day I had it, too.

youwantedahero

lelandbhmn

uncwtgood

dystopia75

NOW AVAILABLE ON EBAY!!

[cgi.ebay.com]

I recently broke my bass pedal, and thanks to my shop i have i made a metal diamond plated reinforment and bolted it to my broken bass pedal. it works beautifully and probably can never be broken. I was looking to make some money out of this and want to start mass producing it if people are finding problems with their bass pedal lacking good reinforcment. i was thinking about selling the diamond reinforcment with 6 bolts for $15 dollars not including shipping. Let me know if you are interested or what you think.

-Derek
rasehead@netscape.net

Click the Link for picture on ebay.
i took out three of the bolts so you can see where they go and how nicely they blend in with the pedal, when the bolts are in there is no discomfort to your feet at all

cartar121

COLDBLOODED_BMC

COLDBLOODED_BMC

yashichi8bit

AgainstOne

Smidget

karnag3

It's sorta like a customer service job. Even if you play the same songs at every concert, you have to remember that to the fans...it may be the first time they've seen it live.

TRT-X

Luckily, I've been beating the hell out of these drums for almost a week now and my only complaint is that I suck at bass pedal (doesn't feel shit's worth like a real bass pedal, not enough kick back.) My brother though, has been having a hell of a time, now only able to up-pick.

On that note though, I payed a visit to EA's warranty replacement site earlier today and I will be receiving a new controller in two days, the only hitch is that they are taking a safety deposit, which I will be refunded. Hopefully they fixed the connector on this, and if not- I'll know with-in a week. Worst case scenario, I break down and buy Guitar Hero 3 for the 360, something I've been avoiding means I have two controllers for the PS2. This separation of Harmonix from Read Octane/Activision has been both bad and good, in that order from those companies :P (I don't like EA, but EA most certianly has more money to throw around at something like this than Activision does.)

Ichigo Style

AgainstOne

A lot of people (me included) are pretty gentle with the controllers. I just use my thumb to downstrum on it and I don't thrash at all. The controller is of poor quality.

It says something when the same story seems to come from everyone: You get a good several hours out of it, maybe 6-10, and then the strum bar stops working correctly. Either double-registering or not registering notes. It's obvious that it's not an issue of not being "used to it yet," as most people aren't complaining about the strum bar sucking right out of the box.

Huckleberry

samuraisul

samuraisul

samuraisul

worrpyro

Huckleberry

kidko

t0nic

Genra

No guitar or mike issues.

We've played about 15 hours so far and everything is holding up well.

Alershka

My strumbar went out too, and I know how to strum a guitar, and I take very good care of my stuff. It's a manufacture problem, and it's a result of poor quality testing.

Sad too, because I love the style, the fret buttons, the solo frets, and the silent strum. I'm not as crazy about how far out the strumbar sticks compared to other guitar controllers, but ah well. Hopefully they'll change the way they build the strumbar mechanism so that this problem is corrected.

seafisch

Pornosaur

theskeels

Phoenixfire1185

BruzeWayne

rlh445

theskeels

sbigthumbs

You win at the internet!

EnigmaNemesis

JayDiggler

Chris Taran

Went through EA's online customer service, and apparently my replacement will ship tomorrow.

FP mind in rewind

ProsumeThis

Unclelumpies

Unclelumpies

And i know how to play a guitar now.... go figure.

paulca82

AaronMD

Unclelumpies

ビッグ ボス

Unclelumpies

Evil Stick Man

Guitar down strum is boned. Acted up after about 2 hours or play. We switched to the Xplorer and there has been no problem.

Drums. I have good rhythm. I can play the drums. There are points where it just quits on you. Mostly the red head. Yellow SOMETIMES, but mostly red. At first I thought I was just not getting it, but there it was showing up again and again during a perfect session and then it quits for like 5 or 6 hits.

Love the game, hate the accessories. I am calling for my replacements ASAP.

BrywalkerX

Y2Jason

fleshribbon

You didn't try turning the control pad on when you wanted to use the mic, did you?

KaneRobot

KaneRobot

Problem is, these sponges aren't actually glued down and can be moved easily. Playing it after a while makes keeps the sponge compressed and not recoil, resulting in the double strum (which is just the switch being kept down) or non responsiveness.

Hopefully I'll figure out if there's a homebrew solution that involves using something stronger than a sponge...

asangurai

zwick78

I've heard most of the problems have been limited to the 360 version, but if you think about it the ratio of different Rock Band versions sold is about 5:1 in favor of the 360. So word of mouth isn't a very valid factual reference...lol, is it ever? No.

TMcClain

nyone else play the band tour and notice you play the same songs over and over and over and over..I think we played Sabatoge about 35 times in an hour of playing. Borring.

That is what bands do though.

