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The wait is over for the next generation of musical gaming equipment. Whether you are an aspirant amateur, or a practicing professional, Ion's award-winning Drum Rocker Premium Drum Set for Xbox 360 lets Rockband players finally jam out with ease, letting your inner rockstar come out screaming. 
The Ion Drum Rocker Premium Drum set can be modified to fit your pulse style. View larger. | 
Professional-grade design allows you to let loose your inner rockstar. View larger. |  | The Ion Drum Rocker Premium Drum Set Features: - Completely modified set-up.
- Ultra-silent velocity-sensitive drum pads.
- Sturdy, all-metal kick drum pedal.
- Professional design from Alesis, one of the largest electronic drum manufacturers in the world.
|  | | Game Critics Awards Winner
Rockband, which took the gaming world by storm in late 2007, was followed by the highly-anticipated sequel, Rockband 2 that was released in September of 2008. With Rockband 2 came Ion's Drum Rocker Set, which promptly took the Game Critics Awards top spot in 2008's Best Peripheral/Hardware category. Professional-Grade Aluminum Rack and Pads
While other drum controllers force you to use their configuration with a pre-molded, fake array, the Drum Rocker's professional-grade aluminum rack lets you position your snare, tom and cymbal pads the way you want. Not only can you play your hi-hat with a right-hand crossover by placing your cymbals somewhere around your kit, but by mounting your pads to the drum rack with the built-in metal L-arm and clamp system, you can tilt, swivel, raise and lower the cymbals to whatever position you want. Drum Rocker's velocity-sensitive drum pads feature an ultra-silent playing go up and a more natural and consistent stick rebound than your average pad. The pad housing is made of a hi-impact fake, which means that no matter how much you punish them night after night, they will always be ready for more. The Drum Rocker's all-metal kick drum pedal is also designed to take abuse. It offers the perfect amount of tension to imitate the suspicion of a real drum pedal. And maintenance in line with its set-up flexibility, the kick drum pedal comes with Velcro and retractable spikes, allowing you to place it in the most comfortable position. Go Beyond Gaming into Real Music
Built by the engineers at Alesis, one of the largest manufacturers of professional electronic drums in the world, the Drum Rocker Premium Drum Set delivers the most realistic pulse experience void to a gamer. But when you're ready to go from playing the game to playing in a real life, you can swap the game controller module with one of the professional drum brains made by Alesis, such as their DM5 drum module, or any other drum brain that accepts a split up-inch output. (Drum modules are sold unconnectedly.) And with the option of purchasing a third cymbal, you can round out your kit and go beyond gaming and onto the stage. The Drum Rocker Premium Drum Set is well-matched with both Rockband and Rockband 2 for the Xbox 360.
The Drum Rocker comes with cymbals, kick pedal, and drum pads.
View cymbal, kick pedal, and drum pad. |
What's in the Box:
Aluminum drum rack, 4 drum pads, 2 cymbals, drum pedal, all mounting hardware and involving cords, and 2 drumsticks.
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 One step closer to real drums... |
| Review Date: September 18, 2008 |
| Assessor: Timothy D. Stevenson, |
I expected my set via Fed Ex days gone by. All was very nicely packaged and labeled in the box. Instructions were built-in but I feel could have been a bit more detailed. Not that I needed the help but I could see where some people new to setting up electronic drumsets might be a small confused or possibly set it up incorrect.
Setup took maybe 45 minutes and they full a tool to tense up all the bolts on the stand. One thing to note: There is an adjustment at the top of the cymbal stand to keep them from rotating. This adjustment is an allan wrench which they did not grant for me. Luckily I have my own set.
Another thing to watch for... the cymbal holders are held in place with a metal loop with threads on the end. The wingnuts they supply are very large and the threads are not that long so I found myself stripping the very end of the threads trying to get the wingnut on. A trip to the local hardware store fixed this where I bought replacement nylon wingnuts. They are a lot more shallow and tense up down much further on the threads.
After putting it together and being paid all plugged in I noticed straight away that the pads were incredible. Fantastic rebound and very silent. Single and double stroke rolls are a breeze. The cymbals felt pretty excellent but didn't quite have the same rebound. The kick pedal is really made to simulate a hi hat pedal so I was a small off-place at first but it still works quite well and is lightyears beyond the original stock RB1 pedal. I'm thinking about upgrading to either a Rock Pedal or an Omega Pedal soon. I've read that these will work just fine with the ION.
