But since its release in October the drum kit has gotten more hate mail than praise. A big difference that Activision Blizzard's drum kit has over Harmonix's Rock Band set is a sensitivity factor which tells the game how hard or how soft you are hitting the drum pad. This is incorporated in the game by different notes you may need to hit harder than others. But this innovative addition to game may be its biggest down fall.
Reports are coming from all over about sensitivity problems with this new drum kit, mainly with the red drum pad and the yellow cymbal which are located on the drum kits left side. Common reports are of both pads failing to register hits, only activate when struck in certain spots, or even being sensitive that striking one pad can even activate another one. And it appears that the problems occur on every system. I personally own the drum kit for the xbox 360 and have experienced slight issues when first playing mainly with trying to get the red pad to register my hard hits for extra points and with the foot pedal registering. But it all seems to work fine now.
A few tech-savvy people decided to tear open their drum kits to figure out the problem and on doing so noticed that manufacturers did not secure certain wires properly resulting in the sensitivity problems.
Activision is currently taking note of the recent onslaught of negative feedback from consumers and is working on several things to fix the problem. They offer a 90-day warranty to customers allowing them to return their drum kits free of charge but may not cover shipping rates and stated that they also will be offering a drum tuning kit that will allow users to fully enjoy the potential of their drum kit.
Article Written by: Zack Duncan
Posts
I have not played World Tour but I hear its much better than Rock Band. So I hope they get these problems fixed so these things don't all end up in the trash by this time next year over broken drum kits.
ReplyDeletehi!
ReplyDeleteI have rec'd Red Octane's Midi-USB cable for the ailing drum kit. installed the software and fired everything up. During testing in the recording session on the GH game I found the yellow cymbal registering double hits once in a while. Turned down the sensitivity to the yellow cymbal - better.
ReplyDeleteThe the more peculiar problem seemed to come from the bass pedal signal circuitry. While I was performing rolls between Red and Blue pads the bass drum would fire on its own. The pedal was not touching the kit in anyway so it wasn't due to vibration. I disconnected the pedal and found that IT WOULD STILL FIRE with nothing connected. So that tells me something is messed up with the circuitry in the drum pad unit, not the piezoelectric sensor on the pedal.
Why was this happening? It's not vibrational crosstalk, it's caused by static electricity! The rubber drum pads are completely insulated. The sticks hitting the pads generates the static which builds up on the pads. This buildup will eventually discharge naturally without a spark through the air (rate depending on humidity and temp). But if you are doing rolls or otherwise quick drum work the buildup becomes too intense and the electrons will make the jump to the closest thing that has opposite polarity... SNAP. The Bass pedal will go off... or another drum pad.
After playing the drums for a while try this: without bumping the drum pads wave you hand over the pads slowly. You will feel the snaps and tingles of static electricity and the drumset will go nuts registering all kinds of hits.
My assumption is that the electromagnetic pulses caused by the static sparks cause a voltage anomaly to be sent to the wires in the set which in turn makes the set think the voltage came from the piezoelectric sensor(s).
The only way this can be fixed that I know of is to add a decent system of grounding paths so the static can't build up and discharge from the pads. I hope Red Octane will came some sort of grounded pad covers for us so our perfect streaks are possible for once.
i know that the drums dont work the only buttonsw that work on my drums is the green and yellow
ReplyDeleteI have connection problems in the usb cable itself. the plug in male plug shorts out. any problems with splicing and connecting directly without using the plug ?
ReplyDeletemy red drum pad is not working
ReplyDeletethe yellow cymbol doesn't work, though it works sometimes when you smack it really hard
ReplyDeletei need help both my orange cymbal and my yellow cymbal isnt working...
ReplyDeleteamy quick fixes?
my yellow cymbal also doesn't work, and also sometimes if you smack it with all your power it gives a soft volume sound
ReplyDeletemine wont register bass pedal
ReplyDeleteMy yellow dont work, my orange dont work, one day my green wasnt working at all not one bit so i opened it up and foun the 2 wires connected to the sensor was completely unnatached! only the red and blue worked. but now all of a sudden, nothing works! no bass noy cymbals nothing. i think its the infared sensor linked to my Wii, because i was on the music studio and i will hit a heck of notes then about a minute later, all these random notes will go off all together. Farout!!!
ReplyDeleteMy yellow dont work.. I think its too sensible or something. When I hit the yellow cymbal, it registrates 2 times.. I dont know what to do with it. maybe it's caused by the static electricity. Im going to test it! And maybe I can fix it.
ReplyDeletemy orange dont work at all, but all the others work, once when it worked sometimes when i hit the yellow came too and then star power came on, very annoying i think it is something inside the orange cymbal, but i dont know.
ReplyDeletesometimes when i hit the orange the yellow came too
ReplyDeletemy blue pad makes the bass drum hit about 1/5 the time
ReplyDelete