Am i the only one who cannot stand the Rock Band guitar?

[TehLawGiver]

yeah it's cool and all, but i hate the strum bar, i can't alt strum at all, it doesn't click, and i'm not as good with repetive chords/notes with it, i think everything else about it is awesome..and i have a PS3 so yeah..i HAVE to use it

[FultonPub]

i guess you haven't seen the thousands of threads and posts with people complaining about the guitar. Go check out the Technical Forum. That will give you all you need to know.

[Focker420]

ur kidding.... ur complaining that it doesnt click?! thats one of the best parts about... i could not stand the nonstop clicking on guitar hero... plus real guitars dont click for you to keep ur timing right... ur timing just sux and u dont need to blame the guitar...

[fiddolbrfrho]

i agree the strum bar is terrible. i don't even care if it clicks, but my strumming technique (flicking the strum bar with my thumb) does not work on the RB guitar.

luckily i have a 360 so i just use the GH3 les paul instead.

[Tamboo]

Ya, I have no problem with the strum bar. I'm glad they got rid of the clicking, got irritating at times. Plus you don't need the clicking noise to stay on beat just have to listen to the guitar/bass line to keep on track of strumming and when to strum.

[hankchill]

You among many hate the guitar.

I am one of them. I bought Guitar Hero III bundle for the Les Paul wireless, sold the game, and use the guitar in Rock Band. I gave my crappy Strat to my 1 year old son, who loves mashing it around :P

[eachann]

"can't stand it" might be a bit strong.... i mean I can play with it and all... but I definitely prefer the GH Les Paul. I'm with you on the clickyness, I like the clicky strum bars. It's funny how divided the community is on that issue, some people love the click and some hate it. There don't seem to be too many in the middle on that one.

[RRGaits]

It's annoying. It just doesn't "feel" like a quality product at all.

The weight is wrong, and the neck assembly (where the neck connects to the body) feels flimsy. If you open it up, you'll see that the neck is screwed directly in to the back of the body, with no connection to the front at all. I bet if you bent it back just a LITTLE too hard, it would break.

The strum bar is a whole different story. It's just plain unacceptable.

[Viserys]

I will be the first to say that it has grown on me, and I love it. I can't STAND the old guitars anymore.

[HaloEleven]

The frets on the RB guitar, as well as the size and appearance, are better than the GH guitars. It's not the sound of the GH strum bar I miss so much, but the feel. It felt like strumming a string. The RB strum bar doesn't feel like anything, so if I miss a note its harder to tell if it was my fault or if the RB strum bar is less accurate than the GH strum bar - particularly in fast passages. It certainly seems like the RB guitar is less accurate, and I have already replaced the original guitar under warranty.

[Destnaru]

If you have a PS3 like I do you can blame it directly on Activision for *****ing to Sony and telling them not to let the standard controller patch be used because they want to extort money from Harmonix for the IP rights which they don't legitimately have.
If it wasn't for that you could just buy the controller/guitar that works best for you.
Personally I think that Sony should just tell Activision to go screw off and apply the standard patch anyway.
But that's just me.
You can join the email campaign and flood Activision and Sony with emails telling them to let Harmonix standard controller patch be applied.
Just my opinion.

[fiddolbrfrho]

You among many hate the guitar.

I am one of them. I bought Guitar Hero III bundle for the Les Paul wireless, sold the game, and use the guitar in Rock Band. :P

WHAT?! why did you sell GH3?!? it's awesome, and as much as i like RB i have to admit that GH3 is WAY better for guitar. way, way better. you should have kept it!

[kps9727]

I agree on the clickyness. My wife can't play without it. Personally, I'm not as dependent on it. The one thing that does irritate me to no end about the RB guitar is that the strap keeps disconnecting (at the bottom of the guitar, not at the neck) right in the middle of a song!

WTFO!?!

