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Posts Tagged “

Drums

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rock band 2

Rock Band 2 Is Only as Great as Its Instruments (Which Look Great)


A normal game demo features a kiosk, maybe a couch, and it's all a pretty ho hum experience save for the fact that you're usually playing a game that won't be released for anywhere from a several months to a few years. But when testing out Rock Band 2, it's set up on a stage with professional lights, mixing boards and speakers. And, of course, their add-on fog machine. It all reminded me how freaking expensive this whole music game madness has become, but also just how far it had come.

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2:57 PM on Wed Jul 16 2008
By Mark Wilson
16,497 views, 31 comments

Latest by Captain_Sarcastic: Drum set looks amazing, looks less and less like a "game" and more like training. Hopefully it'll decrease the amount of "lulz play a real instrument" comments. more »

review

Lightning Review: Rock Band Drum Covers Dampen Your Furious Beatings

The Gadget: Stitched drum covers for Rock Band from "Premium Rock Band Drum Covers", which give you five different levels of padding for sound dampening. They come in four-color style, all-black, and four-color with a white sidewall for the Wii. More »

1:40 PM on Wed Jul 2 2008
By Jason Chen
10,151 views, 27 comments

Latest by seamonkey420: man, those are freaking fugly.. i opted for the official ones and they seem to work just fine and look a ton better! more »

drum kit

Rock Band Drum Kit Gets Wheelchair Accessible (With How To)

The folks at Kinetic Communications took the Rock Band Drum Kit, which totally isn't wheelchair accessible thanks to its bass kick pedal, and put $20 worth of their own accessibility mod into it to make sure it is. All it took was a doorbell, a Y cable, a pair of pliers and some sweat and they made a Rock Band kick pedal that can be activated from on the drumsticks. Super cool, Kinetic. Hit up their site to see how you can do this yourself. [Kinetic]

12:20 PM on Mon Jun 2 2008
By Jason Chen
2,401 views, 15 comments

Latest by Rabid Penguin: @overdriven707: Number three isn't as true as your drum machine (or your girlfriend) would have you believe. more »

gaming

Rock Revolution Drum Kit Confirms Absurd Arms Race

First we had Rock Band and their 5-button drum kit. Then we had the announcement of Activision's Rock Band clone (Guitar Hero IV) and its 6-button drum kit. Now, not to be outdone, we have word of Konami's Rock Revolution and its 7-button drum kit. And yes, it's all way too eerily reminiscent of "7-minute abs." More »

11:10 AM on Fri May 16 2008
By Mark Wilson
10,093 views, 52 comments

gaming

Here's What The Guitar Hero IV Drums Look Like

Here's the first shot of the Rock Bandesque drum kit coming to Guitar Hero IV. Scanned from the latest GameInformer magazine, it looks like there will be three main drums, two cymbals and a bass drum. All in all, it's actually just one more drum/button than in Rock Band's kit (which will be incompatible with Guitar Hero IV, incidentally). So what do you think of it? I for one will not be investing in another set of faux instruments to fill up my living room. [Destructoid via CrunchGear]

11:50 AM on Wed May 14 2008
By Mark Wilson
16,104 views, 52 comments

Latest by n/a: @makalaka: same thing I was thinking. A simple add-on and they will win a lot of gratitude from their fan base. The GH4 set looks cheap and not that stable to me. I'll be skipping it. more »

gaming

Guitar Hero IV's Drums Will Have Six Pads, Two For Cymbals

Cymbals! That's what was missing from the Rock Band drum kit. Not missing, since some of the pads changed to cymbals whenever necessary, but it didn't have two upper pads dedicated explicitly to them. No more. Game Informer says the upcoming Guitar Hero IV will have a six-padded drum set, but a custom-designed guitar due to the legal problems Activision had with Gibson. You'll supposedly be able to create your own songs as well, but we're not sure if you can just import an existing MP3 and go from there, or if you have to create it from scratch. And by "scratch," we mean copying your favorite songs as best you can. [Primo Technology]

