Hardware Review: Rock Band Portable Drum Kit
What do you do when you have an itch that only a rhythm game can scratch? Other than apply a topical cream or a suppository, you would have to pay EA or Harmonix around £100 to get some instruments to help you rock out, right? This was a problem with which I was recently faced thanks to the overwhelming urge to play some Rock Band. With very little money on hand, a quick look online found me a third party portable drum controller designed specifically for Rock Band for around £10. A few days later a small package arrived containing my Madcatz Drum Controller.
The kit itself is essentially a standard Rock Band drum kit without the plastic and metal stand. So the pads and kick pedal can move freely, which can cause a few problems. I was actually quite surprised by the overall quality of the hardware itself; for the price I was expecting something very cheap and incredibly flimsy. The pads and kick pedal have a good weight to them, which would suggest they can actually withstand the abuse your drumsticks will assault it with. The kick pedal has a good solid feel to it and the drums actually seem a little quieter than the original Rock Band kit.
As mentioned before there is no stand with this package, and this can cause problems with finding a good place to put the pads. The instructions provided suggest a flat surface like a table, however I find the pads much easier to hit if they are slightly tilted towards you (like they are on the official kit) which lead me to set up an elaborate system of pulleys and levers to find the best playing setup. Also, the pads do have a tendency to move about during play and you are likely to find yourself chasing the kick pedal across the floor.
All of the parts of the controller are wired separately to the navigation panel which has its own USB cable to plug into your console. This means you end up with a lot of wires that are just dying to get tangled up, but these are only minor issues.
Be prepared for wires
In all I found this hardware to be a good cheap alternative to the official kit, which can set you back anywhere upto £60. The small issues it has can start to annoy as you have to constantly rearrange the pads into a comfortable position after every song. The kit does all pack away neatly into a much smaller space than official drums, so if you are living somewhere with limited space then maybe this product is a good idea. For anyone else, if you have the room and the money, by all means opt for the official drums. But if for some reason you can’t get them, perhaps you’re averse to spending so much on plastic peripherals or are just too cheap to pay for it then this is a pretty good package.
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Those things look hideous, i think pretty much no one will buy those, itll probly be more of a pain to set up on a decent surface than to just use the proper kit.