[PikkuKaiShinto]

yeah it's cool and all, but i hate the strum bar, i can't alt strum at all, it doesn't click, and i'm not as good with repetive chords/notes with it, i think everything else about it is awesome..and i have a PS3 so yeah..i HAVE to use it

Im sorry that they made it realistic.
Bigger, no color bulging buttons, no clicks.
If you want a click, go to Guitar *****o. We dont need you here. Good Day freak.

[Sgt Pepper]

I will be the first to say that it has grown on me, and I love it. I can't STAND the old guitars anymore.

And I'll be the second:). At first (the many days I spent at the WalMart kiosk) I wasn't very fond of it. But last week I decided to pick up the old GH2 and realized just how much I had grown to prefer the Strat.

[iloveplywood]

Rockband is my first guitar game and I liked the guitar -- I recently purchased GH II as I'm stuck on GGHT and thought this might be a good way to get better. Well, it did help me get better, not because of the game (yet), but because of the guitar. I am much more accurate with my strumming with the GH II guitar. The clicking doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would Of course the irony of this is that I'll probably need the solo buttons on the strat to get by GGHT, but oh well.

[TehLawGiver]

ur kidding.... ur complaining that it doesnt click?! thats one of the best parts about... i could not stand the nonstop clicking on guitar hero... plus real guitars dont click for you to keep ur timing right... ur timing just sux and u dont need to blame the guitar...
then why do i have no timing problems at all with any of the GH games? even with a smaller window on 1 and 2 i'm fine..oh and yeah everyone might alrdy know this but i found out on 3/17 a GH3 frontman wireless guitar will be released and it IS compatible with RB, atleast i hear it is compatible

[PikkuKaiShinto]

then why do i have no timing problems at all with any of the GH games? even with a smaller window on 1 and 2 i'm fine..oh and yeah everyone might alrdy know this but i found out on 3/17 a GH3 frontman wireless guitar will be released and it IS compatible with RB, atleast i hear it is compatible

Youre good on GH because the click is your handicap, like a personal nonstop Metronome. Leave your handicap.

[KMFH]

I will be the first to say that it has grown on me, and I love it. I can't STAND the old guitars anymore.

I'm the exact same way. I prefer the RB guitar now because I can slide my fingers on the buttons, where with the GH guitars they're too far apart to do that, and that guitar seems more toyish to me.

To each his own I guess.

[SoKGiX]

i agree the strum bar is terrible. i don't even care if it clicks, but my strumming technique (flicking the strum bar with my thumb) does not work on the RB guitar.

luckily i have a 360 so i just use the GH3 les paul instead.

that's how i do it, works great for me

hmm... bad strum bar?

[Arcturus]

It may sound crazy, but try using a pick. I do.

[mattitude]

I loooove my Strat dearly. It's the best controller I've ever laid hands on, flat out. I HATED the clicky strum bars of the days of yore.

Silent strum bar, bigger size, more bells and whistles... what's not to love?

[fiddolbrfrho]

Youre good on GH because the click is your handicap, like a personal nonstop Metronome. Leave your handicap.

it's called 'tactile response'. by your logic the fret buttons could be considered a handicap also, because they're physical buttons and you can feel when you press them down. maybe they should design a guitar with no buttons, and just a slick touchpad with the buttons painted on so you could leave that 'handicap' as well. =P

when you play a real guitar you have tactile response. you feel the pick strumming across the string and you can tell from the feel exactly when you will hit the string and make the note. that's not a 'handicap', that's how you are able to play precisely timed notes. on the RB guitar there is no tactile response. the point at which the strum bar registers a strum is not clear. that doesn't make it better.

difficulty level should be increased by the complexity of the note patterns, not hardware impediments. i though the x-plorer was a POS... but maybe it's better because it doesn't have the 'handicap' of buttons which are easy to press. :confused:

[Frederf]

ur kidding.... ur complaining that it doesnt click?! thats one of the best parts about... i could not stand the nonstop clicking on guitar hero... plus real guitars dont click for you to keep ur timing right... ur timing just sux and u dont need to blame the guitar...

