Customer Reviews

Rock Band 2 Double Cymbal Expansion Kit

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

These do add a new dimension to the rock band drums. It does feel a little more like playing a real drum kit. So far, in the last 3 weeks, these have performed well as far as only dropping a note once in a while (you get what you pay for right?).

These are insanely loud man! It's like CRACK, CRACK, CRACK when you hit them. They're louder than the rock band 1 drums and not NEARLY as quiet as the rock band 2 drums. That is a major CON for me.

When my friends and I get together to play rock band 2 these are totally distracting to everybody else in the room, unless you play in a house and not an apartment where you can just blast the volume, that would be nice.

My solution was to put 1/4" neoprene material on the hitting part of these cymbals. It is a marked improvement. They have not lost any sensitivity and are now about as quiet as the rock band 2 drums. If you're going to use these that is a great solution. I bought a roll of this neoprene to pad a poker table I was upgrading and I used some of the leftover. By the way, you can get enough neoprene to cover these for like 5 [...] on ebay.

I recently purchased this add-on for the Rock Band 2 Drum Set. Over all I really like it. I believe it lends to a more enjoyable/realistic playing experience.

Some Pros: You get two cymbals which is nice and fills out the drum set with out making it too cluttered (Which is why I opted for two instead of three). When you use the freestyle drum trainer, the cymbals work just like cymbals while all the pads act just like drums which is kinda cool. You do have some options as to the height and location of the cymbals. The response seems to be good and I haven't had any problems with them not registering hits. They do appear to be velocity sensitive also meaning the harder you hit the louder the sound in the game.

A Con: The initial setup is kind of tough. You basically get a two piece plastic clamp that you use to secure the cymbal "pole" to the rest of the drum set. The clamp snaps together in two places and then you have little "wing-nut" bolts you use to tighten everything down securely. Those "wing-nut" bolts are hard to use because the distance from the place you screw in the "wing-nut" bolt to the hole it goes in, is kinda far. SO you have to squeeze on the clamp to get the bolt in there. Maybe is was just my setup but I don't think a child would be able to do it on their own.

Other then that I am enjoying this addition to my gaming experience.

Overall these are a great expansion to your Rock Band 2 drumkit (they don't work at all with Rock Band 1 Drums). The cymbals seem to be solidly made and can withstand some decent beating. I agree with the previous review about the set up being somewhat difficult. You need to be careful to put the wingnut in before clicking the two pieces together. But once everything is on they are very stable and feel like a normal part of the kit.

Game-wise they make for some nice playing in rock band. The cymbals take over two of the colors and you choose which by choosing which plug on the back of the kit. The caps on the cymbals can be changed depending on which color you are using them as. When you plug them in for rock band the cymbals become cymbal sounds while the pads they replace become toms.

These also work with Guitar Hero World Tour. However, it should be noted that you probaly want Yellow and Blue with World Tour while you probably want Yellow and Green with Rock Band because of the way you kick off star power. That means some annoying switching and a bit of confusion after switching if you only get the 2 cymbal kit. I kind of wish I woulda gotten the three just to avoid that.

But they definitely make drumming more fun, more immersive, and more difficult if you want it to be since you can now play a cymbal when it calls for one rather than just another pad. Some Madcatz stuff is a little hokey but these are legit.

4/5 - docking one for initial setup and annoying switching of colors

First off, I believe these cymbals fantastic. It makes it feel more realistic and significantly easier to play.

That being said, I initially noticed the same annoying "plastic" sound when I started using the cymbals. I tried putting Rock Band Drum Silencers on the top of the cymbal, like someone suggested, but the sound was still there. I tried tightening the colored wingnuts and that still didn't help. After analyzing the cymbals a little more, I noticed the "plastic" sound was coming from the housing on the underside of the cymbal. The noise was created from the hard plastic housing hitting the hard plastic on the body of the cymbal. Once I realized that, I knew inserting a rubber-like gasket would fix the problem.

To fix the plastic noise:
1. Unscrew the four small screws holding down the plastic housing
2. Cut up a small rectangle of the Rock Band Drum Silencers or mousepad-material (about 0.5" x 3")
3. On the side nearest the cymbal hitting zone, placed the material between the edge of the housing and the body of the cymbal. You do not need to adhere the material to the surface using tape or glue, because the screws will secure it in the next step.
4. Then replace the 4 screws, snuggly squishing the material.

Note: You'll notice the housing won't completely screw down flush with the surface, but that's good since you're preventing the two surfaces from hitting each other, while having a rubber-like material damping the shock.

I've been using the cymbals with this mod for about 6 months with no problems. Now my cymbals are about as quiet as the rest of the drum kit.

I hope this helps someone.

