Okay, here’s the scoop on a couple of franchises I’m getting into very soon. (Yes, I’m getting both. No, you’re not going to convince me otherwise.)
First off, I’ll establish that I already have the “single instrument” GH’s for the PS2 (first game, 2, Encore, 3: Legends of Rock, and Aerosmith). I’m going to branch into the other elements for the current-gen system I have my eyes on right now.
Issue 1: Which drum kit? I’ve heard that they all should be compatible with GH, so, all else being equal, I think the old RB1 kit would do just fine. I just want some arm exercise; I’m not hardcore about scoring or anything. The Guitar Hero World Tour drum set looks good (and is wireless, a defintite plus in my cluttered space), but I’ve heard about problems with detection and sensitivity, and that it’s too hard to fire up Star Power. Also, I’d like to avoid pressure-senstiive if possible; too many headaches (hello, Mad Maestro!). How is the Rock Band 2 one? Should I wait for Guitar Hero 5 before making comparisons?
Issue 2: Which game to start, i.e. get the whole kit with? This brings the guitar and microphone into play. The one I have (a Nyko Front Man) works fine, but I’d really like one with dedicated solo buttons, especially for RB. I’ve played the GH controller with the neck slider, and I completely fail to see the point.
Gamestops are everywhere on this island, so finding used games is never a problem. Right now, I’m leaning toward getting a complete RB set, then adding things as necessary.
I have the Rock Band drums and the Guitar Hero World Tour drums. The Rock Band drums work ok in GH, but the GH drums are annoying in Rock Band. The pad and cymbal mapping is odd, and you can’t change it. That said, the GH drums are fun in GH.
The Rock Band 1 drums are noisy, so you’d need pads, and the pedal breaks, so you’d need a pedal reinforcing plate. So I’d say get the Rock Band 2 drums, they’re reasonably quiet and have a reinforced pedal, and you can buy optional cymbals even though they’re of dubious value.
The complete RB2 set would get you going fine, and you can no doubt pick up a copy of GH:WT for $20 or so.
I have both types of drums and I can’t play the RB drums any more because the GH drums are so much better. I’m not sure what you mean about avoiding the pressure sensitive drums as they have no bearing at all on the game so that shouldn’t matter in any way to you. The GH drums work fine for RB, but I do completely remove the orange cymbal from the kit when I play RB to keep from hitting it instinictively. The sensitivity on my GH drums was fine but I had to get my yellow cymbal replaced (for free and in a couple days) because it stopped responding.
The RB drums are much less sensitive and mis strikes for me pretty regularly. I tried using them in GHWT before I bought the GH drums and it sucked. The note tracks just don’t match well to the RB kit IMHO.
My wife is an avid drum player in the game. She loves the Rock Band 2 set and uses it for both games. She despises the Guitar Hero kit. The Rock Band 2 drums are greatly improved over the RB1 set so make sure you get those if you decide to go with Rock Band drums.
For guitars, we both greatly prefer GH controllers to the Rock Band ones. The favorite around my house by far is the wireless Les Paul that came with Guitar Hero 3.
If you really like drumming, the Ion drum rocker is way, way ahead of either game’s peripheral. It’s basically an entry level real electronic drum kit with an xbox interface.
Annoyingly, though, GHWT treats it like a rb1 drum kit even though it has more instruments than the GHWT kit and could easily play full featured. Since GHWT uses really stupid mapping (the crash cymbal is mapped to blue when playing in RB compatability mode) it’s not all that great a playing experience. I’ve barely touched GHWT and I wouldn’t have bought it if I had known this ahead of time. They won’t be seeing any more of my money. RB2 is fully compatable though - it detects all 8 instruments and properly distinguishes a pad from a cymbal. One of the 8.6 million reasons rock band is way better.
Last I looked into this issue, you couldn’t use one guitar controller with the other game. Has this been resolved? Do I need to buy something or download some kind of patch?
I’m seeing all kinds of opinions here, so I’d best be a little more specific about what I’m after.
For a drum kit, my #1 issue is reliability, with comfort being a close second. (My hands tend to tighten up while I’m holding a drum controller, especially bad for wide sticks like Percussion Master’s; sticks that fit my hands comfortable and can be used for several songs in a row without a knuckle aching or a palm falling asleep are a must.) I also find it extremely annoying to have to constantly stomp on a pedal, so I’d like this kept to a medium. I don’t mind pressure-senstiive pads making different sounds, but if I have to use a certain pressure to get the note right, forget it. (It looks like this isn’t the case, it’s just for fun, like the whammy bar most of the time)
If I go with the RB2 kit, which has four pads, does this mean that I’m going to be stomping like a madman in GHWT? Would activating Star Power be inconvenient?
The RB2 guitar has neck buttons for “solos”. As I understand it, during a designated solo section in RB, you can just hit the neck buttons without needing to strom. Just for those sections, however. How do these buttons work for regular sections? Do they?
Are the microphones pretty much the same? I’m not going to be doing a lot of singing, but how close to the actual lyrics do I have to be?
I can mix and match pretty much anything I have to.
They work just like regular buttons during normal sections. I know a player who uses them all the time.
I’ve never tried the GHWT mic but I have tried a few other USB mics. (Rock Band, Karaoke Revolution, Sing Star) I’ve never noticed any difference between the various ones.
Neither kit is very reliable. I know that when GHWT launched, the reliability of their drum kit was very low - the things broke left and right. I don’t know if they have a second generation of hardware to address the issue.
The RB1 drum kit pedal snaps in half regularly. The pads will wear out over time too.
The RB2 kit is improved in reliability, but I don’t know how reliable it is.
The Ion kit is totally reliable - I’ve never heard of one breaking. I beat the hell out of mine and it has never had a complaint. It’s more comfortable too - both since you’re hitting actual silicon/rubber drum pads with some bounce and because you can customize their height, angle, etc.
The pedal always maps to the bass drum, so you shouldn’t be using it any more or less between the games (aside from the differences in music of course).
And yeah, the pressure sensitivity is just for fun - you’re not graded for it. It only comes into play during freeplay segments.
I think you would just hit the two middle pads on a rb1 kit, or the yellow/blue cymbals (or pads) on the ion.
I want to say the buttons work for regular sections, but you have to strum them - I think the tutorial said that little kids with small hands can play that way - but I’ve never actually tried it myself. During solos you can tap the buttons with no strumming.