Man, I love stuff like this. Ars Technica just posted a review of the GM-1 system from Omega Music Technologies, and it sounds like a pretty sweet package. The idea is that you equip a set of real drums and cymbals with special sensors that detect hits, and an included module converts the movement of the drum head into game data.

It’s definitely a niche-of-a-niche sort of thing, especially since you also need a Guitar Hero World Tour kit or MadCatz’s portable drum kit to actually get the thing working with the games. And at $250, it doesn’t come cheap. But the upside is that the module appears to output MIDI, so you could conceivably use it to do electronic recording with your own acoustic kit. (Trust me, MIDI is a hell of a lot easier to set up for home recording than a fully miked kit.)

The company also helpfully sells drum sets to go along with the GM-1, including the Pearl Rhythm Traveler, a starter kit that comes with a set of mesh heads for quiet practice…which also happen to be ideal for use with games.

And how does it work? Ars seems to dig it quite a bit, in spite of the lengthy setup time and high cost of entry. I think I might have to hunt down one for myself.

Check out the manufacturer’s video of this thing in action after the break.

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