Across the internet reports are coming in that the Guitar Hero World Tour drums are having issues. Most of these reports are complaining about the cymbals registering extra hits or the pads not registering hits unless played very hard. Today Activision confirmed that there are “sensitivity issues” with the drums and that they would be releasing a tuning kit to help address these issues.
We’ve heard in the forums that some drum kit controllers may have sensitivity issues – i.e. some pads or cymbals require extra strong hits in order to register in-game. We believe there may be an isolated manufacturing issue with some early drum kit controllers. The good news is that all Guitar Hero World Tour drum kit controllers are programmable, so that the sensitivity on each pad or cymbal can be updated from a PC running a Windows tuning program (see screenshot below). Very soon we will be offering a free Drum Tuning Kit to consumers experiencing serious sensitivity issues.
If you are experiencing drum sensitivity issues please visit the Activision Publishing customer support page at www.activision.com/support or call 310-255-2050 in the U.S. where they will assist you with this program. Thanks again for your support of Guitar Hero World Tour!
If you were thinking of picking up Guitar Hero World Tour’s full bundle with the drums you may want to hold off until the Tuning Kit is released. That way if your drum kit does have the sensativity issues you can at least correct it right away. Plus, who knows how long it will be until they Tuning Kit actually releases. I doubt their idea of “very soon” is the same as most consumers’. Also, keep in mind the Tuning Kit will be PC only so if you’re on a Mac or Lunix you’ll not be able to use the Tuning Kit on you computer even after it is released.




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November 11th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Thanks your review and warning really helped me in waiting to buy my bundle
December 25th, 2008 at 9:30 am
the drums i just got for christmas doesnt even work! I just got them today, and the drums cant be read or something… we cant figure it out, and we have been trying to work it for over an hour now!
December 25th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Same for us as well! After a lot of excitement, frustration, disappointed kids and, ultimately, a ton o’ tension amongst ourselves, our drum set is J.U.N.K. as well!!! WHAT A RIP OFF!!!!! We have two hours of futile problem solving invested and now another hour trying to figure out how to cram this hunk of junk back into the box. Merry Christmas, huh? Grossly disappointed in this product manufacturer ~~ I’ll make sure to research my next purchases more thoroughly….and avoid them.
December 25th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Same here! The darn things are not seen by the console at all.
December 25th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Same here! We thought it was the batteries but after 4 pairs of batteries still nothing!!
PLus we bought the kit for the PS 2 and the drums and the hook up for the drums to the PS 2 say Wireless for PS3??
Our microphone doesnt work either..anyone having that problem??
Thanks!
December 25th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
same here…….we’ve working on this for hours now and NO LUCK.
any ideas out there.
December 25th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Same here, except it’s our guitar that doesn’t work. The drums work fine, the guitar’s green button won’t work, so we can’t play it.
December 26th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Got Guitar Hero World Tour Bundle for the Wii and we can’t figure out how to hook up the drums. They won’t register!
December 26th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
i wish i found this site before buying this system the symbol gave out in a matter of three hours of opening the box and this is junk
December 27th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
We finally got it working after hours of crap. But the orange cymbal was working only part of the time and you had to hit it hard. I took the first one back to Best Buy today and exchanged it for another one. The packing was different so I think this one must have been a newer model. Anyway, everything worked right out of the box as it was supposed to do. It works on all 4 PS2 consoles. The first only worked on one of 4 consoles.
December 27th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Well we took ours back to Best Buy today and exchanged for a new one and works great! We love it! Not sure if it was a defect or what!~ Same here on the orange one..doesnt work all the time only when it wants…
December 31st, 2008 at 9:57 am
Same here. We’re on the second one and it does not work. The drums and the receiver show ps3.
December 31st, 2008 at 11:05 am
Returned our original set on the 26th and received a new one for the wii. Hooked it up no problem and now it’s working great! Sales lady told us 6 were returned within 5 hours of the store being open on the 26th. The second system had totally different packaging than the first.
January 5th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
you should buy a new gutair hero and put your old one in it and take it back and say its faulty. then you have the new one for no charge and no hastle thats what we did.
January 25th, 2009 at 11:31 am
yeah my yellow cymbal wont register like it will sometimes but rarely it works on and off.. and now my mic doesnt work can someone help with me that.. i have it plugged in with a controller and when i SCREAM into it, it doesnt do anything
February 11th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
our drums have been fine since Xmas until yesterday when the wire to the yellow cymbal detached itself from the jack. I now have the hassle of boxing it up and taking it back to Game.
February 21st, 2009 at 5:25 pm
my guitar is not working you can play for hours ad it will be fine but then randomly the slide bar .aka. the wah bar just starts pressing its self and sum times the strum bar presses itself on the menu screens.
has any one else got this problem or had it and fixed it coz im getting over it really fast!!!
March 1st, 2009 at 1:47 pm
i agree with all the drums are junk………..cant get the drums to program into the console either……….way to go activision
April 7th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Our PS3 keeps recognising the drums as a bass. We can’t get it to recognise it as a drum kit. Does anyone have an answer to this?
April 14th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Ours was working great for a couple months now and then one day the right symbol stopped working.. i was wondering if anyone else had this problem ? is there a fix for it or do i have to return is as i have no idea where my reciept is .. thanks
April 18th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I got it for my B Day but after about a month or more the red drum became over sensitive then not sensitive enough now it doesn’t work and we have lost the receipt.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
The drums are USELESS.
We pay alot of money for this and it breaks after a few tries? My hi-hat(yellow cymbal) was crapping out from the start and then after a week, my red one just stopped working!
Let’s ambush them and get out money back!
May 29th, 2009 at 3:41 am
when peoples drums wont conncet have you people held the connect button on the back of the drums after turning it on if you do that while holding the one on front of the xbox they connect this has to be done for any type of controller on the xbox 360.
June 9th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
well i think its awesome cos im a guitarist and a guitar hero guitarist and a huge fan!
admitedly the drums have had some issues but this is ridiculous!!
clearly some of you are setting up the kit incorrectly lol
July 29th, 2009 at 10:47 am
our drum are not working after one week what to do no one cares that just what happens to you when you buy junk
August 5th, 2009 at 11:37 am
mine is actually doing alright except that the bass hits when you push down and when you lift off the pad anyone got that?
September 30th, 2009 at 7:19 am
I got used drums off ebay and red pad was not working but ive just ordered a drum repair kit (and a guitar repair kit!) Ill let you know if its any good when it gets here!
http://www.guitarherorepair.com/repairs
October 19th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
My first drun kit had a problem after a couple months, now after a few more months the replacement is doing the same thing (red pad won’t register hits), of course now that it’s out of warranty Activision says I’m out of luck. They are not willing to take responsibility for their crappy design and construction. Anyone else have an out of warranty drum kit failure?
October 25th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Mine used to work fine then i stopped playing my drums for a few months and the green button doesn’t work :S:S
October 25th, 2009 at 9:24 am
oh, and its my second set of drums as the same thing happened with the last one!