The GHWT drum kit is brilliant fun, or at least it was for the first few hours... after that the snare pad stopped working, one of the cymbal pads needed to be hit very hard and the kick pedal would trigger two or three hits every time you touched it. Great, the most expensive toy I've ever bought and it's fucked after only a few hours! Some rooting around on the intertubes quickly turned up a host of similar complaints, hundreds of them in fact, and also a statement from Activision acknowledging that the drums are "having some limited sensitivity issues on a small number of units". And this is on the day of release! What a fucking cock-up! Small number of units my hairy arse! From the number of forum threads bitching about it I'd say it has to be the majority of the damn things.
In response, Activision have released a PC application that allows users to tune the sensitivity of their drums to the levels they like, the catch is that the lead needed to connect the drums to a PC costs thirty quid. The good news is the company are shipping out said cables free of charge to everyone who reports the fault on their customer support site, the bad news is, when it'll arrive is anyone's guess!
So I applied for a cable and downloaded the tuning kit, but on my travels I'd seen several mentions of shoddy workmanship and loose wires on the red pad, the one I was having trouble with. Earlier tonight I decided to have a look at mine, as the complete failure of the pad seemed to suggest more than a sensitivity issue. Rather than remove the back cover and void the warranty, I decided to prise the cover off the pad and take a peek that way. It came off easy enough, no glue or security seals, just a series of rubber pegs that clipped into holes on the plate behind. Sure enough there was a broken wire, snapped clean off where it was soldered to the receiver on the back of the pad. "Right", I thought, "lets get the cover back on and send the damn thing back". It was then that I discovered that it is utterly impossible to refit the drum pad cover without taking the whole unit apart! Bollocks! I couldn't return it like that because they would just say I'd broken it pulling the pad off, which I hadn't. So I broke out the soldering iron and the funny star-headed screwdriver and took the bastard apart... after having to slightly modify some of the holes to get the stupid fat screwdriver in, (for modify, read "hack at with a sharp knife"). Anyway, forty odd minutes later and with the house smelling of newly melted solder it was all back together and working like a charm! Woohoo! I just hope nothing else goes wrong with it now because the warranty is well and truly void!
By the time I was done it was too late to play the drums for long without upsetting the neighbours, so I carried on with the guitar instead, and completed it on hard mode, which was nice :)
