PROS:
-Spot-on accurate with no missed notes or any kind of crosstalk between the parts
-velocity sensitive in Rock Band 2
-wide range of positioning of all main parts
-good build quality and solid for $300 e-drums (except *)
-assembly was quite easy, albeit intimidating and lengthy with the numerous parts (between hour and 90 minutes)
CONS:
-HATE the *kick pedal... noisy and cheap feeling.
-velocity doesn't have much dynamic range between light tap and hard bang -minor point
-somewhat noisy, especially the high hat yellow cymbal
-customization/positioning can lead to confusion and frustration
On that last point: there's a reason the stock Rock Band drums are positioned the way they are... the 4 pads close together makes it easy to play the game, especially for non-drummers. This kit allows moving all the parts around, which is nice for creating the feeling of playing a real drum set -but once back in the game, it becomes harder to play. Plus, adding cymbals makes additional (albeit optional) targets that take getting used to, so there some "swing and a miss" to overcome. Having a closed high hat cymbal "yellow" to the left of the snare pad "red" is cool to play crossed arms, but during the game yellow is always to the RIGHT of red. Also, the reach to hit "open high hat" on the blue tom is far from yellow cymbal, and it doesn't feel quite right.
There is a learning curve to get used to, and it takes a couple hours of playing and adjusting to get everything just right. Once all the parts were where I wanted and I replaced that awful kick pedal (a high-hat controller on other kits! ...minus 1 star) with a Pearl "Omega Pedal" (mini to 1/4" jack needed), this kit becomes INSANELY FUN in Rock Band 2!!!!
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
I, sadly, have a mixed review of the DrumRocker.When I initially received the product, I was very happy with the apparent quality, etc. As noted by some other reviewers, the foot pedal is not great, but is still a marked improvement over any other `stock' pedals to date.
After using the kit for about a week, the foot pedal broke (9/30/08). There is a small metal tab inside the pedal that hits a trigger/switch when the pedal is depressed.
The next day (10/1/08) I called the manufacturer and notified them of the breakage. I was told that I had to complete a "Customer Receipt for Replacement Parts" and return it to them by fax (a bit archaic, but whatever...). I completed and faxed the form that same day (10/1/08).
After about a week of not hearing anything from them, I called back and was told that nothing had been done with my original request because they "didn't stock replacement parts for the DrumRocker" because they "didn't expect it to fail so quickly" therefore, they could not fill my order. Nobody bothered to tell me this they simply ignored my replacement parts request. I am wondering how long they would have let that sit had I not called them.
The customer service agent with whom I spoke also told me that despite there not being replacement parts, he would "do me a favor" and get one shipped. After a week on inaction, they acted as if THEY are doing ME a favor by shipping a replacement for a defective part after ignoring the request for a week?
When the replacement part arrived a few days later it did not work. To replace my faulty bass pedal, they sent a hi-hat pedal I guess the two are similar, but the switch inside seems to be different. The original bass pedal will register multiple consecutive hits as a bass pedal should. The replacement hi-hat pedal they sent me would only register a single hit, and not subsequent hits unless there was a 1-2 second pause. Presumably, this is how the hi-hat pedal is supposed to work.
The next day, I called back and explained what happened previously and what was going on with the replacement pedal. I specifically told them that there seemed to be a difference between a DrumRocker foot pedal and the hi-hat pedal they sent me as a replacement. The parts department sent another replacement pedal; unfortunately, they sent me ANOTHER hi-hat pedal which we had already established does not work...
At this point, I am pretty miffed.
The second (wrong) replacement pedal arrived the evening of Friday, 10/10/08 which meant that I had to wait through their 3-day weekend to make yet another phone call. After waiting 15 minutes for my call to be answered, I told them that I wanted to speak with a manager this request was met with resistance. It took 5 minutes of talking to them so they could "find" my account they also took my phone number "in case we get disconnected".