Some people like bicycles with training wheels, others like the big boy Huffys. Most people I know that hate the Stratocaster's strum bar incorrectly hold it at all times. If you flick it (and add a few rubber bands) that should be the best feel of a guitar string.

[fiddolbrfrho]

Some people like bicycles with training wheels, others like the big boy Huffys. Most people I know that hate the Stratocaster's strum bar incorrectly hold it at all times. If you flick it (and add a few rubber bands) that should be the best feel of a guitar string.

i beg to differ. i have always used the flicking method, and that is precisely why i can't stand the strat. it's REALLY hard to flick, because the strum bar has a lip on it that gets caught and slows me down. i can flick the strum bar on the les paul really fast, no problems.

[Tiberiouslb]

I really tried to get used to it, but couldn't. At first I was most bothered by the lack of separation between the buttons. They wanted it more realistic, so where are the raised frets? It is too easy to hold down two buttons with one finger accidentally. When I played enough to overcome that, I was still disturbed by the strummer, the whammy bar, and I've had 2 different guitars with overdrive messed up in different directions (one always activated the second you had it, the other you practically have to jump up and down with).

Even with all that I tried to continue, to take advantage of the solo buttons, but found them nearly unusable as once again the lack of raised frets to separate them causes problems. Also the notes you are supposed to strum are from the real song and sound different (picked), so using the solo buttons feels less authentic. Just when you think it gets easier to hit solos by just focusing on those buttons you get to a part of the solo that requires alternate picking, because you can't repetitively tap the solo buttons that fast, and the advantage disappears. It also probably doesn't help that I have really thick hands.

At first I was disappointed by the quality of the wireless LP's from GH3, but compared to the strat its great.

The click is no big deal.

[cuddie]

Bigger buttons/body? Win. Construction, weight, strum bar, and overall feel? Fail. I really feel sometimes that these products are made in a sweatshop somewhere in a third world country. I'd prefer automated factories, please.

[FinalWarri0r]

The strum bar imo was a complete fail. It may seem nice going from Easy to Hard but when you actually have to alt strum fast it just flat out sucks. Also the only time I really ever found those solo button's useful was in Blackened on that ending part of the solo.

[Ob-Selon Mi-Nos]

ur kidding.... ur complaining that it doesnt click?! thats one of the best parts about... i could not stand the nonstop clicking on guitar hero... plus real guitars dont click for you to keep ur timing right.

Could not agree more. I imported my PS3 copy to the UK as we are still waiting for a release date:mad:

Now I think the RB gee-tar is wonderful. The Strum bar to me is spot on - its delicate and that's how you should play it. I can see how people have broke theirs as you have to hit it hard on Guitar Hero games as the strum has more weight to it. Now I have GH3 for my PS3 aswell and its a shame that they haven't released that patch yet - if they will as I would like to try my guitar with that aswell.

[Tribaldemon]

Since I don't have the game yet, I have no basis for judgement, but I do find it amusing that back in the days of Guitar Hero people complained about the clicking strum bar and kept proposing new weird and wonderful ways of silencing it, and now that it is gone people want it back.

I think the LP is the best guitar released in my country to date (no rock band), but I do like some of the concepts behind the strat. Ultimately though, the 'toyish' buttons of the LP and the supposed unrealistic feel of the strat are non issues for me since I play guitar, and GH/RB are just games for me, I don't need them to be ultra realistic. Sure, I understand that some people don't feel this way, and I'm not saying you should, but I think its all down to how you perceive the controller- as a game controller or as an instrument simulator.

[fiddolbrfrho]

it's not about realism for me. i play guitar too, and pressing plastic buttons will never be anything like pressing frets on a string. for me it's about playability... can you press the buttons incredibly fast, strum fast, etc. without too much trouble? being able to do fast tremelos without buttons sticking, being able to do slides, stuff like that. all things considered the les paul is the easiest to use, and hence the best guitar for playing expert.

if you're just going to play medium or maybe even hard, it probably doesn't matter as much. but the strat's strum bar just doesn't lend itself as readily to being strummed really, really, really fast. it feels sluggish.

