Ion IED08 Drum Rocker Premium Drum Set

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I ran into a few problems with the Ion Drum Rocker right out of the box.

First off, the sensitivity of the cymbals are about 65-75% of where they should be. If you're at an expert level, you'll definitely see the difference when you're hitting drum rolls on the high hat (middle of Everlong, YYZ, etc.). Second, you have to hit the cymbal a little harder than usual, which increases arm fatigue. Third, the cymbals are quite loud (not as loud as the RB1 drums, but damn near) in comparison to the tom toms. You can purchase aftermarket cymbals (several available for purchase online & amazon.com!) that would work extremely better.

The bass pedal is also an issue. Sturdy, but it is prone to sticking at the bottom. The pedal is also prone to static issues which cause the entire drum set to disconnect (

Also, my drum module was triggering buttons sporatically (due to a manufacturer defect), but a replacement from amazon.com is on the way to my home.

In conclusion, the Ion Drum Rocker could've been a great drum set, but there were a few quirks that keeps it from greatness. You can get replacements for your cymbals($40-50 a piece) and also the Rock Pedal(great buy for your aspiring fake drum career :D); but it retrospect, you shouldn't have to spend money to upgrade equipment after just spending bucks. Do your research!!!

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I ordered these on December 9th (in the evening) and thanks to a free trial of Amazon Prime, I got it shipped next day for just $3.99. Anyway I received them today and......WOW!!!! This peripheral single-handedly has made Rock Band FUN again!!! It's a completely different experience than the standard drum kit. The symbols add a level of realism that could not come close to being achieved with the standard kit. There is a learning curve, as the symbols will confuse you at times (when to hit them vs when to use the regular pads,) but it's fun figuring it out! The kick pedal is very good (way better than the one that comes with Rock Band and Rock Band 2, but not as good as the Omega Pedal.) It does take a while, took me about 30 minutes, to set up out of the box. There are wires going everywhere, one from each drum pad/symbol, to a central hub but you can zip-tie the cords up so it doesn't look like a rats nest. The kit can be set up to your liking as all the drum pads and the symbols are move-able. The pads themselves are more quiet and give more "bounce" than the rock band kit as well. Over all this is a very good drum kit, I have been playing Rock Band for almost 1 year, got to the point where I could play about 1/2 of the 250+ songs on expert so I have put a lot of time in on the old kit. I love the Drum Rocker and am looking forward to hours and hours of fun using it!!! The BEST kit on the market for playing Rock Band/Guitar Hero World Tour!

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In a nutshell, this is a fantastic electronic drum kit for Rock Band. It's worth picking up if you have skill and the drums and want to advance to the next level.

Some notes before starting out:

When I compare the Ion Drum Rocker to the standard Rock Band kit, I am referring to the original R.B. drum kit, not the R.B.2 kit

I have the Rock Pedal (which works for this kit with a simple 1/8 to 1/4 adapter) and will not discuss the pedal that comes with this kit (though it seems more responsive than the standard pedal)

I have been a "Rock Band drummer" for about 10 months, and can play roughly 75% of the songs on Expert

Let me explain some specifics about this kit via a pros/cons list:

PROS

1) Drum pad placement. Lots of flexibility to move drums pads around--change the angle, height, and placement on the bar. You can set the four pads to wherever is most comfortable for you. The L-shaped rod under each pad gives you some flexibility in height.

2) Noise reduction. The drum pads are much quieter than the standard Rock Band kit. (There are some YouTube videos that demonstrate this, and it is a noticeable difference.)

3) Sensitive pads. The drum pads are velocity sensitive and also have more 'bounce' to them than the standard kit.

4) Easy adjustments. The kit comes with a drum key (an allen wrench, really) that lets you make every adjustment that needs to be made.

5) Cymbals. Come on, you really want this to have the cymbals, right? :> The cymbals are also quiet and really add to your enjoyment when playing. It also makes you focus more closely on what's going on in the music (not just blinding hitting the blue pad without noticing whether you're hitting a tom or a ride cymbal).

CONS

1) Cymbal placement. Well, it's okay, but you're a bit more limited when it comes to placement and angle. The kit comes with a short (~12") bar and a longer (~24"-30") bar, so you have some flexibility in height. The drums give you more freedom of placement.

2) Ships with two cymbals. You can order the third for $50, though.

3) No option for a fourth, or "red" cymbal. Some songs ("Run to the Hills" or "Rio" amongst others) have you hit the red pad as a cymbal, but there's no option to plug a cymbal into a "red" input. Not a huge problem, just a tad annoying (I'm actually more annoyed at the RB programmers for ever turning the red snare drum into a cymbal!).

4) Bigger/Bulkier than the original RB kit. Or maybe this is a con. :> It's not too much bigger, but it is heavier and a little trickier to move.