Fixing the cymbal slippage problem-
This is for those of you who are experiencing the problem of the poles that support the cymbals slipping down in the clamps: I had this problem at first, but the corrective is fairly simple and actually is in the directions. It's hard to interpret on the graphic, but what you need to do is to mount the clamps to the drum set, without the cymbal poles in their holes. Then you have to squeeze the two halves (right/left)that make up the clamp together in the middle as hard as you can (I used pliers) until they snap together completely. You'll know it's right when you hear the "snap" as indicated in the directions and the gap between the two halves is totally gone. Then you can insert the cymbal poles and tighten the wing nuts on both ends. If the two halves aren't snapped together, the clamps can't get tight enough to hold the pole in place. Of course, designing a smooth plastic pole to fit into a smooth plastic clamp probably isn't the best idea, but hey...

For the review-
I'm a long-time drummer that bought this kit to make the decidedly unrealistic RB2 drums get a little more realistic. They do allow you to add the positioning of real cymbals, to a degree. Unfortunately, they lack any realistic flexibility for placement. You can basically rotate them a little side-to-side, based on which pole they're attached to and you can move them up and down, but that's it. You can't place one in the traditional high hat location, to the left of the snare, or to the far right of the drums where you'd normally have a ride cymbal. Adding some sort of boom setup to one of the cymbals would help with this problem. it's also the main reason I didn't buy the 3-cymbal setup, since you couldn't put them in the typical spots for most drummers. The other omission is a lack of a tilting mechanism for the cymbal surface itself. Few drummers like their cymbals perfectly horizontal, but that's pretty much what you get here. That makes doing a ride pattern on the shoulder (top) surface of the cymbal difficult. It's ok for crashes, but doing a sustained ride on the cymbal's edge feels awkward because of the way the cymbals rebound. Along that lines, the "feel" of these cymbals is ok if you can get the right amount of tightness on the wingnuts holding the cymbal down. Too loose and the rebound goes to zero. And yes, these are lounder than the new RB2 drums, especially when you have to play on the edge all the time.

While these comments may make it sound like I don't care for the cymbals, I am actually very glad I bought them. They do add a degree of realism when playing the game, especially when I reach up to hit the crash without thinking about it, rather than going down to the lower right drum pad. They smartly added the feature where the cymbal pads act as cymbals all the time, but the drum pads go either way, just as they do in the absence of the cymbals. That means you can hit the right note (i.e. a crash) either on the pad or the cymbal and not be wrong. The nice thing is that during the fill and rock ending parts, the cymbals sound only as cymbals and the drum pads only as drums, making more complicated fills possible.

After many, many hours of play time with these cymbals, I've learned what I like and dislike about this product. Remember that the drum set is fully functional without these cymbals: the cymbals are not a necessary add on.
Pros:
- Potentially adds enjoyment to playing the drum set
- The green pad is easier to strike
Cons:
- Slipping on stand - the buyer MUST invent a way to keep them from slipping
- Loud, especially when used for yellow pad
- Feel is "clunky" compared with drum pads which throws off timing (result is some missed strikes)

Like many of you reading this review, I thought those other reviews that mention slipping of the cymbals was because the drummer was hitting the pads too hard. Not so. With normal to light tapping on the cymbals, they slide down the stand in about 2-3 songs. It is not possible to tighten my clamps enough to prevent this slipping issue. The problem with slipping cymbals is that the cymbal pads get in the way of the drum pads and, when the cymabls slip far enough to touch the drum pad, they do not register all of the strikes. This means missed notes and an 8x multiplier that gets reset to 1 too many times. My solution was to invest $5.00 in 6" long, 1.5" diameter plumbing tubing that fits over the drum set stand and underneath the cymbal clamps. This prevents the clamp from slipping, but now the cymbal stand slips in the clamp itself. I will try duct tape to prevent that slipping. Should work. The point is you must plan to invest time and energy to stop the slipping in order for this product to work well enough to use.

The cymbals are made of a less bouncy rubber which means the drum sticks do not bounce back at the same rate as they do on the drum pads. I find this throws off my timing which is a factor on the hard and expert levels for the more difficult drum songs. Also, when I used the cymbal as yellow, the sound of the drum stick hitting the cymbal pad is louder than the sound of the high hat coming through my sound system. My game system sound runs through a home theater set up (not my TV). This can be distracting, so much so that I do not use the cymbal as yellow anymore. This is not a problem when using the pad as blue or green. With these negative issues to contend with, the benefits of adding enjoyment to the game play and making the green pad easier to hit or overshadowed by the drawbacks.

In short, I bought these cymbals because they sound like a fun add on. It's not fun to miss notes and adjust the cymbals after every couple of songs, though. They miss the mark on fun.

I can not recommend buying these cymbals. Wait until Mad Katz fixes these problems and buy the next version released. Remember, these cymbals are not a necessary add on as the green, yellow and blue pads can be hit on the drum set itself. At $25-30 (price for two cymbal set in Jan. 2009), the value just isn't there.

