Rock Band Tips & Tricks

Rock Band is finally here, but it isn't all chocolate and roses quite yet for the new music game. Hardware issues and general confusion about how to actually do some things have left players scratching their heads. Hopefully, you'll find some answers here.

Broken Drums - Don't pay attention to the people that are saying things like if you have certain sticks or cardboard on the drum heads it means your drums are bad. That is just foolishness to assume everyone is going to have problems. The easy way to tell definitively if you have a bad set is to simply do a rapid roll on each pad and see if it is registering hits or not. This YouTube video does a good job of showing you what you'd see if your drum aren't up to snuff.

Microphone Won't Work - This one is pretty simple. You have to have another controller (other than the drum or a guitar) turned on for the microphone to work.

Singing and Playing Guitar/Drums at the Same Time By Yourself - Turn on a controller (other than the drum or guitar), but rather than using the Rock Band microphone, just use your Xbox Live headset plugged into the controller. Make sure you run the wires for the headset behind you so they don't get in the way of your drumming/guitar playing. Singing and playing another instrument is a heck of a lot of fun, but you have to already know the words pretty well to really enjoy it.

Guitar Compatibility - The Rock Band Stratocaster does not work with Guitar Hero II or III. But the Xplorer and Les Paul from GH II and III DO work with Rock Band. This only applies to Xbox 360 versin.

Hearing Singers on Xbox Live - You normally can't hear the singer on Xbox Live, but it is possible. If they hold down the right bumper on the controller it allows others to hear them sing. You can rubber band or tape the button down to make this easier.

Broken Drum/Guitar Replacement - If you do have a broken Rock Band drum or guitar, EA has set up a very easy to use website where you can (hopefully) get back to playing very quickly. If you give them a credit card number, they will send you a replacement unit right away along with a shipping label so you can send your broken one back in the same box. The credit card is required so they can charge you in the off chance you are trying to cheat them and just keep the new one and not send the other one back. If you choose not to give them a credit card, they will just send you an empty box with a shipping label so you can send your broken one back. The choice is up to you and really just depends on how quickly you want the process to go. The warranty website, is http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/enduser/rockband.php.