I'm not a fangirl. I'm the OPPOSITE of a fangirl. I'll turn on a dime if I think what you're shoveling me to review is dreck. I can't really help it, it's just how I'm made. Your last keyboard was fucking brilliant, but this one? Shit. Absolute shit. Honestly, it's just how I do things. No loyalties to companies unless you give me some brilliance time after time.

With that said, Alex from Mad Catz had been on my mind for months. Since I left my writing job with Kombo and ever since I've been keeping my darling at GEN at bay - I've been needing to get these reviews out. Alex was kind enough to send me all those things you saw below because he knew that I'd bring the honesty out. Good or bad, he was just that proud of their product. I was a bit hesitant, chuckling at how much fever he put into his pitch.

But he wasn't wrong!

The Portable Drum Kit essentially picks up all the most portable aspects of the Harmonix Rock Band Drum Kit and kinda reinvents them to make them easy to shove into a bag and head out for a jam session. If you're going to ask "Who Needs This?" then you might as well just turn around and walk away. You're not the key demographic. The key demo of people are the ones that have friends and those friends, they rock it out. Hard. A lot. Sometimes the best drummer can't pile everything in a damn car and that's what this is for.

For something so uncannily odd to look at, it works stunningly well. The drum heads are responsive with a nice thick padding that resonates without much overtone to the included drumsticks. That's another thing, the drumsticks are also portable (Which I didn't believe you could make sticks more portable than.. well.. sticks.) but they made them come apart in two pieces with a nice weight to them and gripping pads for your thumbs. They beat the hell out of the wooden ones that come standard with Rock Band too. Even with the rubber at the tip of the drumstick, the sound is lessened by at least 30 percent.. and that makes a huge difference when your drum pads are sitting on a table instead of the normal stand.

The only issue I ran into was with the responsiveness and weight problem I found with the bass pedal. It slid around way too much and drove me bonkers trying to get at a good angle. The one thing we put to thought when we were playing was possibly some of the sticky velcro feet on the bottom to clutch onto carpet. If you have wood flooring, maybe some rubber feet that clutched on better. The standard bass pedal that comes with Rock Band seems to also have a bit of a more intensive spring. When you have double bass taps, you barely have to lift your foot up before you can hammer it down again.. while the Mad Catz pedal needs to be lifted fully before coming back down again. This hinders Expert level, as I witnessed.

At the end of the day, this set was perfect for what we needed. We wanted to be able to throw something into a bag and head over to a friend's house to play. This was also perfect for those people who don't have so much space in their rooms, offices, etc.. for something as overbearing as the standard drum kit. Did I mention the controller port that connects it to the 360 looks like an 8-bit NES controller? We dug it. Hard.

So, yeah. For you major Rock Band enthusiasts with friends in the game that you play with often - you want this. Your drummer will worship you for days on end and maybe through a groupie your way once in awhile.



Check out Mad Catz's Lineup of Rock Band Periphs and check out my upcoming reviews of their Microphone Controller, Fender Replica Bass and awesome line of Coffin Cases for all your Rock Band needs!

http://rockband.madcatz.com ( Sorry, Dtoid toooottaally hates my robot code for links. )