Rock Band 3 drum kit looks pro-spec

This isn't plasticky pretend nonsense any more. It's near pro-spec! Look at it:

About 18 months ago, I paid £450 for an electric kit to learn drums on.After buying stick and a drum stool it was more like £500. And, I've got to say, this ION controller seems to have everything that my Yamaha DTXplorer does. Two cymbals, a hi hat pad, snare, three toms and bass drum.

Also like my Yamaha, there are two pedals. While the likes of Guitar Hero: Metallica allowed double bass pedal shenanigans, I'm guessing the Pro mode in Rock Band 3 is going to include hi-hat control, at least as far as open/shut commands.

Then there's the build quality. That bass drum pedal, which will physically hit a rubber drum trigger with the adjustable beater, isdual-chained. Dual-chain kick drum pedals cost upwards of £30 alone, and that's without the sensor pad. Basically, you're not going to snapping the foot pedal in half like we did on the original Rock Band set. And look at the finish on this cymbal:

The price hasn't been announced yet, but seeing asthe older model cost $300 a couple of years ago, you can expect the price of this premium model to be at least that much. Normally, we'd start to question whether it's worth spending so much on something that's almost real but not quite. After all, if you're this serious about the quality of your fake instrument, shouldn't you really be playing a real instrument?

Ah, but that's the thing. You are. The controller's 'brain' can be switched out for an Alesis drum module (at extra cost, naturally), turning the controller into a real electric drum kit.

So when you're ready to step up to the real thing, or fancy owning a pro-spec drum kit that will also work with Rock Band, you can. After all, playing along to an iPodwon't punish you for improvisation.

02 Jul, 2010