As a sidenote, I have not had any problems with the cymbals dropping 'fast' notes (mine are set to Ride/Blue and Crash/Green currently, so I haven't tried the Hi-Hat/Yellow).

Overall, the pros vastly outweigh the cons. These seem to be very high-quality drums, and it adds to the challenge of drumming when you have to differentiate between cymbals and toms when you're playing! If you are really into Rock Band drumming, I highly recommend this kit.

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I was beginning to think I was the only one, but I have begun to see more and more comments about other peoples problems with ION customer service and the drum kit... here goes mine.

I got the Ion DrumRocker for PS3 which didn't get released until December. I picked it up the first day it was available, only to have the bracket on the Red drumpad break when tightening, since it is only cheap plastic (again, something meant to be hit hard with a stick should be better constructed). This was not due to over-tightening as the customer service guy tried to suggest since I tightened all of my pads the same way and only had this one break. In addition, both of the cymbals were only registering 50-70% of the time and only when hit VERY hard. I went online and filled out the only form I could find for customer service and didn't get a call within two days. I did more searching and finally found a number (not toll free) to call. When I called, they acted like they were doing ME a favor by allowing me to return the product. They said they were going to send a UPS shipping label by email and that I would get it in two days. Two days later, no shipping label, so I called again, they said they would resend it. Two more days, no label, called again, said they would try a different email address. Two more days, no label. Now they say they will print out a label and send it to me by mail. This went on past through Christmas, and into January and I still did not have a shipping label. Finally, mid-January, after talking to 10 different people and spending hours on the phone, I finally have a label. I send it in and cross my fingers. Three weeks go by and I have not heard anything. I call. They I give them the RA# and serial# of my drum set and my name. They tell me that unless I have the Tracking number of the package, they can't tell me what's going on with my repair. Remember now... THEY printed the shipping label... THEY issued the RA#... and now THEY have no idea what's going on with MY merchandise!! I ask to speak with a manager and after arguing with the guy he transfers me to a voice mail service, so I leave a message and ask for a call back..... Any guesses if I got a call back? One week later (now nearly the end of February, two and a half months after the set was broken) I call again and demand that someone find out where my merchandise is. The guy finally tells me that there's a backlog of repairs and that they did receive my broken parts, but that I wouldn't get replacements until late March or early April -FOUR to FIVE MONTHS AFTER I PURCHASED AND REPORTED THE DEFECTIVE PRODUCT!!!!! I voiced my frustration saying that I'm sure they are filling new orders for drum kits that were placed well after my repair was requested and meanwhile those of us with problems are left out our $300 and without a working product. He tells me a sob story (which I'm sure is a lie) about how he bought a drum rocker kit for his daughter for christmas and it was broken and he still doesn't have a replacement and his daughters ask him every day why santa brought them a broken toy.... oh, woe is me... my poor deprived imaginary daughter without her drumrocker... whatever will I do?

Just when you thought it was over... I decided to use the Ion Drumrocker kick pedal with my stock RockBand kit using an adapter (I like the DrumRocker pedal better) and within 4 songs, the trigger switch in the pedal broke (the same problem described in the first post). Now I've gotten another RA# and shipped off another part from my ION kit, probably not to be seen for another 5 months.....

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This review may get too detailed for the average user, but if you're like me, you want to know everything there is to know.

The first thing I need to mention is that the static issue is a serious problem. While playing on carpet, eventually static builds up and causes the Ion's module to disconnect with PS3 halting your fun mid-song. This can happen several times each song. Check the internet there are some solutions to isolate the pedal and stand by using fabric softener sheets lol! Luckily I accidentally stumbled upon the BEST way to fix this problem. Take an extra 1/4" patch cord, plug one end into the Ion module and let the other end dangle on the carpet. This will ground the module and there will be no way for any static to build up and discharge. Once I discovered this trick, I never lost connection again.

For a Rock Band replacement drum set, this set is AWESOME. If you're already good at RB, these will make you even better. If you don't get 100% accuracy at the end of a song, it's NOT the drums' fault, is YOUR fault. The responsiveness of the drum pads is pure heaven. They bounce back and make drum rolls a breeze. They are nice and quiet for small home or apartment use. The stand is very sturdy and excellent quality. Everything is easily adjustable to put the pads where you like. It's true what others wrote about portability. Tear-down and set up is not easy. Luckily I have space in my house and everything stays together and simply moved to the corner.

Bass pedal very mediocre. I started with Guitar Hero and quickly upgraded to a much higher quality kicker and loved it, so I don't like the pedal style at all. It is playable, but you may want to upgrade. If you do, be careful because although the Ions advertise that you'll be ready to move up to professional electronic drumming at any time because their drums are just like real electronic drums that's not entirely true. Although their pads are like real e-drums, the bass pedal is not. Ion's bass pedal is digital in other words on or off. And that's the signal the Ion's drum module is expecting. If you upgrade to a real bass drum kicker, it puts out an analog signal basically identical to the rest of the pads in this kit. But the Ion module cannot read an analog signal for this input. You'll need to buy a small device that converts the signal.

