This is why the Rock Band guitar is superior

I had recently described the Guitar Hero guitar as superior, simply because of its switch mechanism for the strum bar, which is all important when you’re trying to hit that note on time.  However, a new development has caused me to change my mind again, and this time, really pissed me off.

Hard mode: this generally involves hitting 5 keys as opposed to medium mode’s 4 (easy being 3).  A good guitarist will move their fingers up and down the keys and not get confused as they have been playing for so long they instinctively use their index finger for the green key.  Ahem.  Confused?  My brain was swizzled.  Green note is coming, er, where’s my hand?  Then my gf pointed out that some guitarists use their thumb.  What?  Oh my freaking god.  After a bit of adjusting, I can now hit all 5 keys, without moving my hand.  Look at the picture above.

As for the GH guitar, well, you can’t do this at all.  Remember my complaint about the pop out buttons?

GH keys

You can’t use your thumb in the same way.  So the GH guitar isn’t that good in the end, at least for hard mode. But what about the RB strum bar?  Yes the strum bar is still crappy.  Note, if you’ve always hammered your strum bar downwards, you’ll find the upwards motion is still fresh and responsive.  Try it! My RB guitar is still under warranty, so I’ll get it replaced first and when that runs out, I’ll do the mod.  THAT modded RB guitar is the best, hands down.

How about the music library comparison? It’s a matter of taste -

I spent some money on DLC last night:  Maximo Park’s Girls who play Guitars, Dear and the Headlights’ Sweet Talk, Radiohead’s Iron Lung, System of a Down’s Toxicity, White Stripes’ Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground and Smashing Pumpkin’s Zero.  Guitar Hero!  No, these are all only available on Rock Band (apart from Maximo Park).  The best thing is, I load up Rock Band 2, and I don’t have to change disks, all my tracks are there (all songs from RB1 have been imported).  With GH, even if I buy stuff from the store, I have to switch disks for certain songs.  That sucks.  I want to do Muse’s stuff, which is mostly on GH3 and GH5.  Grrr.  I’m only loading up GHWT to do Coldplay’s Shiver, REM’s The One I Love and Interpol’s PDA.

Edit: Good Lord, here’s another mod, this time tearing up an old crappy PS2 GH guitar to completely turn your RB guitar into god guitar. I personally wouldn’t bother with the extra keys, just the strum bar. I think the other mod is better, just add switches to the strum bar, that’s all you really need to do!