I had recently found my RB1 guitar strum to be a bit faulty (which happens to most) and so checked with EA as it was under warranty. Go back to the store, they ALL will organise an exchange. Er… right, I called up Curry’s to check. They said yeah sure! Just bring it in for exchange or refund. I dropped by the Curry’s I bought it from. I asked an attendant – I said

• I don’t want to waste my time bringing my guitar all the way here, only for you to tell me something completely different. Can you give me a new guitar?
• Yeah sure! We have three in stock!
• Alright, I’ll be in tomorrow.

I warned the guy I would remember his name. He grinned and noted he wouldn’t be in the next day. I gulped. I returned the next day, boxed guitar in hand.

• We don’t have any guitars to give you, sorry, would you like a refund?
• WHAT?

Well, I took the refund.  I had noted a RB2 guitar on ebay…  Then today I noticed play.com was doing a half price offer on the beatles instruments (£80-> £40), and as I noticed that the RB1 guitar still sells for £40, there was really no good reason not to buy one.

So here it is. It’s actually a little bit longer than the Fender, takes three batteries, the effects changer is now a dial and quite simply, the damn thing is gorgeous to look at. But enough with the looks, what about the actual instrument?

The fret buttons are quiet. REALLY quiet. It’s lovely. The guitar hero guitar may be more accurate in the long run but they’re damn noisy with all that clicking. Won’t matter so much if you’ve got the game cranked up but for some peaceful strumming you’re in for none of that. The Gretsch’s strum bar is certainly firmer than the RB1 guitar (I have not tried the RB2) but there is still a little dead space – it’s still not anywhere near a microswitch.

I gave the guitar a little warm up with System of a Down’s Toxicity on hard mode.  No problems, apart from my brain spazzing out a little as I had been playing with the GH guitar while waiting for this to be delivered, which meant I had switched back to four finger fretting, as opposed to four finger and thumb fretting (a feat which can only be achieved on the RB guitars).  To be honest, only time will tell if the Gretsch can handle the punishment due, and if you just want to play these games accurately and can handle four finger fretting, you’ll probably want a GH guitar.  On the other hand, if you’re like me, and want to swagger with awesomeness, be able to use your thumb on the green fret and play clicking-noise-free, you should get a Beatles RB guitar.  Or be super smart, get both, and invite a friend over to jam, just to watch them stare at your Gretsch…

Now I don’t realllllly want to open this but if the strum bar gives way… then there’s always this option:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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!

RB guitar

Edit: I have the RB1 guitar and the GHWT guitar. They both have faults and frankly a combination of both would be best – if I modded the RB guitar with a microswitch strum, it would be my favourite, because it’s bigger, longer and the keys are more comfortable. I’d like to try the RB2 guitar, but they are not available in Europe!!!

RB keys

GH keys

At this time, the GH World Tour guitar is awesome, although a little shorter than the RB, the keys aren’t great and I’m having trouble activating star power. Even with these problems, the guitar is better simply because it has a microswitch strum bar, whereas the RB guitar seems to have an analogue strum bar. The GH guitar makes a click when you pull on the sensitive bar, whereas the RB guitar is silent as you pull, but then I’ve recently had to apply more pressure because analogue connectors have that tendency to wear out much faster. So far, when I want to hit the note, the strum bar is most important and the GH guitar is more accurate (but noisy too!).

Now I’m hearing about GH guitars failing. Oh well.

Just a random point, the GHWT game looks a bit more gimmicky and the CG of RB is more to my taste, but who cares, I want those GH songs! Bloody hell, only two tracks from Interpol, one on GHWT and one on RB2! Oh, the price of good taste!

So, what would be the best set up to get the most out of both games?

With RB, I can buy RB and RB2 on PS2 for cheap but then I can’t download more songs and GH guitars on PS2 don’t work with RB.

To have the best guitar (available in the UK to date) and a full libary (and cheaply), this is what you have to do:

If you want the whole band, get either the RB or GHWT full band set, as the GHWT stuff works on RB (PS3). As for Band Hero, er… it’s er… fun for all the family (all mainstream pop songs).

For me, an indie rock fan, Rock Band has the best catalogue, although GHWT and GH5 have a few tracks I’m going to have to have.

Here’s some charts (courtesy of the GH forums) if you want to mess around with components to get the best band instruments…

Oh and finally, the last word on Beatles Rockband:

Click here to view the embedded video.