File this one under “about damn time.” It’s been a long time coming, but at last, gamers who own Rock Band on the PS3 will be able to use their Guitar Hero III Les Paul controllers with the game. I’ve been waiting for this moment since before Rock Band came out, and as someone who prefers the Les Paul controller to the Stratocaster controller of Rock Band, I’m ecstatic to hear this news. I’d long ago given up on the hope that I’d ever be able to use my Les Paul controller in Rock Band! This comes straight from a forum post by Sean Baptiste (hmxsean), Harmonix’s community manager.

This functionality will be added to the PS3 version in a patch this Thursday, September 11. The patch will also include the ability to export your Rock Band songs (aside from “Enter Sandman,” “Run to the Hills,” and “Paranoid” -- along with Tokio Hotel’s “Monsoon” if you’re a European gamer) to your PS3’s hard drive for use in Rock Band 2. Just like the patch for the 360 version, you’re going to need to update your game if you want to play any DLC released after September 11th.

Lastly, the patch will fix a problem with the most recent DLC, last week’s charity PAX pack. Apparently, there were “technical issues” with the MC Frontalot track, “Livin’ on the Corner of Dude and Catastrophe,” so users who downloaded that track or the entire pack found that they were unable to actually play the songs they had bought. As of yesterday, Harmonix had resubmitted the tracks to Sony; you’ll soon be able to re-download the tracks for free, although Thursday’s patch will fix the issue automatically without you having to download anything again.

PS3 owners, are you ready to RAWK?! Once I install that patch on Thursday, I know what I’m going to do -- I’m going to go back and try beating the three songs that have eluded completion on Expert guitar: “Highway Star,” “Flirtin’ With Disaster,” and, of course, “Green Grass and High Tides.”

[Via Rock Band forums -- power-glove is a ninja with music game news]