First of all, I love Rock Band 2 very much and play the drums almost all the time. I was so excited when the cymbal expansion kit came out so I got it right away. At first the cymbals worked pretty decently, aside from some missed notes that you know your timing is not off, but the cymbal is. It was pretty fun to add to the realism of the gameplay. Then after 2 weeks, one of them just stopped working all together, and the other one would register missed notes almost all the time. Almost as if I were hitting it twice, it would hit the note, then the very next note would be missed. So I took them off my drum set completely.
Congratulations, Mad Catz, you've managed to make another bad product for a really good game. Avoid these at all costs, unless you want to be frustrated with constant missed notes that you know you should be getting right!

I was very excited when I bought these, as I thought they would make the RB2 drumming experience more realistic by reserving the drum pads for tom sounds only. But when I set them up, I found that in Lefty Mode, they simply mirror the sounds of the respective pad correspoinding to the port they're plugged into (so either snare, hihat, or mid-tom), while the drum pads still made their old sounds. And yes, I checked in non-Lefty Mode and they work exactly as advertised.

Nowhere on MadCatz' or Harmonix' websites is this mentioned, and when I called EA/Harmonix support, they told me to contact Mad Catz, as it was a hardware issue. I really don't see how Mad Catz can solve this, since the ports are controlled by the drum set.

Very disappointed, and awaiting response from Mad Catz. I'll most likely be returning these.

(Right-handed drummers should skip to the next review...)

The Madcatz cymbal expansion kit adds to the realism of the Rock Band 2 drumming experience, but only if you use a right-handed drum setup. For those who use a lefty setup (rightmost pad as snare drum), there are two major problems:

1) The RB2 drum kit lacks a cymbal port for the red pad, which is the crash cymbal in lefty mode. Because this port is missing, lefties cannot the Madcatz cymbal pad as a crash cymbal.

2) In lefty mode, the RB2 software does not recognize the cymbals as independent inputs. During a drum fill, the cymbal pads play the same tom sounds as their corresponding drum pads. Similarly, in freestyle mode, one cymbal plays a hi-hat sound, and the other plays a tom sound. In other words, lefty mode behaves as if no cymbals are plugged in at all, with only four distinct pads/sounds playable during fills and freestyle. Only if you switch to a right-handed setup are the cymbals are correctly recognized and play independent sounds.

Theoretically, these issues could be addressed in a software patch. Unfortunately Harmonix, the game's developer, has not indicated any plans for a patch, despite being aware of the problem for months. I recommend that lefty players do not purchase cymbal expansions unless Harmonix fixes these problems.

Bought these shortly after Christmas, and upon reading of the horrors of setting them up I found out myself just how heinous a process it is. Even after fighting for over a half-hour for the clamps that hold the cymbal posts to the drum kit to "JUST...SNAP...JUST...SNAP..C'MONNNNNNNN SNAAAP!! GAAAUGH! %&#@!" with and without powertools (one of which never fully did snap 100% together), they worked beautifully, truly adding a new dimension and surprisingly seemed to make drumming a little easier for this non-musician to do-it-up more like a real one. Infatuated, I played for hours everyday for about a week straight before getting distracted from playing for that entire next week after.

The start of having these cymbals for that third week... was every optimistic-cynic's nightmare. Having known about the terrible setup, and still choosing to trudge on. Then experiencing the setup, and still going forward from that. Then experiencing a blissful 7-days of newfound drumming glory... to suddenly having DOUBLE-HIT!??

For no obvious, apparent, or investigative reason, my cymbals started double hitting any moderately-hard hit they registered. Which, if you do your homework, a lot of the disgruntled reports over these cymbals are about. If you just want to play and don't care about your score (and your score multiplier) then you won't care that this seems to be an unfixable and common problem with these.

But I, for one, also am now hanging my head low in mourning of what-was for a beautiful 7-day stretch, and what-could've been with properly designed cymbal accessories.

[PS. Also, feel free to assume that it's just me and my cymbal pack (and dozens of others out there) and trudge onward with your purchase! Best of luck to you, honestly, because they're sadly a great addition.]

***EDIT #2: Originally I had posted an edit about how I attempted to take mine apart and found that it was missing necessary wiring so that it could never be fixed, well apparently those first few pages I found about fixing these cymbals were wrong, or else I just didn't know exactly what to look for in the guts of my broken cymbal that kept double-tapping in-game. After peeling off and realigning the wire and "stickum" to the proper place that they weren't in the first place to where they belonged, this double-cymbal pack only gave me problems with how the vice grip holders that wouldn't "SNAP!" would eventually drop my cymbal posts and I'd have to pause mid-song to readjust them--but this was very rarely, or only after extended disuse.

IN CONCLUSION: Since the pricedrop on this pack as well as the Rock Band 2 Triple Cymbal Expansion Kit went into affect in late 2009, I had upgraded to the Triple set and I must say that the apparatus-es (apparati?) that hold the Triple set together seem so much more cooperative that even though I'm having a much more difficult time adjusting to now having an extra cymbal, I might've bought them again solely for the more-cooperative cymbal posts clamps/clips--it really is THAT much better of an experience with the Triples.