Review: Logitech Wireless Drum Kit for Guitar Hero

By Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 18 November 2009 03:38

Networking

Given the price, it is a tough call to up the quality of your ‘play’ instruments for games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band.  But beware; when you get your mitts on the Logitech branded wireless drum kit you may be tempted.

For AU$800 you can deck out your virtual rock band with two Logitech Guitar Hero guitars , and now for an extra AU$400 you can add a quality drum kit also.

The Logitech Wireless Drum Kit is a little more awkward to put together than the standard Guitar Hero drums, but the result is sturdy and flexible kit that avoids the most annoying pitfall of the original.

Using a single corrugated crossbar, all drums and cymbals as well as the controller box are attached and fully adjusted to suit the players’ style and dimensions.

In a way, this makes set-up that much more complicated, and in a family situation there will often be a need to adjust the kit for each drummer, not too much of an issue but with the cymbals can be a little stiff to move resulting in them often being too high for height challenged percussion lovers.

The pads of the drums and cymbals are indeed softer and quieter than the original kit.  The drums, in particular, are a much larger size providing a bigger target with less chance of hitting the edges.

The control box receives all inputs, from kick bass, drums and very importantly the cymbals.  It is here that the Logitech kit overcomes my major issue with the original Guitar Hero kit.

From the cymbal, the connecting wire runs down the stem of the cymbal, out the bottom and into the controller box, thus eliminating the problem of wire-stripping encountered when “younger” members of the band cannot resist rotating the cymbals.  This is a god-send as I am a little sick of re-soldering those cymbal audio plugs.

To avoid latency, Logitech has chose to use RF signalling rather than the normal Blue-tooth employed by other PS3 controllers.  This also means this set of drums can be used with PlayStation 2 versions of the game.  (Drum Kits are also available for Xbox 360 and Wii versions of the games).

The usual Logitech quality is evident in this kit, and the size adds further to the illusion of the game, despite having no rhythm talent what so ever, this drum kit (and a small smoke effects machine) can transform you into a drum hero.