Cymbals here I can't give as good of a review. The cymbals sound like you're hitting a block of wood and the responsiveness isn't great. They're only moderately fun to play on and they're too loud, but that's not the real let down. I'm a Guitar Hero player 1st, and a Rock Band player 2nd, so if you like to play both, read on. I closely checked all the compatibility charts for GH and RB games, and every recent game supported Ion's drums. I mistakenly thought that the Ion drums would act just like the Guitar Hero World Tour drums (or Band Hero drums). They don't. The GH games will "dumb down" to only 4 lanes of drums just like you were playing RB. This was a huge disappointment to me because I like the added difficulty and realism of playing 5 drums plus a bass pedal as opposed to RB's 4 drums plus bass. The Ion drum module (the "brain") appears to have 8 inputs (1 bass pedal and 7 "drum" inputs). This is NOT the case for GH games. The module really only has 5 inputs: 1 bass pedal and 4 drums. The other 3 inputs are merely duplicates of 3 of the existing drums. They are simply wired in parallel so that a drum (or cymbal) hooked to either input produces exactly the same result. Conversely, in RB2 the cymbals do make a different sound during fills and in freestyle mode. A good thing is that in RB3, the Ions support the pro mode which means the cymbals are differentiated from the pads and you have to play the correct one. If you want to play on more realistic feeling cymbals, I recommend buying Ion's basic drum package and adding other cymbals that are more playable. Either way, there is no way to make GH work with 5 lanes unless you want to buy some extra and/or modded equipment. If you do, read on.

There are ways to play Guitar Hero games with 5 lanes as it was meant to be played, but you have to use extra equipment. There are forums out there to give all the details, but I'll sum it up quickly. You can use a real drum module from a set of real electronic drums by completely bypassing Ion's module. You plug the drums directly into the real drum module, then use the MIDI out from the drum module to the MIDI in on your Guitar Hero drums. If you've thrown out your GH drums, you can buy just the modules (and/or the wireless dongles) on internet auction sites. Do your homework before actually buying a real drum module because the module will need to have reprogrammable MIDI channels so that the GH module gets the correct signal. If the MIDI notes cannot be reprogrammed, you'll need yet another piece of hardware that is made strictly to re-map MIDI notes.

The second way is to just get the MIDI box that accepts drum pad signals, and outputs (re-programmable) MIDI signals. These boxes are much cheaper than true drum modules because they aren't capable of outputting any sounds, only MIDI signals.

The third way is to buy a modded Guitar Hero drum module or mod one yourself. You can make the stock GH drum module accept input from the Ion's drum pads by putting 1/4" female jacks on the GH module and connecting them internally. Check forums for how to do this correctly.

Be warned that if you do use the Ion's to play GH, you CAN'T use Ion's bass pedal because it's digital. You'll have to use GH's stock pedal or some upgrade that's like a real kicker with an analog signal. Also be warned that Ion's drum pads output a VERY strong analog signal and can be too sensitive when used with a modded GH module. You can download a program to adjust the sensitivity of the GH module, but I've found that even at the absolute lowest setting, the pads are still too sensitive and you get false hits from vibrations from other pads. This can be fixed by attenuating each of the signals by using resistors, but that's even more modding!

The final part of this review is to talk about the most fun part to me. You can get rid of Ion's drum module and connect your Ion drums into a real electronic drum module and play along with either GH or RB. This can be done in practice mode, but if you want a real thrill, you can make it work inside a real game too. If you can program your drum module to re-map the MIDI notes, you can take the drum module's MIDI output and put it into Guitar Hero's MIDI input. Now your drums will register inside the game. You can then turn the volume down on the video game's drum track and then turn the volume up on your drums' amp or however you play your real electronic drums. Warning!!! This will make you realize how difficult it really is to drum. The video games have a (relatively) HUGE margin of error where you can strike a drum too early or too late and the music still plays perfectly. With this setup now the drums play exactly when you hit them. This is an extremely fun time. Even better is that you can keep adding more drums (like more cymbals and more toms) and map different drums to same colors making your drums still register in the game. It becomes much more like real drums.

If you're like me and spend too much on this type of video game, I have another suggestion for you. If you think you'll keep upgrading drums or adding lots of stuff, you'll be way ahead of the game if you just start with a real set of electronic drums. You can get basic kits for $500-$1000. I know it sounds like a lot, but trust me if you start with Ion's drums and keep upgrading and adding stuff you'll end up spending much more in the long run. Just realize that you're spending this money on a stand and 4 pads. The Ion module will become useless and the so will the cymbals when you upgrade. If you're going to stay with Rock Band and not go to real e-drums, this kit is awesome, but like I said before, skip the cymbals.