Author Topic: Guitar Hero, Rock Band, just for gamers and not real musicians? think again (Read 3402 times)

W1nTry · « **on:** January 05, 2010, 11:34:42 AM »

So who here that has played either Rock Band OR Guitar Hero and heard some smart @$$ mutter, "it's not real, you can't do $hit" or that's for kids, real men play real instruments. Well here's an interesting new twist to either game. Instead of playing your expensive piece of plastic, how bout playing your EVEN MORE EXPENSIVE REAL drum set? Have a read:

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Real drums, fake band: the Omega GM-1 System walks the line
Have you ever wanted to use real drums while playing your favorite rhythm game? Omega Music Technology has a product to get you there, but the price of entry is steep, and set-up can be a chore. Ars takes a look at making fake music a little more real.

By Ben Kuchera

While rhythm games may be fading in popularity due to a glut of releases, it's hard to find a game-loving home that doesn't have at least one plastic guitar or set of drums. Omega Music Technology wants to take your existing rhythm game and go one better: wouldn't it be great if playing along to Guitar Hero or Rock Band made you a better drummer, or at least got you on the way to learning how to play the real instrument?

The Omega GM-1 System allows you to hook up an actual, big-boy drum set to your favorite rhythm game, and we were able to take the product for a test drive. It's an interesting idea, but you need to be willing to put some serious time and money into the project to get worthwhile results.

Before we begin, however
First, you need an actual set of drums. Omega sells the Pearl Rhythm Traveler 5-piece set directly from its webpage, and at $500 it will get you started in the wide world of drumming. Opening the box, we saw a mess of pipes and pieces and metal; putting together an actual set of drums is much more complicated than expected. The set includes both standard drum heads and mesh heads so you can play quietly in smaller spaces.

It took a little while to get everything put together, and then it was time to open the packaging for the GM-1 itself. Once again, setting this up is an intensive process. You have to attach the sensors to each of the drum heads, you need to wire everything together, and you need to make sure all the cables are managed. If you don't have a drum set already put together, be sure to set aside an entire afternoon to get things working well and looking good.

The sensors themselves responded well when attached to the drums, but holding one in your hand makes them seem a little fragile. Many parts of the kit had a hobbyist feel to them, and in some ways the product seems more like a proof-of-concept than a commercial product.

Here's the kicker, though: the product requires you to have an existing Rock Band or Guitar Hero controller to connect to the GM-1 system via a MIDI cable, and then you connect the game controller to the console. That means you need to have the G-1, an actual drum set, a fake drum set, and the game and console to get this whole thing up and running. That's quite the investment, and it takes a lot of space to get everything working properly.

But does it work?
Yes! It works well, and it's a whole different experience to drum along to your favorite songs on an actual drum set. I had to adjust how I held the drum sticks, how I sat, and I quickly learned how tiring it is to keep the beat while dealing with a full-size drum set. Combining the drills included with Rock Band 2 with the ability to play on actual drums makes this a compelling way to start drumming or to keep your skills sharp.

Let's add up what it takes to get this working, however: you need the GM-1 System itself, which comes with multiple parts and has to be assembled. That's $250, give or take, depending on how many cymbals you want to have set up. If you have a set of drums, that makes your decision easier, but if you don't, you're in for another $500 on the low end. You need to have a working Guitar Hero or Rock Band drum set to get everything connected to the video game, and that's not cheap, although deals on plastic instruments are easy to come by these days.

You have to ask yourself if it's worth it. If you have a drum set, there are easier and less cumbersome ways to learn. If you're really into rhythm games, however, and you already have much of the equipment needed to get this to work, there may be some appeal. A system that was a little more consumer-friendly and a lot less expensive would help take this product from being a curiosity to something that would interest a larger market.