ION premium Rock Band drum set gets official at $299
- September 15th, 2008
- 10 Comments
Here she blows; the premium Xbox 360 Rock Band drum kit from ION. It’s priced at $299, available now, and features four gum-rubber drum pads (read: quiet) and two cymbals with mounting arms. That’s right, two. You’ll have to purchase that third cymbal separately for $50. You can also add a second bass pedal for some double-dutch kick action or whatever you kids are saying nowadays.
Once you get good enough at Rock Band to play drums in real life, you can add an Alesis DM5 module for around $350, which will allow you to play drums out loud with a real band like the rest of the world used to do before Rock Band came along.
PS2, PS3, and Wii versions should be along later this year, although no firm date’s been given. ION expects all versions of the kit to eventually be sold in stores but for now you’ll have to buy it from the company’s web site. It should be compatible with Guitar Hero: World Tour as well, assuming the standard instruments are compatible.
[via I4U]
Steve Jabs (Who am I?)
2 months ago
That is going to make rock band 2 pretty much the sweetest game ever.
bill (Who am I?)
2 months ago
The question is…. will this be compatible with guitar hero world tour?
justin (Who am I?)
2 months ago
how would it be compatible with guitar hero world tour that drumset has 3 pads 2 cymbals and a kick pedal and the ion has 3 add on cymbals 4 pads and a kick pedal it wouldnt make sense to be compatible
brian (Who am I?)
2 months ago
why would it not? guitars are compatible with different amount of buttons between the two systems.
i own the ion drumkit, the cymbals just double as regular pads for the purpose of game play and scoring, however even in game (during fills or before songs) the game does recognize the difference between hitting a yellow pad (tom) and a yellow cymbal (closed hihat). so the ion kit is capable of playing 7 pads and 1 bass pedal, but in rock band only uses 4 lines of colors and a bass pedal. if rock band uses 5 lines and a bass pedal, i see no reason it would not be compatible… i am certainly crossing my fingers…
at worst, my guess is there will be an add on module that will have to be swapped to make it work with GH, just like taking the controller from a rock band kit to a real alesis kit… but hopefully it should be straight compatible…
dew bee dew
1 month ago
anyone know if the standard rock band 2 cymbols will be compatible with this set (they only cost $20 and..), I cant see any real difference between them.
Reply
MegaBearsFan (Who am I?)
2 weeks ago
The Rock Band 2 cymbals are being manufactured by Mad Catz. Being that its a different company than Harmonix or ION and the cost is different, I would assume that they are not compatible unless specifically told to the contrary.
kyle (Who am I?)
2 weeks ago
dew bee dew, to somewhat answer your question, the drum set is made by ion, i own one of their drumkits and as long as the madcatz cymbals are trigger modules and have the same type of output as the new kit requires for an input (if it is the same as my model then it needs a 1/8 inch input, the same as a set of headphones that would plug into an ipod or mp3 player) then it should work, however if somthing goes wrong i cannot be held accountable. i doubt anything could go wrong but i dont want a lawsuit if in the middle of freebird you get zapped while thrashing your cymbals
kyle (Who am I?)
2 weeks ago
yungskiz@gmail.com if anyone has a question about ion NOTE: im a kid from elmira not an employee but ive dealt with ion for six or seven months
Karen (Who am I?)
2 weeks ago
There are people selling this on EBay also.
Karen (Who am I?)
2 weeks ago
There are people selling this on EBay also.