Flimsy Frets - All new guitars like this or is this one defective?

[maxx77]

I've had Rock Band since day one. I really like the guitar, especially the frets. On Christmas, I got to play the game with someone else's guitar. It was basically the same as mine, but the frets were entirely different. Whereas my frets are very "sturdy" (for lack of a better way to describe how they feel), the ones on this other guitar were very loose. I have to press my frets pretty hard to make them move. The frets on this other guitar took much less force to push down. They move around quite a bit too, like they're not quite connected correctly. They also make a lot of clacking when they're pressed, while mine are totally silent.

I wish I could describe this better, but it's something you have to experience to really understand. Had my guitar been like this new one from day 1, I wouldn't think there was a problem, but I would have noticed that the Guitar Hero guitar frets are a lot better.

Knowing that there's a difference between my guitar and this new one, I'm wondering if this new one is broken, or if all of the new guitars are this way. Anyone else have any insights or opinions? I haven't gone to Harmonix's tech support yet, but that's probably the next step if I'm able to conclude that the new guitar is faulty.

For the record, the buttons work. They register that they're being pressed. They just don't feel right. For better or worse, they're easier to press than the ones on my guitar, but they feel really flimsy, like they could fall off if used enough. The lower frets are a little better, but even those are noticably flimsier than the ones on my guitar.

[toad3000]

I'm on my first replacement guitar already (and another one on the way for problems with the overdrive sensor and a slightly wonky strum bar), and the frets are definitely different on the second-gen guitars, and not in a good way. I wouldn't necessarily call them flimsy, but they're definitely much noisier than the first-gen frets were. So my wish list for my next guitar:

1. Working Strum Bar
2. Quiet, working fret buttons
3. Proper sensitivity on the Overdrive sensor

*Fingers crossed* ;)

[maxx77]

"Flimsy" might not be the best word to describe them. When I press down on one side of the fret button, that side goes down before the other side does. On my guitar, it doesn't really matter where I'm pressing. The entire button moves down in unison. Plus mine isn't loud, it's very quiet. Feels really good to me, almost like I'm pressing my fingers against an actual fret board. On the new guitar, it just feels like I'm pressing buttons. Buttons that feel a lot cheaper than the same buttons on other guitars.

Does that pretty much describe the buttons on your replacement guitar?

[toad3000]

"Flimsy" might not be the best word to describe them. When I press down on one side of the fret button, that side goes down before the other side does. On my guitar, it doesn't really matter where I'm pressing. The entire button moves down in unison. Plus mine isn't loud, it's very quiet. Feels really good to me, almost like I'm pressing my fingers against an actual fret board. On the new guitar, it just feels like I'm pressing buttons. Buttons that feel a lot cheaper than the same buttons on other guitars.

Does that pretty much describe the buttons on your replacement guitar?

The replacement guitar does feel more like buttons than an actual fret board, but I don't have the one side going down before the other problem, the entire button does move in unison. But yeah, very loud and clicky.

[maxx77]

Thanks for the replies. I think we are pretty much talking about the same thing. I may call Harmonix anyway, see if there's a way to get a generation 1 guitar for them. I hate that they're stuck with those buttons while mine work so much better. I'm the one who got them interested in the game in the first place.

[NewbieC4]

My replacement guitar I recieved yesterday also has the seemingly loose frets, especially the orange fret on the "shredder" which has so little resistance I'm surprised it doesn't register it's self under it's own weight. So far no other real problems with the guitar, strange rattle inside the guitar and an odd sound every time I strum, but it seems to work fine.