Customer Reviews

Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii Official Rock Band 2 Electro-Harmonix Overdrive Pedal

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Electro-Harmonix Overdrive pedal plugs into a RockBand 2 guitar controller and allows the user to go into overdrive mode by clicking the pedal with his or her while playing, as opposed to lifting the neck of the guitar, which is the usual method of invoking overdrive mode. For those unfamiliar with Rock Band, overdrive mode is a temporary effect where the user earns more than the usual number of points for successful play.

I suppose there are two reasons why one might want to use this functionality. Most importantly, it adds to the fantasy of being a rock star. This pedal looks like a real guitar pedal, and I definitely feel like I'm kicking up the song a notch when I stamp on it. However, it should be noted that while a real guitar pedal would alter the sound of the guitar when activated, this pedal only turns on a point bonus. The only actual change in sound when you turn on overdrive are the cheers that erupt from your virtual crowd.

Using the pedal to trigger overdrive might be easier for some people than the default method of lifting the neck of the guitar. However, while it is true that lifting the guitar can sometimes be difficult while playing, I found using the pedal to be even more distracting. There were times when I needed to look down in order to find the pedal. Furthermore, it was a little bit uncomfortable to click the pedal in bare feet (maybe not such an uncommon state of dress for your average RockBand champion), and that took my attention off the game screen.

To sum up, this is by no means a necessary addition to your Rock Band setup, and it won't make going into overdrive mode any easier, but this could be some nice icing on the cake of your rock star fantasy.

Can't complain about this. It's good to go out of the box and works great. Mini-delay to activate overdrive but it is barely noticeable. If you want to shred and not mess up your rhythm when u activate overdrive, buy this. It limits your free space but that shouldn't be an issue if this is something you're looking to buy.

A simple device to assist in Playing Rock Band, It does what it says, lets you use your foot to trigger Overdrive instead of tilting the guitar or hitting Select. Good when you have trouble with dropping notes while swinging the guitar.

Hi everyone, here's just a thought for you all and it works too. Why go out and buy this Harmonix Overdrive Pedal from Mad Catz (or any other supplier) when your foot pedal for your drums DOES THE SAME THING and guess what, if you already bought the "whole" band kit... then that means you already have the foot pedal. It also works with the new keyboard (piano) too. I know I have tried this out. If you don't have the "whole" band kit then it's cheap to buy a foot pedal like that from ANY GAMING STORE then too.
So save your money and use your drum foot pedal. Also like one comment that was made about how sometimes you have to look down to see where it is to step on it, well for us that have the drum pedal... YOU can't miss it!!! :)

You could also do what I did and go out and buy a cord that attaches to one end of the plug on the pedal and then the other goes to the guitar (or keyboard) to EXTEND the length of the cord to give you more playing area and that only cost a few dollars also from your nearest Wal-mart or Radioshack!

Hope this helps all you band members, because for me here in CANADA we can't order it or buy it unless we live in a major city and then the cost of our money to the states exchange rate and also now they could withhold our package... So save yourselves the trouble and buy or use the DRUM FOOT PEDAL... THANKS

This is the perfect Rockband 2 accessory, especially if you do not like tilting the guitar to enable the overdrive mode, or if you have a controller where the tilt switch doesn't work well (which is probably most of them). This small box plugs into your Rockband Guitar Controller (as far as I know it must be a wireless controller for Rockband 2 only), and will work with any game that the controller works with - I've used it with Rockband 2 and Guitar Hero 5. The switch works flawlessly, and seems to be good enough contstruction to last a while - or at least longer than the average drum pedal! The box is pretty sturdy, and the switch seems to be good enough to last a while. The only drawback is the 10 foot cord - I did drag the box across the floor at one point as I moved to get a drink. As a bonus, it does look at first glance like one of my real Electo-Harmonix pedals!

While the price ranges from $30-$40 for this one button device, the fun has been worth it for me. Like other reviews have said, you don't want to play using this "pedal" without shoes on. The switch is very stiff, but the feeling of stomping on it engaging your Overdrive is awesome. It took a few songs to get used to it, but now that I have it, I don't play without it. It also fixed my Bass Guitar that had a busted accelerometer in it so now we can engage Overdrive while playing bass. That alone made the purchase worthwhile for me.

I was expecting more. It looks like a solid brick in the photograph and it is solid in person, but small, so it moves around if you do. The "non-skid" pads on the base of the unit slide around as the glue is defective, or maybe I'm just into the game too much. I haven't been able to break it yet by stomping on it, so it's fairly solid construction, I was just expecting it to carry enough weight so as not to slide all over my floor. The button itself is not as sensitive as I was hoping either, you really have to slam your foot on it to activate it, that is if you hit the cherry spot on it to begin with, otherwise I find myself grinding my foot and repeatedly stomping it to make it work. For the most part I've reverted to going vertical with the fret board/neck to control it.

I bought this as a gift for my husband. We received it quickly and it came exactly as advertised. My only problem with the product itself is that it requires a lot of force to push the button. Not the sort of thing easily done in socks or bare feet.

I was actually pretty surprised at how something this simple could improve game play. The accelerometers in the guitars are just not very reliable and so when you get past a certain basic skill level, it's much more fun to pretend like you are stomping on a stomp box where you don't have to worry about your hands when you want to deploy. My only request is that going forward it would be better to turn off the accelerometer based star power when this bad boy is plugged in.

My band tried out the pedal this past weekend. I'm disabled, so I had to wait for friend's with working feet to test it out. It does work, but it is difficult to do unless you are standing. You need to step down flat on the button to make Over Drive kick in. Unlike a real guitar pedal - most of which are slanted - the squareness of this makes it hard to use sitting down. Also you can't rest your foot against it when not using it like you would a real petal.