At the moment, Fender’s own site shows no indication of this new development, and they still have the pre-order date listed as January 1. So it’s possible that this is a miscommunication or misunderstanding (though the press release from Best Buy is quite clear). But best to be safe, no? Here’s the preorder page at Best Buy.

[UPDATE: That was fast! Fender's site now instructs visitors to hit up Best Buy for the pre-order. Also, check out ricecake's comment below: The theory is that Best Buy may have the Squier exclusively at launch -- but not necessarily forever.]

On the other hand, if you’d rather rock out button-style, Mad Catz is currently running a pretty sweet deal on Mustangs: Pick one up through their site and you’ll get a (five-button) P-bass controller for free! You can also get the same deal if you pick up the five-button wooden Strat. And as an additional incentive, if you order a keyboard, you get a stand thrown in for free. Check out the Holiday Specials page at the Mad Catz store.

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And that’s not all: You can pre-order at Best Buy or BestBuy.com starting December 15, two weeks before the initially announced preorder date of January 1. Yep, that’s a week from today. Best get your finances in order.

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Hit the View link to get in on the action, or check out the episode embedded after the break.

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 Continue reading →

In case you’re wondering, the sample at the end is the same piece recorded once, but processed three different ways. The first is a live recording with the Mustang powering the Clean Electric software instrument. The second is the guitar processed in the ways I laid out in the article. And the third is that second sample accompanied by the first sample, but with the instrument switched to Swirling Droplets. Neat, huh?

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The details: It’ll be available for an MSRP of $279.99 on March 1, 2011, with preorders opening up on New Year’s Day.

My thought: I would certainly have appreciated a lower price, especially since you’ll need to pick up a $40 MIDI adapter to make it work with Rock Band, but it could have been much, much worse. A basic Squier Strat tends to run around $200 on its own. So an $80 — or even $120 — premium to make it a full-fledged game controller and MIDI instrument? Seems totally reasonable to me. And on top of that, it’s sure to be available for cheaper from various music-instrument retailers.

Agree? Disagree? Lemme know in comments.

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Next year, the [Rock Band 3 peripheral] line-up will be complemented by a £219.99 full-string real guitar that goes one better than the realistic-looking Mustang controller.

I say “curiously offhand” because as far as I know, neither Harmonix nor Fender has confirmed the price before now, and you’d think that if MCV had the scoop they’d package it with a bit more fanfare.

But if this is true, this probably means a price somewhere in the $260 to $270 range — almost definitely not the $350-ish that £219.99 converts to. The Mustang, for example, retails for $150 in the U.S., and will be going for £125 in the UK. So figure about a 20-percent increase in dollars over pounds and you end up with something around $265.

My personal guess would be $259, which would allow players to pick up the necessary $40 MIDI controller and still be “under” $300. I’m trying to get some confirmation from Harmonix, but until we hear from them, let’s take this as a very tentative possibility.

UPDATE: Tommy at RockBandAide spoke to Harmonix’s John Drake, who says the £219.99 price refers to the new version of the five-button Wooden Strat Controller. This…does not bode well for affordable pricing of the Squier.

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It’s an excellently detailed resource, packed with great suggestions. My only disagreement is with his recommendation to pick up a Lips bundle for the wireless mics. Perhaps this is just my setup, but I’ve found the lag with a wireless mic to be really unacceptable with Rock Band. Has anyone else had the same experience?

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The page doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know about the instrument; details are mainly talking about “quality Fender components”  like “a contoured wood body, 22-fret maple neck, steel strings, enclosed tuners, adjustable bridge, and custom bridge pickup.”

But it’s good to know you can sign up for early notification, so you don’t have to keep checking music blogs and…wait a minute. Forget I said anything. NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

[Read, via RockBandAide]

I heartily recommend these new Rock Band 3 pro cymbals, as they are indeed a major and welcome upgrade over the RB2 ones.

It’s interesting to me that he didn’t notice a difference in the feel of the drums themselves, though, because when I tried them out at E3 they seemed noticeably quieter than my launch RB2 kit. But it’s certainly possible that that was a prototype kit…or that I was simply misremembering how the RB2 kit feels.

Hit the Read link for all the details.

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Tommy asks if the Squier is console-neutral, and whether it comes packed with the MIDI controller. Here’s Drake’s response:

The Squire [sic] is console neutral! You will need to get a MadCatz MIDI Pro Adapter to play Rock Band 3. That adapter can also be used to convert MIDI Drums or MIDI Keyboards for use with the game and it’s being planned as a standalone product at this time.

That’s a bit disappointing since the Squier is sure to be expensive, and the MIDI adapter has a MSRP of $39.99. Now, I do know that the MIDI adapter is not console-neutral, so perhaps this is actually the most cost-effective way of selling both devices. And hopefully this means that the price of the Squier can be kept down a bit. But if the guitar runs $250 or more, and you’ll need to shell out another $40 for the MIDI adapter, I don’t see a lot of folks being particularly happy about that.

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