Fender, the guitar company manufacturing Rock Band 3′s hybrid guitar and controller, has posted an info page for the new device allowing interested parties to sign up to “be the first to get access to exclusive content and news for the upcoming pre-order and release of the Squier by Fender Stratocaster Guitar and Controller.”

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]

Nice! Jeff over at Fake Plastic Rock has posted a nicely detailed review of the tweaked Rock Band 3 drums and redesigned Rock Band 3 cymbals. He didn’t find much difference with the drums heads themselves, but speaks very highly of the new cymbals:

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.

[Read]

Tommy over at RockBandAide just posted a followup to his recent PAX interview with Harmonix communications manager John Drake, and while there aren’t a whole lot of surprises to be found therein, one item in particular caught my eye.

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.

[Read]