3:30 PM on Tue May 13 2008
By Jason Chen
13,125 views, 60 comments

Latest by n/a: @tayng Neil Purt will be fucking pissed that they're ruing the drums and preventing young kids from learning legitimate music because they're distracted by simulations. If these games keep coming out, there might not be any musicians, and no music, more »

gaming

Rock Band Drum Kit Crochet Covers Prevent Eviction

Are you one of those people who has to bang on the Rock Band drums as hard as humanly possible, leaving yourself open to a possible eviction notice? Here's a $40 purchaseable custom-made Rock Band drum kit crochet cosy set, made just for softening your blows and keeping you on your lease. All four are color-matched to the real drums, and come at only $7 shipping. At $47, it's cheap enough for most people without crocheting grandmas to consider. [Etsy via Technabob]

8:30 PM on Wed Apr 2 2008
By Jason Chen
5,696 views, 15 comments

Latest by Margatron: Screw the $47, I'll just make them myself! more »

drum table

Drum Table: Perfect Accompaniment for Drinking Songs

It's a table. With drums built in. And other percussion instruments, you can swap around. Yey! Need to know more before you buy one to go in your student home? See the video (it's better than the photo.) More »

10:55 AM on Fri Mar 28 2008
By Kit Eaton
15,808 views, 73 comments

Latest by ANoel: @nutbastard: Hatred? Invasion? When will you guys just chill?Sorry I knocked down your Ivory Tower. more »

air drums

Silverlit V-Beat Air Drums—Motion-Sensor Sticks for Schmucks

Silverlit, purveyors of remote-controlled things that fly, have come up trumps with their V-Beat Air Drums. Containing motion sensors (but, sadly, no neon tips like you see in the picture) they are the beans to the toast that is the V-Beat air guitar. Plug your iPod into the control box and drum along to whatever you fancy. There's even some kind of pedal thingy that lets you drum with your feet, although the protruding wires made me think "shoe bomb." Video of the $60 friend-isolator after the jump. More »

6:31 AM on Thu Mar 6 2008
By AddyDugdale
2,525 views, 3 comments

Latest by stuntmanmike: Meh. We had these when I was a kid in the 80's. They were called Hit Stix and they one-upped this modern re-incarnation: they included an amp. An amp you strapped onto your belt. Take that, "V-Beat Air Drums"! more »

gaming

Rock Band Standalone Instruments Get Ship Dates, Price

The days of only being able to buy Rock Band instruments in a gigantic pack are about to come to an end as the creators just announced dates and pricing on their instruments. The drums will be $79 on February 12 and the guitar will be $59 on April 1. The PlayStation 3 version of the guitar will work on both PS3 and PS2, and will also get the $59 price tag. There's no announcement for the USB microphone, however, but you can rig up your own mic by using a standard USB mic or just the Xbox Live headset and a controller. [IGN]

6:00 PM on Thu Jan 24 2008
By Jason Chen
5,807 views, 14 comments

Latest by n/a: Could that mic be like a 3rd party item? I defiently think that wireless is the way to go, when we all play it's a mess. Dont like the marketing though, now i'll want to buy all the wireless ones, more »

hacks

Two Videos of Rock Band Drums Working on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 (Verdict: PS3 Is Cakewalk)

Glory be to USB. Because just days after Rock Band's release, hardware enthusiasts have gotten the Xbox 360 and PS3 drum kits working on PC. But the methodology for each is different. The Xbox 360 version appears to work by making the drum kit become recognized as the already PC-supported Xbox 360 controller. It's not such a complicated idea since, after all, the drum kit is already built to replace many of the standard controller's functions. The hack requires about 10 steps of intermediate work—not bad, but the PS3 version is way easier: More »

11:44 AM on Sat Nov 24 2007
By Mark Wilson
35,516 views, 23 comments

Latest by n/a: @BLANDEST They're not talking about using the drums as a controller...they're talking about using it as a MIDI instrument. In that respect the PS3 is easier. The XBOX needs a separate driver to make the XBOX controller emulate MIDI. more »

gaming

Rock Band Drum Kit Close-Up Look and Disassembly

MTV's Multiplayer Blog takes us on a close-up tour of the Rock Band drum kit. It's the biggest piece of gear in the Rock Band set, so you'll want to scope out how this thing comes apart and goes together to see if you've got enough room in your house to fit it all. The guitars are easily shoved into a closet, but this drum set—even when disassembled—takes up a huge chunk of space. [MTV]