Once they had all of my info, they asked me if I could hold on so that they could transfer me to a manager... yeah, that never happened. Instead, they disconnected me (accidentally?), and despite taking my phone number "in case we get disconnected" (their words), nobody bothered to call me back.
I tried harder than any customer ever should, to give them the opportunity to make this situation right they simply were unwilling or unable to do so.
The only positive here is that Amazon.com HAS stepped up and IS taking care of this. They shipped a replacement for overnight delivery on the day that I reported the issue to them. This is why I shop here.
Best Deals for Ion IED07 Premium Rock Band Drum Kit for Xbox 360
I received my set via Fed Ex yesterday. Everything was very nicely packaged and labeled in the box. Instructions were included but I feel could have been a bit more detailed. Not that I needed the help but I could see where some people new to setting up electronic drumsets might be a little confused or possibly set it up wrong.Setup took maybe 45 minutes and they supplied a tool to tighten all the bolts on the stand. One thing to note: There is an adjustment at the top of the cymbal stand to keep them from rotating. This adjustment is an allan wrench which they did not provide for me. Luckily I have my own set.
Another thing to watch for... the cymbal holders are held in place with a metal loop with threads on the end. The wingnuts they supply are very large and the threads are not that long so I found myself stripping the very end of the threads trying to get the wingnut on. A trip to the local hardware store fixed this where I bought replacement nylon wingnuts. They are a lot more shallow and tighten down much further on the threads.
After putting it together and getting everything plugged in I noticed right away that the pads were amazing. Great rebound and very quiet. Single and double stroke rolls are a breeze. The cymbals felt pretty good but didn't quite have the same rebound. The kick pedal is really made to simulate a hi hat pedal so I was a little off-put at first but it still works quite well and is lightyears beyond the original stock RB1 pedal. I'm thinking about upgrading to either a Rock Pedal or an Omega Pedal soon. I've read that these will work just fine with the ION.
My first impressions of the kit with the Rock Band 2 game were very good. The pads never miss hits but unfortunately the cymbals still drop notes quite frequently. I have read others are having the same problem and I haven't quite figured out yet how to correctly position and hit them to make them more reliable. Some people suggest hitting the edges of them with the stick, some say tighten them down very tight and some say remove the felt padding beneath them. None of these have worked for me yet. It's for this reason that I'm considering removing the yellow hi-hat completely, unfortunately. It's not fun playing it when it consistently drops hits. I'm considering changing it to a blue ride.
I'm an expert RB drummer and usually score around 95-99% on most songs and after a few runs over songs that I'm quite familiar with I find myself having less trouble with those passages I couldn't quite get right because of controller conditions. My first try at Tom Sawyer on my new kit yielded gold stars and put me in the 16th spot on the leaderboard. I was nicely surprised with this seeing how I'd never been in the top 500 before.
This is an excellent buy if you have the money and want to take your Rock Band drumming to the next level and possibly move on to a real kit.
Edit: 9/23/08 Well the Nylon wingnuts held for one or two moves but I ended up replacing the nut within the plastic wingnut. A simple 6mm 1.00 hex nut fixed the problem. I will probably replace all the stock nuts just to be safe. Still LOVE this kit! I've tweaked the setup a few times but I think I finally have one that I like.
Honest reviews on Ion IED07 Premium Rock Band Drum Kit for Xbox 360
I also was shipped a defective product. Amazon is helpful as usual but they require that you have all of the parts for them to replace.I foolishly followed the procedure in the packing material that said to contact the manufacturer for any problems. They wanted me to ship the item to them. Then the agony of dealing with the antics of Numark/Ion Customer Support as mentioned by other reviewers. Yup, they treated me exactly the same way. Terribly.
I've contacted Amazon and they are willing to help but only if I can ship all the parts to them. SO now I have to rely on Numark/Ion to ship back the defective part before my replacement window with Amazon expires.....
