The last few weeks I’ve been putting up some fairly chin-strokey questions, so let’s do something more direct today:
Have you ever had to replace or repair any of your music game controllers?
I’ve been fairly lucky in this regard: My original Rock Band instruments started getting a little wonky right when Rock Band 2 came out, and I was planning on upgrading anyway. My Guitar Hero World Tour guitar got squeaky and sticky, but WD-40 fixed that pretty easily. (Oh, and my World Tour drum kit was one of those with messed up sensitivity, but the tuning software fixed that right up.)
The only real problem I’ve had so far where I considered outright replacing the instrument was when a couple buttons on my RB2 guitar started losing sensitivity. But this thread in the Rock Band forums helped me make the guitar stronger, faster, smarter. Well, not smarter. But the other two.
How about you?
I bought RB right around launch. The guitar had a flaky blue fret that died completely within a few weeks. The replacement guitar has held up, as has the second (wireless) guitar I got later.
The drums had the common oversensitivity problem that made quick snare hits not register; applying electrical tape worked pretty well. The foot pedal snapped in half after a year of heavy use (or maybe just under a year– they didn’t make me pay to replace it).
I got GHWT drums on clearance, and I seem to have to whack the cymbals pretty hard to make them register, but I don’t know if that’s by design.
Out of all of my music game controllers, there has only been two that have been messed up. One controller that I considered replacing was my guitar hero 3 les paul but luckily enough, I ended up trading my ps3 sixaxis controller with a guitar hero world tour guitar with my friend who was selling it to replace that unresponsive piece of junk. The other was my rock band controller but at that point, I didn’t really care much about it considering that I already had the world tour controller and a nyko frontman.
Until a few months back, the only controller problem I had was the RB1 drum pedal broke, but the RB2 drums had been available for a short while, so I used it as an excuse to buy the better drums.
Most recently, that same RB2 drums suddenly stopped working with the drum pedal. Everything else works on the drums, just not the pedal. I haven’t actually replaced them yet (I don’t want to buy brand new drums, but ebay has ‘em for reasonably cheap last I looked), though.
The red button on my RB2 guitar was a bit sticky after a few months. Eventually downstrumming wouldn’t always register, making the guitar unusable.
I broke two of the RB2 pedals, the second one breaking after roughly 10-15 hours of play, that was disappointing.
My RB2 drums’ red pad had a pretty large air bubble. I didn’t want to mess around with cutting the pad so I was able to get around the issue with a combo of pad silencers and tape. The silencers themselves are disintegrating a bit but they’ve lasted a very long time and still have tons of life in them.
The center of the cymbals of the Double Cymbal Expansion eventually ripped, so the cymbals had no more support, this was also after a large amount of time. The next pair I bought seems sturdier.
I’ve had many guitars. Started with 2 rockband 1 guitars, each of which broke repeatedly. One I repaired with a third party strum replacement and I still use that guitar, which also has a rubber band to make the whammy bar work since the spring broke. The other also has strum issues and a broken whammy bar. I also was given a Gene Simmons guitar, which lasted ~6-8 months before the whammy bar spring broke. I also had a Nyko guitar which was fairly solid but was broken by a PS3 firmware update.
Seems ridiculous to me that $60 plastic guitars have a lifespan measured in months, but a used $60 actual wooden guitar can last years. Something’s wrong with their manufacturing/design/engineering.
My Rock Band 2 drums came with the yellow and blue pads not springy at their respective 12 oclock positions. Had to warranty them. As for the pedal, I have never warrantied one, cuz when I first got Rock Band, I heard about them breaking. So with my RB1 kit, I bought a billet aluminum replacement pedal and figured why wait for it to break?
For my RB2 kit i ditched the pedal again, and bought an aftermarket pedal at BB that looks more like a real pedal setup, and the tension is created by pulling on a spring vs pushing. Much more realistic, and waaay more responsive.
One of my MAd Cat Cymbals didnt work, so I had to warranty that. As for the guitars, I have never had any problems with them. (knock on wood)
I’ve gone through three plastic guitars. My brother has gone through three drum pedals.
The guitar problem: first the RB1 wired guitar wouldn’t activate “star power” or whatnot anymore, and small lady hands can’t reach the “back” button to activate it manually. Then the replacement guitar, a wireless GH Les Paul, broke due to an unresponsive orange fret button. The replacement of that replacement, another Les Paul bought for $30 at a Circuit City closeout, only does well while sitting down. Fun!
The drum pedal problem: first one snapped in two, sent it away to be fixed. The replacement broke six months later. The fix for it, since the warranty for RB1 instruments vanished when RB2 instruments came along, was buying a metal plate off of a vendor on Amazon. The plastic part for the metal plate that allows the pedal to flex broke months later. The ultimate fix was removing the metal plate, cutting a piece of plastic from a laundry detergent bottle, and putting the “new” plastic piece and plate back on. There’s cracking on the rims around the drum pads, but the RB1 drum set, in spite of the pedal, works pretty well.
Holy crap. I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been, considering! Thanks for sharing all your horror stories, folks. Hopefully we’ll see more sturdy construction in the future.
The springs in the whammy bars of my GH1 (dubbed Mr. Squeaky) and 2 (dubbed Mr. Clicky) guitars have been gone for the longest time. I use rubber bands to keep them raised for use.
I’ve had one RB1 guitar replaced under warranty. The strum bar had begun not registering downstrums and often caused double strums when it did. And of course, the first drum pedal broke on me too. We used a 3rd party one (also plastic) which developed a crack over time. I now have the metal Beatles pedal and an extra metal pedal purchased on its own. The only problem I see is that the slight sweat of socked feet is tarnishing the metal on the Beatles pedal. D:<
The only breakage I worry about now is in all the twist ties I use for all the wired controllers and mics. x_x
Since I’m down here searching for that damned cake, I have news! The whammy spring in my ROCK BAND 1 guitar just died. Now it has a rubberband sling.
Also, most all my whammy bars now have tape wrapped around them due to tarnish on the plating. The wood visage on my Hofner bass is starting to wear too, just because of where my hand/wrist rests. :/