ion drum rocker and the art of plywood
I know that everyone and their mom has now played Rock Band, and if they haven’t, they’ve been living in a cave for the past five years. This little karaoke substitute has created an amazing new way to enjoy your music, to become a virtual rock star, and to pile numerous plastic guitars and drum sets throughout living rooms everywhere. And it’s a total blast.
I picked up my Rock Band 2 set about a year ago, and quickly learned that while many people are familiar with the guitar controllers, the drums were a completely different animal. Considering that no one ever seemed to want to touch the drums, I took it upon myself to learn them, and so I became my friends’ default drummer in any and all Rock Band sessions. I usually can make it through any song on hard, and many on expert, but I wouldn’t consider myself extremely good.
But I do love to play. A lot.
So, it wasn’t really a surprise a few months into ownership that I broke the kick pedal’s plastic hinge. Or that I snapped the bolt on one of the symbols. Or that the pipes won’t properly stay all the way up anymore. That little plastic set had a good, long, life, but I realized that it was time to upgrade.
After some research, and realizing that I really only wanted to use this for Rock Band instead of a career as a drummer, I decided forgo the expensive, high-end electronic drum set ups and went with the Ion Drum Rocker. At first, this worked for me, but I quickly noticed that the thing liked to drop out of the game sporadically. A quick search later, and I discovered that there was some kind of static electricity buildup that caused a charge to run through the system and drop out, which was extremely frustrating during a particularly difficult section or while the entire band was on a good rhythm.
I went through a number of ideas, hoping that I wouldn’t have to send the set in to get it repaired or something, and annoyed that many people complained that the Ion/Alesis customer service was really bad. My ideas ranged from touching the pads to discharge them between songs, putting a vinyl mat underneath the set, to using some dryer sheets, to a number of different alternatives, but nothing seemed to stop it from disconnecting or just having the drums simply stop responding for apparently no reason.
After talking it over with a friend, we thought up that perhaps if we could deaden the charge, not only under the set, but under myself and the entire set-up, we could get it to work. After some rummaging through the garage, and a little hammer and sawing, I slipped some plywood under the drum set, my seat, the kick pedal, and the cords that run to the PS3.
So far, I haven’t had a single problem.
The Ion Rocker is a good set that I’ve had a lot of fun with. The main reason that I put this out there is that I’ve read about some really expensive ideas, including opening up the system and adjusting wiring, or scraping things off the pads, or a number of other ideas, and I thought that they all sounded rather… well, expensive, as well as time-consuming. As far as I can determine, the wood underneath my system at the moment, (on top of the carpet), is just regular old plywood. The cables don’t touch the carpet, which I also think is important.
Anyway, hope that helps someone who was as frustrated as I was. Or even those who aren’t.
- K
UPDATE: Since this posting, I’ve done some extra testing. The kit will sometimes still drop out, and the response that I got from ION was anything but helpful. In any case, I tried a number of other things in addition to the plywood on the carpet underneath the kit, and the most helpful has been a seven-dollar grounding wrist strap that I modified to fit around my ankle, plugged into the ground of a wall outlet. Over New Years, we held a four+ hour Rock Band marathon at my house, and after putting on the “ankle strap”, there were only two or three drop outs total for the whole night. It was cheap, and worked wonders. I would recommend putting the strap around the ankle of the foot that you’re going to use for the kick pedal, because that seemed important, and make sure that the metal piece of the strap is touching skin, not clothing.
In an effort to remove the problem completely, next I’m going to try adding an anti-static mat onto the plywood to see if that helps even more. But I thought that I should jot down this little tidbit for those who are still having problems. Good luck! – K