/shrug

EnigmaNemesis

Piblo

AgainstOne

i just got off the phone with the warranty service. i decided to give them a call to see how long the wait would be before i packed it up and returned it to the store. he said they would 2nd-day air mail me a new guitar and drum kit monday, so i would get it wednesday. i'm cool with that.

AgainstOne

monkeysaresilly

Ed_209

FrumiousB

LesPaulJr

obviously the new one looks cooler, but it doesnt function as well.

dh4645

lulufinder

FigNewton

It helps that EA is 2-day shipping me a replacement for completely frees just on my statement that the strummer doesn't work, so I'll cope, really I will. I have my Xplorer anyway, so it's not a complete loss.

(On a site note: did anyone notice the 360 Les Paul has a battery door on the back? Open the little panel on the back, the one held by a screw. It holds like three AAs. For what purpose, I wonder?)

Linnard

I fixed it though. I opened up the back of the guitar and saw the sensor for it. All it is are these 2 tweezer-like metal prongs that contact each other. THere are two of these, one for downstrum and one for upstrum. Just by strumming, i can see that the downstrum required more travel in order to get the tweezer sensors to close together. I just used a very small piece of M3 stick-it paper (the part w/ the adhesive), folded over once, and jammed it behind a prong. This makes the prong closer together for the downstrum making it more sensitive so that it takes much less travel for it to sense the strum. This fix brought it back to its original sensitivity. If you want more sensitivitiy, you can use 4 layers of paper (fold the paper twice) to make the prongs super close to each other.

mkygod

Grahamunculus

I'd settle for a subdued tone vs. none at all.

TRT-X

OGHowie

My guitar seems to work fine for now, but the strum is a whole lot harder to hit than any of the GH guitars. I even had to go down a level on some songs, 'cause I just couldn't hit some of the notes as easily as I used too.

Just on this topic, so many people have been reporting problems / design flaws on their guitars. I really don't think it's something that unusual anymore. Guitars feel cheap and uncomfortable, and they don't even work on Best Buy when they've been out for a few days, and the GH units work great and they've been out for weeks. What gives?

This really sucks, as we had to pay a lot of money for this, and not all of us have extra guitars.

@splines: Amen to that. Somebody had to step up and shut the hell out of this guys. For God's sake, it's just a game. Whether you use it as a form of entertainment or escapism, it's just a fucking game.

@EVERYONE IN THE PHOENIX AREA
The have more than 30+ copies of the game over at the BB in Thunderbird and 17 as of a few hours ago!

FlameEye

of course the store was sold out so I could not return it.

EA is sending me a new one, 3-5 business days they say.

the fender is a POS in my opinion.. it feels cheap and very fragile. (it even sounds like something is rattling around inside it)

the les paul and x-plorer are WAAAY better.

cologne

FP Shindokie

Yamster

I guess there was a reason they included that pink sheet of paper in the box "in the unlikely event" a piece of hardware malfunctions.

TheRockingDead

Aragashi

petedmeatv

I love this game so far and it is 100% better than GHIII in my opinion. I actually get bored playing GH with friends, but Rock Band is fresh and the social aspect of it is amazing.

Doomstink

Wubbytoes

Karlott

About the drums, I was hitting them really softy because it's late and I didn't want to wake anyone up, but they seemed to hit maybe half the time. Which I guess could be expected with how gentle I was being. I'm not worried about the functionality of the drums, but I am worried about the noise. I took a few practice strokes to see how they'd respond to a fuller force, and they responded great, but it seemed quite loud to me. Nobody in the apartment woke up, though, so I guess during the day, when I can turn the sound in the game up and rock out, it may not be noticeable to anyone outside my room.

But the controller... I'm very disappointed. I was really looking forward to having a second guitar, but this isn't much of an improvement over the original GH 2 guitar for 360. The whammy bar seems better, and I like the placement of the select & start buttons better, the whole thing looks MUCH better, and I like the addition of the higher buttons on the neck. But the strum bar doesn't seem durable or fully responsive (which is VERY important, unfortunately), and the vertical tilt sensor seems to want the guitar ALL THE WAY UP, where it was more lenient with the other controller. I'll have to try the microphone later.

baked ham

So, out of interest, when are you buying a fedora and going to explore a tropical island for reals?

Since you'd have to be a complete tard to want to play a game that only simulates the fucking experience, right?

Right?

splines

Sollus

Ditto! I've only played for maybe 4-5 hours so far though..

def PD

I had two main problems.

1. Pretty minor. The orange fret would randomly light up once in a while.

2. The Wireless Signal Receptor/Dongle is completely broken. The guitar is fine as far as I can tell, the dongle just won't send a signal or receive power.

So I've got to get a whole replacement guitar.

Kirbytheslayer: In-Kirby XMB

My guitar only down strums, which I guess means it will be a good bass until they send a replacement.

Eman311

Got to say i like the new strum bar being less like a button and more like picking a note.

weasl

It's been a day and people's guitars are breaking in a very specific manner.

