GHWT Drums MIDI Input + Electronic Kit + RB2??

[JorynnRace]

It is getting really close to the release date of GHWT, and I am blown away by the lack of information that we have about their drums.

They tease us with the ability to plug in any MIDI device, but haven't given us any info about exactly how it works.

I have seen conflicting things as well. Some sites have reported that this feature only works during music creation, and others say both music creation AND game play.

I just want to know if it can be used for RB2, AND HOW it works. (ie. can you program the drums through GHWT, and they have internal memory for the programming? etc..)

Anyone? There has to be someone who knows these answers.

(I would get the midi thing from Bytearts... but it's dang expensive, and I'd still have to do my own soldering job to get it to work with 360.)

[davidshek]

Anyone? There has to be someone who knows these answers.

I'm sure there are several people with answers...

You just won't find them on this forum

[JorynnRace]

Curses... foiled again.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see....

[skullpit]

why not try the GH forums?

[Kamikazee]

My god this topic makes my head swim... I don't even know where to start. First off I'd like to point out to the Moderator that just because 'GHWT' is in the title of this thread does not mean that the thread should be banished to General. This guy is trying to figure out how to best use an E-kit with Rockband.

OP, I dont have any answers for you but I'll post later with some opinions.

[luckyjoey]

My god this topic makes my head swim... I don't even know where to start. First off I'd like to point out to the Moderator that just because 'GHWT' is in the title of this thread does not mean that the thread should be banished to General. This guy is trying to figure out how to best use an E-kit with Rockband.

OP, I dont have any answers for you but I'll post later with some opinions.

There are many of us with this same question. I wouldn't think the RB community would mind using a GH:WT drumset if it offered the e-drum solution when HMX is not.

[Kamikazee]

First off, I think harmonix dropped the ball with RB2 drums in two ways.

1) By mapping cymbals and pads to the same button. If I hit the green cymbal on my stock RB2 drumkit it causes the green button to fire (not just in game, also at the dashboard). What are the implications? This affects cross-compatibility between games by limiting the total discrete pad inputs to just four. If HMX would have done this differently then the stock RB2 kit with cymbals would potentially work completely and correctly in GHWT or any other music game that is designed for cross-compatibility and has seven or less pad inputs.

2) By giving ION the rights to monopolize the E-kit for RB market. As it stands now, people with e-kits can:
A) Pay 300 bucks for the ION just for the brain and hope that the pads from their REAL e-kit work well with the ION brain.
B) Pay some guy 200 bucks to solder up a solution.

Now lets say you got your E-kit working with RB2. Now you wanna play GHWT. The instruments are cross-compatible so it should be no problem, right? Wrong. At best you get to play the dumbed-down/condensed version of the GH charts. At worst it doesn't work properly at all (see http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93312). So you bite the bullet and get the GHWT drums. Only they dont just sell the drums and the game, you have to buy the bundle and throw another plastic guitar under your bed.

This whole situation is a big pile of ****! Now I understand that Activision and HMX have no real incentive to make things completely cross-compatible. That doesn't make this pile of **** smell any better. It just would have been so easy for them to do this right...

As for being able to use your e-kit on RB2 through the GHWT drumset midi port? Well you can probably guess what I think.

[cokecan]

My guess is the MIDI port is for the song creator..

If you have a MIDI controller keyboard, writing songs will be a hell of a lot easier with a proper keyboard than a gamepad.

[wickedbadz]

They claimed the MIDI port can be used as a extension device which supposedly was able to map your e-kit to the game and allow you to use it. Since nobody with the full bundles has tried this and Scorehero lacked on asking anything about it during their test play we won't know until someone who has a bundle attempts it.

[cokecan]

Am I the only one who finds it silly that they would have the brilliant idea of having a MIDI port so you could plug in your e-kit into another plastic drum kit?

MIDI is general obviously, and I stand by them providng it for input to their "sequencer" if you want to call it that.

I so would rather work on my real DAW than sit in front of of my Xbox with plastic instruments around me (I know, most MIDI instruments are plastic). Though if we could import MIDI tracks into the game and chart them ourselves, that would be cool.