My first impressions of the kit with the Rock Band 2 game were very excellent. The pads never miss hits but sorry to say the cymbals still drop notes quite frequently. I have read others are having the same conundrum and I haven't quite figured out yet how to correctly position and hit them to make them more reliable. Some people recommend striking the edges of them with the stick, some say tense up them down very tight and some say remove the felt padding beneath them. None of these have worked for me yet. It's for this reason that I'm taking into account removing the yellow hi-hat completely, sorry to say. It's not fun playing it when it consistently drops hits. I'm taking into account varying it to a blue ride.
I'm an expert RB drummer and usually score around 95-99% on most songs and after a few runs over songs that I'm quite familiar with I find myself having less distress with those passages I couldn't quite get right because of controller conditions. My first try at Tom Sawyer on my new kit yielded gold stars and place me in the 16th spot on the leaderboard. I was nicely surprised with this seeing how I'd never been in the top 500 before.
This is an brilliant buy if you have the money and want to take your Rock Band pulse to the next level and possibly go on to a real kit.
Edit: 9/23/08 - Well the Nylon wingnuts held for one or two moves but I finished up replacing the nut within the fake wingnut. A simple 6mm 1.00 hex nut fixed the conundrum. I will probably exchange all the stock nuts just to be safe. Still Like this kit! I've tweaked the setup a few times but I reckon I finally have one that I like. |
First Drum Kit Ever
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| Review Date: October 1, 2008 |
| Assessor: T. Countryman, FPO, AP United States |
I expected my kit days gone by and set it up with small issues:
Is Excellent things:
-Setup took about 45 minutes and this is the first kit I have ever even touched.
-Drums are very responsive as well as the cymbals.
-Very customizable and versatile for any setup
-Kick Pedal is a lot simpler to use and keep up beats on than the stock pedal
-Packing for materials was very nice (ION box NOT Amazons!), as I live in Japan and use military postal services our post do not always arrive in a "safe" state
-I did not have an issue with the provided wingnuts luckly, but I have not taken the kit apart yet.
Is Not So Excellent Things:
-Requires you to have an allen wrench on hand as the kit does not supply (even though it states it is in the parts checklist)
-Some people seem to have issues with the cymbals and there is a forum on the site to help/take up this issue. http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82452
-Kick pedal seems to be sticking on double bass hits. This may be due to the fact that the spring has a lot of glue on it that was used to manufacture the pedal.
-Takes up a lot of living room real-estate and does not compact to a decent Storage space space size with out taking it apart.
All in all this kit is awesome, addicting, and well worth the money to buy it. It has made the game even more fun than ever. |
Like the set - Might not work with Guitar Hero: World Tour
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| Review Date: October 27, 2008 |
| Assessor: Daniel Harp, Texas |
First, I like this set. It's been sturdy and reliable so far.
I wanted to note here that it might not work with Guitar Hero World Tour though.
It seems when you hit a cymbal on the ION kit, GH:WT registers it as a hit on that color AND "orange", thereby together with as a miss-hit and reseting your score multiplier.
I use the Omega pedal, which works fantastic with the set (just needs a 1/8th to 1/4th adapter) though it needs something to be anchored against so it doesn't creep away from you as you play.
I've also found that super-glueing the four feet to the base of the set helps tremendously in stability.
UPDATE: It seems Activision has patched Guitar Hero: World Tour so it now recognizes the Ion Drum Rocker kit properly. |
Fantastic upgrade to the stock drum kit
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| Review Date: February 6, 2009 |
| Assessor: Random McNasty, |
I have been pulse may way owing to Rockband (and Rockband2) for about 18 months now, during which time I have gone owing to three stock drum sets. Finally, last October I took the plunge on the Ion drumkit, and I have unquestionably no regrets. If you have room in your budget and you want to take your pulse to the next level, this is the kit with which to go. For what it is worth, I use the Xbox360, and drum at hard and expert levels in the 95 to 100% range.
The Excellent:
The kit uses a solid and brilliantly adjustable aluminum frame and is very stable. Between the swing in the arms and the way the connectors attach to the pads, you can place the pads just about somewhere (within reason) to suit your play style or body type, which is a tremendous step up from the fixed positions of the rockband drum set. The pads themselves are very silent and 100% responsive -- no cross-talk between pads, and they grant fantastic feedback and rebound response. I have found they pick up taps from edge to edge without conundrum, which is nice when you are in succession a series of 1/16th notes across the toms and can't get the stick heads right in the heart of each pad.