One day.

Even if you've been doing nothing but wailing on your plastic guitar for 24 hours, it's unexcusable. We are talking about a controller that people are going to wail on. People have been wailing on other plastic guitars for years now with no problems. Harmonix/EA should have built it to withstand a reasonable amount of punishment. If they didn't, they deserve the backlash they receive. If their QA on their instruments was poor and a lot of defective parts got through, they deserve the backlash they receive. It looks like they rushed Rock Band for Christmas, and now they're going to pay, both in terms of PR and in terms of replacement instruments.

I have an equally long list of old electronics that still work, and I don't buy the line that these people are just abusing their electronics. I'm currently in the process of getting my manufacturer-provided replacement MP3 player replaced because the replacement they sent me for my original broken player was broken as well. It's a Creative Zen, by the way. Don't tell me that I broke my Zen before I even got it. And it's not just one guy saying that his guitar is busted. Read the link.

This personally does not surprise me. I was totally psych'ed for Rock Band until I played the guitar at Best Buy. Cheap and shoddy. I also remember that the drums disappeared after a day of being on display. I think I know why now. I would blame EA, but from everything I've read, EA doesn't have that much of a say in the game, they just publish it.

thenino85

Unfortunately in this case my guitar is busted too. After about 6 hours it started double strumming on every down strum. I like the GH3 controller better anyway, but now I don't have a guitar for my bassist...

CrunchBite

Double J

Benguin

exo

*My launch 360 is purring right along.
*I have never thrown a wiimote threw a television
*my 4 other fake plastic guitars all work perfect
*my original nes plays just fine
*my ps3 has never locked, crashed, or gained unearthly amounts of dust

My point? One guy has a problem, and everybody jumps on the bitchy-bandwagon.

Over half these problems wouldn't be problems if people took care of their crap.

And those of you who use articles like this as justification as to why your glad you haven't purchased it yet - your simply missing out on great games just because you enjoy being cynical asses and providing a "mee-too" voice on the comments page.

exo

FigNewton

peet

XRA

*knocks on wood*

EnigmaNemesis

Nice that they offer "Express" exchange.

mojoald

And of course while the problem might have something to do with being a demo at Wal Mart, the controller did in fact feel flimsy compared to the Guitar Hero guitars. It's abundantly clear that Red Octane was the real brains behind the peripheral.

Benguin

TRT-X

@usfslacker:
I was at a Best Buy in MN today, they had (and I'm not exaggerating) a dozen 360 versions and another dozen at least of the PS3 version.

TRT-X

looks like my les paul and x-plorer will be gettin some more lovin.

presto117

So yeah, this isn't an EA problem. Unless EA sabotaged my guitar six months ago. I bet they did.

elevenoverzero

FP mind in rewind

Last_Raven

MrMerkin

StupidDufus

4dSwissCheese

TOCATL

I don't think I'm even going to buy RB until they fix the compatibility issues with the GH3 guitars on PS3. I don't care who needs to fix it, or what they need to do to fix it, but I'm buggered if I'm spending more cash on peripherals when it just seems these guys made incompatible equipment to leverage sales of their own bundles.

Doshu

If you are in that short of a supply, LAUNCH WHEN YOU HAVE ENOUGH FUCKING UNITS. I hope this problem isn't for PS3 owners too though, I hear they don't have any other option...

usfslacker

Xanto5824

And so, like the dutiful consumer that I am, I went and picked up Rock Band on launch day. But I wasn't able to open it up that night and now I'm glad as can be that I didn't. I just got back from Best Buy, where I returned my unopened Rock Band bundle. They still had three palettes worth of the bundles there.

Deviation59

qBIRD

Pegleg Joe

PREMONITION

Robbotron

But seriously, that sucks. I'd have thought they'd playtest these things more seriously for such a popular game. Good luck all of you waiting for replacements!

fuchikoma

I've seen plenty of reports that probably tend towards either a minor design flaw, or a batch with a construction flaw. In either case, if someone has been able to do a gut transplant between a PS2 and 360 Guitar Hero controller, someone on the internets will find a simple fix involving a toothpick and a dab of hot glue or something.

Jazhuis

I wanted the Fender to work out soooo much but once the paddle failed I slapped in the Les Paul and the scores went right up. Its sad but Harmonix needed Red Octane on that guitar controller. You shouldn't have to handle a controller like a piece of fine china. It really needed some more durability tests.

DasKonstruct

SickNic

Americo

l0stn0tfound

Ed-the-Third

detraya

JesseLacey

detraya

Big_Adam

So was the one at my local Walmart.

fyre

I've also noticed that the drums don't always register hits.

TRT-X

No official statement on this though.

DAK

Ed-the-Third

ffmusicdj

Ed_209

optimoose

LOL!

DigitalHero