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Ion IED07 Premium Rock Band Drum Kit for Xbox 360
Ok I'll start out by saying I think this item is totally worth it. I am a drummer in "real life" and I even own a real drumset. This is a huge step up from the plastic pieces of crap they give you with the original rockband. I have not ever had the pleasure of trying the rockband 2 drumset but jumped immediately to this one seeing how flimsey the original design was (I have already gone through 4 drumsets playing rockband alone). Being a real drummer I play everything on either Hard or Expert (with this set I've played about 95% Expert and 5% hard) on drums. That being said for some background I'll now review the product at hand.As I said this drumkit is totally worth it overall. It's pros outweigh it's cons in my book and the reviews I've read on it are pretty darn accurate. The drumset takes about 45 min to setup and an additional 30 min or so to make minor adjustments while you start to test it. It is a pretty sturdy set and it's "footprint" (how much space it takes up) is considerably more than the rockband set. That's neither a plus nor a minus other than the fact you'll need more room to set it up and play it. I guess a small minus to that effect, though, is that there is no easy way to take the set down or make it smaller for storage. It would take you 30-45 min to take it down into it's pieces and then another 45 min 90 min to set it up and tweak it to where you want it again which is highly impractical. Ok the drumpads are VERY responsive and velocity sensitive I'm actually pretty impressed there. They are MUCH MUCH quieter than the other drumkits I've tried. However the cymbals make a bit more noise and are almost (still quieter) comparable to the noise given by your drumpads on an original drumkit. Also the kickpedal is VERY noisy. I don't like the kickpedal because of that fact it's been VERY reliable and picks up all my bass drum kicks but it's noisy as hell so I switched it out after a couple of songs. Although the drums don't really drop a beat the cymbals do. I tweaked them quite a bit and got it from about 20% of the notes registering to about 80% now. But still that means 2 of 10 beats I hit at fast speeds are being dropped and to me that's unacceptable. I've tried tweaking almost everything on them, their angle, height, the tightness of the hinges/screws they're on, even my sticks and my grip! On slower beats I can hit about 90-100 but on faster beats it misses more. Because of that and the fact theye're semi-noisy (MUCH noisier than the pads) I find myself using the drumpads far more than the cymbals. I use one for a crash cymbal so it looks cool (real) when I do a big crash at the end of a fill or whatever but the high-hat one I rarely ever use. I use the drumpads for that as they are much much quieter and actually reliable. And when I'm trying to 100% another song on expert that makes a big difference to me. On that note I'll mention that if you're not playing expert or if you don't care that you'll drop a note fairly consistently even though you're playing it, then by all means use the cymbals to your heart's content. They do add to the game and the general look and feel of playing though. Needless to say I will not be ordering the 3rd cymbal unless they come out with a newer more reliable model. Oh I might also note that the drumpads have better rebound (more like a real drumhead) than any other rockband set I've tried.
Let's see...what else...oh yeah...the drumset is highly "flexible" (customizable) in that you can move the parts and pieces to better fit where you want them and how you play. I have mine setup exactly as my real drumset (spacing is almost exactly the same) which is nice. The drumsticks it came with are pieces of crap though almost feels like balsa wood and they came with major chips in them. Also the set is not wireless you do have to plug it in to your xbox like the old set (unlike the rockband 2 set).
Another huge positive I ordered my set from Amazon and I ended up getting it 4 days earlier than the expected delivery date. It was amazing! It made my weekend (-: (especially due to the fact I chose the free super saver shipping).
ok so to review --
Pros:
Drums are velocity sensitive and pick up notes VERY well
Highly customizable to how you want it and where you want your drums, etc
Sturdy, long-lasting looking design of a real drumkit
Good rebound-ability on the drumpads
Shipped super super quickly and free from Amazon
Awesome, realistic look and feel
Cons:
Cymbals are noisy and unreliable
Kick-pedal is VERY noisy
Drumsticks are extremely lousy
No easy way to compress it's footprint for storage
Perhaps a little pricey (I'm fresh out of college) -but I still think it's worth it.
So that's my 2 cents probly mostly stuff you've already heard (-: Hope it helps though.
No comments:
Post a Comment