[fiddolbrfrho]

Now I think the RB gee-tar is wonderful. The Strum bar to me is spot on - its delicate and that's how you should play it.

that's the whole problem. can you imagine strumming a song like dragonforce 'through fire and flames' DELICATELY?! once you get beyond a certain speed, delicacy is nearly impossible.

yes rock band doesn't have any songs nearly that hard,... but it looks like some of the DLC is getting up there. i want a guitar that won't limit my playing.

[flamingtoilet]

It may sound crazy, but try using a pick. I do.

I tried that, but it just made things feel more awkward. I just "flick"- I've found a good pressure to use with it and it works great now.

[brbenoit]

Im sorry that they made it realistic.
Bigger, no color bulging buttons, no clicks.
If you want a click, go to Guitar *****o. We dont need you here. Good Day freak.

Really!!! Mine didn't come with strings or frets! Where did you get yours?

I prefer the "click" not for sound but for feel. It is a tactile confirmation that the strum occurred. IMO that feels more like strumming a real guitar. If they made the "click" silent but kept the feel I'm fine with that.

Unlike some (you) I'm not going to knock those with a different preference. My only real complaint about the Rock Band equipment is that they made it for the price point. I would have preferred the old $300 price point if it meant better build equipment.

[gocryemokid]

I find I'm more precise with this controller than I ever was with the GH. The clicks threw me off sometimes I now realize. I used to not be able to play without it, but the clicks are actually like a couple milliseconds after the note so if you think about it while your playing you could screw up...which I used to do .

[Dj Victory]

Had mine replaced after 2 days of using it. Luckily I got GH3 for Christmas, and used that guitar during the downtime. But now, no one who plays with me wants to use the 'pun guitar' for RockBand. I actually just bought GH2 used with a guitar so I can eliminate the Rock Band guitar all together.

I need the clicks and quick rebound, it's the only way that feels right and lets me know I'm hitting my notes. Rock band guitar sucks for fast strumming and is just a piece of crap really.

[HeadHunter67]

Things I like about the Strat:

* The flat frets are great and more comfortable to use.
* The size, shape and heft make it feel more like a "real" guitar.
* The solo buttons, while too small for my big hands to use accurately, are great for BREs.
* The Select button is well-positioned to allow me to hit OD while strumming (see below)...

Things I don't like about the Strat:

* The overdrive sensor is so bad it's useless. It used to go off on its own, now I have to shake it madly to get it to work - and that's bound to break a streak. Select works as long as I have a moment where I don't need to strum so I can hit it.
* The strum bar is kind of mushy. I like the "click' of the GH guitars, but more importantly, upstrums were easier on the GH guitars (important for a bassist).

If I could put the super-reliable tilt sensor from my 360 Xplorer (or even my PS2 RO) and the GH strumbar in my Strat, I'd be in Heaven. If I could do that and even use it in GH, it would be perfect. If a third party made a Strat that did all that, I'd pay well for it. I'd buy two, in fact.

[Steef]

I hate the strum bar SO much, but I love the look of the guitar, and model they used.
For harder songs I find myself using the Guitar Hero 2 Xplorer though.

[Bu11ze1]

You are not alone. There is a reason nobody on PS3 has broken 10 million on the boards and it isn't lack of skill. When I went to Best Buy last week they had a Les Paul hooked up to RB demo and I murdered my creep score as well as dead or alive the first try. For first-timers i'm sure the strat feels amazing, as a GH vet I can't stand the Strat but make the best of it. I am waiting for the frontman to come out with high hopes.

[CCPALACE]

I've seen mention of the Frontman for the Wii and PS3, will there also be a Frontman model for X360? I'm really in-between on the Les Paul vs. the Strat, I like elements of both. I really wish there was another option that combined the best of both controllers.