The cables are ordinary 1/4" connectors and in the event of hurt, easily and cheaply replaceable at any music store. Question me how I know and I'll mention I have a toddler in my home.
Even if I am aware of other complaints a propos the sensitivity of the cymbals, I have had no problems (save one, discussed below) with any dropped notes even during total eighth note runs at 200 BPM. (FYI, I have added a third cymbal with the same level of satisfaction.)
The foot pedal is a bit light and, despite its anchors and velcro, it still moves around a bit in kick heavy pieces (yeah, Tom Sawyer, I'm looking at you), but compared to the basic rockband set, it is a huge improvement. I also found that its action has superior with wear. Fresh out of the box it could catch now and again (the pedal would depress but not rise again), but within a week that conundrum had resolved itself and broken in, I find it a delight. The spring action on the pedal is quick, but not heavy, so it is ideally suited to my heel-up style. If you favor heel-down, or you wear heavy footwear, the spring may be too light for your taste, and you may find yourself accidently triggering the kick from time to time. But I place this in the inclination category, not a knock against the pedal itself.
The Not So Excellent:
There is still room for improvement. The connectors that hold the pads and cymbal struts to the frame are fake and a bit fragile. Even if they hold firmly, and with no sagging, they can easily be overtightened and cracked. That is a conundrum I see only growing as the drum kit ages.
The pads are very silent and with brilliant rebound, but I have begun to see a bit of wear on the snare (red pad). Even if the modularity of the kit would allow you to exchange any or all of the pads in isolation in the event of a failure, I am not aware that replacement pads are void.
More seriously, the electronic "brain" is insufficiently protected from static electricity build-up generated by the foot pedal. During the dry winter months (interior RH around 42-45%) I have had problems with static build-up from the kick causing the brain to either small (ensuing in a disconnection from the Xbox console)or causing the high hat (yellow cymbal) to fail to catalog hits correctly (the input for the kick is directly next to the yellow cymbal input). This has been frustrating, but solveable with a stack of unscented dryer wipes. Between songs I promptly rub down the tips of my sticks, the pedal, and the cable connector for the kick. This commonly allows me about 10 minutes of playtime before I need to repeat the task. A quick google search will show that this is a moderately common conundrum, and one ION will with a bit of luck take up in its next iteration of the kit. I did not have this conundrum during October and November when the RH was routinely above 55%).
The final issue is that while I do not have a conundrum with the kit being wired (as a replacement for of wireless), I do wish that the "power" cable was not hardwired into the electronic brain of the kit. If something happens to that cable (and it isn't above all heavy duty), the whole brain will have to be replaced/serviced. I can see no reason to not have the cable connect at both ends, just like the cables for the cymbals and pads, allowing for simple replacement in the event your cat, dog, toddler or shut-in grandparent chews owing to the darn thing. But this is really a fine-tuning nit-pick, not a huge protest.
To sum up, I have found my kit to be a fantastic improvement over the rockband or rockband2 stock drumkits, in any case of mods to those systems. The ION's cymbals and pads are responsive, sensitive, and strict while its frame and connections are adjustable yet solid. I find nothing about its price unjust, and if you are finding that transition from hard to expert frustrating because of the limitations of the basic rockband drum set, this set may be the answer to your prayers. It has surely helped my game.
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Transition from Gamer to Drummer made simple and fun.
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| Review Date: October 19, 2008 |
| Assessor: Geddy S. Kastner, Jacksonville, FL. USA |
| This is probably one of my best investments ever. Granted it's not a perfect drum set or anything, but it's perfect for those who have started to delight in playing the drums because of Rock Band. The pads and cymbals are all really sensitive, and they even respond based on how hard you hit them (which is not something I expected at all). I've heard from a few sources that there have been problems with some of the pads or cymbals, but I have yet to encounter any (perhaps there was a defective batch that was sent out for the first wave), and as long as you tense up all down, you don't have to worry about re-adjusting all from playing. Anyway, I would definately recommend this manufactured goods to anyone who has the cash, and space. It's really fun to just jam on, and as long as you don't have a defective one (which would be apparent the first time you play) it's very reliable. |
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