In Third Person

The Rock Band series of video games are hands-down my favourite video game series this console generation. I could go on for days talking about how awesome the games are. However, this time I wanted to highlight one major gripe I've lived with since I bought the full band kit on launch day of Rock Band 1:

The Rock Band 1 instruments are some of the worst-made video game controllers of all-time.

While my guitar technically still works, the strum bar feels horribly mushy and makes it difficult to consistently hit the notes.

My drums though, have given me way more problems.

I've sent them back 4 different times over the course of 2008. All 4 sets broke. In that time I've had 3 kick pedals. All of them have snapped in half.

Unfortunately, the warranty ran out on my drums a while ago. So what am I left to do? Besides drop $100 on a new set? Attempt to fix them.

My first attempt at fixing the drum pads involved me snapping the cracked pads back together and taping them up. That worked for about...two days. Then, I got more serious.


In order to prevent the pads from cracking apart again, I taped plastic butter knives across the cracks. This worked...for about a week. Unfortunately, directly around the middle piece is a round crack where not even a broken piece of butter knife can properly reinforce.

My next step? Construction glue.


They're drying right now on the table. I'll re-enforce these with something else once the glue is dry.


My kick pedals had to go through this shoddy surgery too. In order to keep them together, I've taped plastic butter knives to the bottom of the pedal.

It's so frustrating to be in this position. I could just buy new drums, but why should I if there's a way I can fix them on my own? I know my fixes feature terrible craftsmanship, but if it works, why not? The Rock Band 2 drums as far as I know work fine, but for the millions of people who got punked by the Rock Band 1 drum set, I feel your pain.


Top image from PS3 Attitude