[REL1203]

I wont lie, at first I didnt like the strat, but the more i use it, the more i like it... It still feels cheap, my les paul def feels better, but I can play faster on the Strat with its full keys.. I can usually go back and forth between the 2 guitars I have but do better with the strat.

[bauermj]

The strat sucks. I use the Les Paul from GH3 and only wish it had solo buttons.

[ppetrovi]

I prefer the Strat guitar while my friends prefer the LP. However, on the more difficult songs with fast strum patterns (Run to the Hills comes to mind), it is hard to feel when you are registering a strum using the Strat. I always try to play easy on the Strat since it already broke once. The Les Paul just plays better on fast things from my experience. That or my game is not quite calibrated right for my TV. That being said, I like the latest GH3 calibration tool better where you calibrate audio and video independently. After that patch, my scores jumped way up on the harder tracks. I have never really liked the RB calibration.

[PikkuKaiShinto]

1. it's called 'tactile response'. by your logic the fret buttons could be considered a handicap also, because they're physical buttons and you can feel when you press them down. maybe they should design a guitar with no buttons, and just a slick touchpad with the buttons painted on so you could leave that 'handicap' as well. =P

2. when you play a real guitar you have tactile response. you feel the pick strumming across the string and you can tell from the feel exactly when you will hit the string and make the note. that's not a 'handicap', that's how you are able to play precisely timed notes. on the RB guitar there is no tactile response. the point at which the strum bar registers a strum is not clear. that doesn't make it better.

3. difficulty level should be increased by the complexity of the note patterns, not hardware impediments. i though the x-plorer was a POS... but maybe it's better because it doesn't have the 'handicap' of buttons which are easy to press. :confused:

1. I would actually love that idea.
2. I don't feel anything other than my finger pressing on the string, but unless I knew the placement I might not know where I am until I feel each string and know where I am exactly.
3. The buttons were made to feel like a real guitar. When you play a real guitar you dont move your have over to the next fret... you would slide your hand over to get to the next note. Something you cant do on the GH controller.

[Dagg21]

Love the frets hate the strum bar :(, thinking about looking into the replacement kit.

http://bytearts.com/strummer/index.html

[guitarplr4]

yeah i hated the strum bar at first, but not i started playing the rock band guitar with a pick, and it makes alternate strumming a lot easier...try using a pick...it might be easier for ya!

[TehLawGiver]

You are not alone. There is a reason nobody on PS3 has broken 10 million on the boards and it isn't lack of skill. When I went to Best Buy last week they had a Les Paul hooked up to RB demo and I murdered my creep score as well as dead or alive the first try. For first-timers i'm sure the strat feels amazing, as a GH vet I can't stand the Strat but make the best of it. I am waiting for the frontman to come out with high hopes.
yeah, same here, can't wait for the frontman, i assume (IT BETTER) have the same strum bar as all the others, any idea if you can get the GH3 bundle with the frontman?

[HeadHunter67]

I can guarantee that Activision will not bundle a third-party controller with their game - but some stores may offer the disc and the controller for a package price.

[Highlandlassie1]

The newest version of the Strat is the greatest videogame perpheral of all time.

I finally broke down the other day and pulled out my once beloved GH SG and tried it, and it was such a clackity claking Fischer/Price kiddie piece of crap, it ruined the entire experience for me.
I even walked away with the POS plugged in and ripped the cord out of the PS2. So used to cordless now.

What we need is an adapter dongle to allow the Strat to work with Guitar hero, so I can play those games with the Strat, it might actually make Guitar hero fun.

[smi2710]

i dont mind the missing clicking noise what i hate is that the strummer has the round tip to represent a string it kills my thumb

while i have gotten used to i still just can strum fast enough on some parts
so i haven touched it till i can use the les paul or they come out with a suitable guitar that works with both games

so whats the word on this frontman guitar i read about in this thread ?