1:40 PM on Wed Oct 17 2007
By Jason Chen
13,504 views, 22 comments

Latest by mainlinx: I can understand a musicians point of view, but some people simply just don't have that discipline or wouldn't be any good. I never saw anyone ever speculate on any other periphial (idk if that's spelled right)... Powerpad - track & more »

musical instruments

Mandala High-Def Drum and Synthesizer Version 2.0 On the Way

Now the Synethesia Mandala high-def drum and synthesizer is about to bust out in version 2.0, sprouting itself a USB 2.0 port that lets you hook it up to any PC or Mac. Synethesia is calling it "the only electronic drum that truly emulates an acoustic drum." It's called high-def because it has 128 concentric rings from the center of the head to the edge that can detect the exact location and force with which you hit it. This version 2.0 also includes 3000 proprietary samples of the famed Black Beauty snare drum, along with 4GB of sounds from 100 different instruments. In addition to its USB connectivity, it also has a MIDI port with a trigger that's said to be one of the world's fastest. To be available November 1, it'll retail for $349. [Synethesia Corporation, via TMCNet]

11:05 AM on Mon Oct 8 2007
By Charlie White
4,512 views, 7 comments

Latest by wrenchmonkey26: What a stupid demo. Should have used a snare drum sound instead of that corny noise. Would have captured the attacks and accents better. more »

digital drums

Ion Digital Drum Station Keeps All That Banging to Yourself

Now you can bang the drum all day to your heart's content without waking up the neighbors with this Ion Digital Drum Station. There's a grid of eight springy drum pads on this drum machine, and you can program a realistic-sounding drum noise into each one, choosing among 233 sounds. There are also 50 presets into which you can load your favorite combination of drums. For even more realism, there are inputs for external kick drum and high-hat pedals. Sounds like $109.90 worth of fun, and it even includes headphones and a pair of drumsticks. [Think Geek, via Crave]

8:55 AM on Fri Oct 5 2007
By Charlie White
4,164 views, 16 comments

Latest by n/a: I just got one of these delivered yesterday. Indeed, it's so Alesis, that it comes with an Alesis branded power adapter, which looks very similar to the one that came with my SR-16 back in the day. It's definitely the more »

one-handed virtuosity

Electronic Drum Beat Maker Lets Your Fingers Do the Drumming


We've seen finger drums before, but none as cartoonishly convincing as these. This $19.95 Electronic Drum Beat Maker has heads that light up when you hit them, and even the cymbal makes its own sound. More »

3:15 PM on Tue Jul 3 2007
By Charlie White
5,303 views, 8 comments

peripherals

USB Drum Kit: Drive Your Fellow Cubicle Whores Wild (and not with Desire)

If there were a reason why God invented the USB accessory, this surely is it. A roll-up drum kit that you plug into your USB port and drive your coworkers wild with. WILD, I say. There are six pads for you to play around with, and software that will teach you how to drum along to your favorite songs at whatever tempo you want. More »

4:27 AM on Thu Apr 5 2007
By www.gizmodo.com
14,174 views, 19 comments

gadgets

Wii Drums: Not Released on the Wii Yet, But There's a PC Version Afoot


You might have seen this video of Wii Drums demoware that Nintendo was showing at E3 last May, but that hasn't shipped yet. Meanwhile, tech geek Bob Summers has figured out how to use the Wii remote for his own drum machine, and it all runs on a PC using Bluetooth. More »

12:23 PM on Tue Dec 19 2006
By Charlie White
5,463 views, 9 comments

peripherals

Finger Drum Mousepad

Bored at work? How about drumming away on this drum mousepad, simultaneously passing the time and annoying your office mates. Why is this cool? Because it's a drum set in your mousepad, that's why. Everything on that drum picture makes the correct sound when you pound it with your finger. You can even record 30 of your own drum "rhythms" for later use, which is 28 more rhythms than we can concurrently hold in our heads at once. More »

6:45 PM on Mon Oct 23 2006
By Jason Chen
3,609 views, 6 comments

Latest by simoneau: Good Day! My son is going to think his mom, (me), is the BOMB for giving him a Finger Drum Mousepad! He'll be happy, happy, happy! Thanks! more »

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