Do you own a real drum set, or have the inclination to purchase one? Then I would like to direct your attention to this: the first-ever Plastic Axe video review! In just a shade under nine minutes, I’ll show you the Omega GM-1 in action, walk you quickly through installation, and talk a bit about the benefits and drawbacks of such a powerful system.

Now, as you probably remember, the GM-1 is a $250 system that includes trigger sensors for a real drum set, which carry information to a central module, which then passes it on to either a Guitar Hero World Tour drum kit (via an included MIDI cable), or Mad Catz portable Rock Band kit (via an optional, $20 adapter).

In other words, it lets you play real drums in Rock Band or Guitar Hero.

Sound interesting? Then let’s begin.

Want to know more? I’ve posted some more thoughts and notes on the review after the break. Continue reading →

I can’t resist the You Rock Guitar. It’s a hypnotic confluence of music, games, and technology that I just can’t seem to look away from.

On the chance you’re like me, here are a few more videos of the guitar in action. First is another demo from CES, similar to the one I posted last week, but with a few new bits. (Including a demo of finger-tapping, yes!)

Here’s one from the NAMM Show last week, courtesy of G4; coverage starts almost exactly at the 2:00 mark.

And after the break, a couple more in-house demos showing almost entirely Beatles Rock Band gameplay, with a couple different playing styles. Continue reading →

I have to confess that I’m fairly surprised by this: Big Picture Big Sound has posted a review of one of the faux-monitors designed for music games, and apparently came away pretty impressed.

Now, in spite of my befuddlement when I mentioned this product a few months back, I never had doubts that Polk could put out a competent product; I’ve been using their smoking hot bookshelf speakers for decades now. But what’s surprising is that the thing really does sound like it’s legitimately beneficial for players. From the article:

Compared to my TV speakers, the HitMaster is a downright revelation, especially for a penny under a hundred clams. … The bassline at the beginning of Boston’s “Foreplay/Long Time,” for example, comes through with a rich and surprising punch — a shocking amount of oomph for such a small speaker.

And here’s the part I hadn’t thought of: Because you can plug directly into this thing from the audio out on your console, you can completely bypass the lag that often comes with routing your console’s audio through a receiver or even TV. The reviewer claims it’s made a noticeable impact on his scores. Which means it’s legitimately useful.

Who knew?

If you’re interested in checking one out for yourself, have a look at the official product page, or the pre-order page at Amazon. It’s due to ship in February, with an MSRP of $99.95.

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I should warn you that I was this close to writing “Axe-clusive.” But I just couldn’t pull the trigger.

Anyway, I wasn’t able to make it to the Consumer Electronics Show this year, which means I didn’t get to see firsthand any of the wacky music and game peripherals being showed. But my friend Brad Linder, of Liliputing fame, had the incredible kindness to take a few minutes out of his ridiculous schedule and check some of them out for me.

But Brad didn’t just do a drive-by; he shot video of the demo he got of the You Rock Guitar, wherein a spectacularly coiffed company rep shows off a little in-game playing and a lot of random fingerpickin’. (Which, if you don’t play guitar, is actually a very illuminating demo of an electronic faux-guitar, since there’s a lot of movement between strings and frets.) Let’s take a look at the demo, shall we?

My favorite part? That the guitar will range in price from $179-$199…depending on where you buy it.

In all seriousness, though, after seeing this thing up close and in action I’m even more intrigued than I was previously. It seems like a legitimately powerful tool for playing games, practicing real guitar, and recording. And I don’t appear to be the only one who thinks so; the You Rock got reasonably positive writeups in USA Today, Ars Technica, Engadget, Gadget Review, and The Money Times. But here’s what really surprised me: This wasn’t the only MIDI-equipped guitar/controller hybrid being shown at CES.  Continue reading →

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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Continue reading →